A Freshman at the University of Southern California, the informant is majoring in archeology. The informant is very interested in Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology. He tells the Egyptian myth of the birth of the Essential Gods from the Demon Days.

Kevin: “Pretty much the Egyptian’s, they followed like a monotheism. They believed in one, like all powerful God that was more powerful than all the other set of Gods that existed, but there were other Gods that existed that controlled different domains of thought or influence or like spheres like on the earth and things like that. So, there was the God of the Sky, which was called Nut. And there was the God of the Earth which was Geb, and they were separated from Ra, and Ra was known as the God of light, like the God of Sun. He was known as the monotheistic God that everybody was influenced by. Nut wanted to have five children but since she had been separated from Geb there was no way she could have children so she like, she started bargaining with the moon to give her extra daylight so that she could create five new days in the year, where she would be able to give birth to her children since she wasn’t allowed to during the calendar year. And the game was, it was an ancient Egyptian game and the description entailed that you were gambling with the Moon for your soul so you’re gambling extra daylight from the Moon, but if you lost the game, you would essentially be giving up your soul, like your essence to the Moon, and them Moon would like eat it up, like eat up your essence. So, it was a really risky endeavor but she had been winning the game for so long that she got enough for five extra days, and during each day she gave birth to a different God. So, she gave birth to Set or Seth…he was associated with the God of chaos or the God of Desert. He was a very chaotic being. Isis- he was known as the savior of  humanity, and he rocked with the people and he had been leading the people on for generations. She also gave birth to Osiris. He was a God and he was killed by Set and became the God of resurrection…There was also Nephthys, which was the river goddess, so the last goddess…So these were called the Demon days. The year was 360 days but then because of this gambling, they added on the extra five days to the end of the year. So, that’s how the calendar year came into being, but it also brings out an association of chaos on the last five days because they were known as the Demon days, where, like each of these Gods were born, so they also have like more power on each of those days at the end of the year so they’re very like skewed, and then the end of the year was around the time of the solstice and everything like that, so like, it was known as a turning point with the birth of these Gods.”

I think this version of the myth might be missing pieces of information. It’s a little hard to follow, but what I did gather from the story was that five Gods were born representing the five extra days at the end of 360 days. It was interesting hearing about the different gods and what they were the gods of. We know that the year is 365 days long because that’s how long it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun, but the ancient Egyptians associated this science with their polytheistic gods and goddesses to explain why the world is the way it is. Polytheism gives birth to an extensive number of different folklores and tales.