Egyptian gods

“We should write about Egyptian gods,” I distracted Mummific, who was looking at what I was doing with his mouth open in surprise. I wasn't overly keen on watching his teeth which could have used a lengthy visit to a dentist, while he was alive.

I never expected such a reaction when I took a glass out of the cupboard and ran some tap water into it. Mummific, who happened to be in the kitchen with me, almost fell to his hinies out of sheer surprise.

“You can command water?” he whispered. “But you live so high up in a house, how can you make the water come up and out of that pipe? Great magic!”

The feats of engineering were too broad a sucbect to handle, so I just commented it was a secret of engineers and you would have to study a long time to learn about it.

“Engineers, yes…” Mummific nodded so that his crown tilted precariously to one side. “They are good with water… They developed the water clock, you know. Or well – a priest did, but he was what you call an engineer in his everyday life, and developed it to count the moments of the night so the Egyptian gods could be worshipped at the right times. You couldn’t always check the stars.”

I drank the water and he looked at me with great interest. That should have warned me, but no. I set the glass on the table, and went to open my computer so we could write about the gods.

Mr Mummific and the water tap

Only after a short while I realized the tap was running again. And then Ta-Miu appeared and wrapped around my ankles, trying to get my attention. It didn’t have much of a voice left after being mummified, but managed a raspy howl that alarmed me something was amiss.

Have you ever dried an ancient mummy with a hair dryer? I suppose not. At least I never had. Mummific had taken the glass, opened the tap to full force, and managed to fill the glass and the whole kitchen with water in the process. Then he got the idea of tasting what our water was like. I don’t know what they drink or eat in the afterlife, but our water certainly made him wet inside and out. When I reached the kitchen, water was trickling from between his bandages (that is from the inside out) and he was dripping water on the carpet. I swear he had shrunk out of sheer embarrassment.

Ever dried a mummy with a hair dryer?

“Now look what you’ve done! You’ll rot because of the water!”

He looked at me with such round, scared eyes that I did not have the heart to scold him more. Instead I got a bath towel, wrapped him in it and carried him to the bathroom. And there he sat, while I blew him dry with my hair dryer. I won’t even begin to describe the mess… Parts of his wrapping were dry, so tiny bits of fabric flew in the air. And as he was quite keen on decorating his bandages with my markers, the towel I had wrapped him in was a sorry sight with all the ink that dripped on it. I threw it in the washing machine and concentrated on drying Mummific. I'm not saying I wasn't peeved at him. I admit for a fleeting moment I played with the thought of putting him in the oven to dry, but that might have been the end of his afterlife existence. (Before you think I am a horrible person, I say to my defence that at least I did not consider the microwave oven.)

He looked at his messy bandages when I think I finally had him all dry, and I swear his dry lower lip was trembling.

“Yes, this means your Mrs. will re-wrap you for sure,” I announced.

"Gods help me..." he sighed.

"Talking of which. Could you tell me about your gods as well?"

"But of course, would you like us to write about all of them now? That might take a few weeks, but I don't mind!" Mummific looked at me eagerly.

He was clearly clutching straws here. There must be.. over a hundred gods in Egypt. Someone was trying to avoid re-wrapping... Which he could not avoid, eventually. But once he had stopped carrying a grudge on me for not sitting and writing down all his rather amazing stories of the Egyptian gods at one sitting, we did go through the gods eventually. You may read the Mummific and fact versions of the gods below.

Don't believe all he says in his stories - I have a strong suspicion he is quite a story teller, and good stories are always exaggerated. So if you are after facts, do choose the fact-version... I take no resposibility of the Mummific version.