The Egyptians took a delight in listening to stories.  They preferred tales which dealt with the marvellous and excited their imagination, introducing speaking animals, gods in disguise, ghosts and magic.  One of them tells of a king who was distressed because he had no heir, and had no sooner obtained the favour he desired from the gods, than the Seven Hathors, the mistresses of Fate, destroyed his happiness by predicting that the child would meet with his death by a serpent, a dog, or a crocodile.  Efforts were made to provide against such a fatality by shutting him up in a tower; but no sooner had he grown to man’s estate, than he procured himself a dog, went off to wander through the world, and married the daughter of the Prince of Naharaim.  His fate meets him first under the form of a serpent, which is killed by his wife; he is next assailed by a crocodile, and the dog kills the crocodile, but as the oracles must be fulfilled, the brute turns and despatches his master without further consideration.  Another story describes two brothers, Anupu and Bitiu, who live happily together on their farm till the wife of the elder falls in love with the younger, and on his repulsing her advances, she accuses him to her husband of having offered her violence.  The virtue of the younger brother would not have availed him much, had not his animals warned him of danger, and had not Phra-Harmakhis surrounded him at the critical moment with a stream teeming with crocodiles.  He mutilates himself to prove his innocence, and announces that henceforth he will lead a mysterious existence far from mankind; he will retire to the Valley of the Acacia, place his heart on the topmost flower of the tree, and no one will be able with impunity to steal it from him.  The gods, however, who frequent this earth take pity on his loneliness, and create for him a wife of such beauty that the Nile falls in love with her, and steals a lock of her hair, which is carried by its waters down into Egypt.  Pharaoh finds the lock, and, intoxicated by its scent, commands his people to go in quest of the owner.  Having discovered the lady, Pharaoh marries her, and ascertaining from her who she is, he sends men to cut down the Acacia, but no sooner has the flower touched the earth, than Bitiu droops and dies.  The elder brother is made immediately acquainted with the fact by means of various prodigies.  The wine poured out to him becomes troubled, his beer leaves a deposit.  He seizes his shoes and staff and sets out to find the heart.

After a search of seven years he discovers it, and reviving it in a vase of water, he puts it into the mouth of the corpse, which at once returns to life.  Bitiu, from this moment, seeks only to be revenged.  He changes himself into the bull Apis, and, on being led to court, he reproaches the queen with the crime she has committed against him.  The queen causes his throat to be cut; two drops of his blood fall in front of the gate of the palace, and produce in the