Page 56 - SYTYGIB: Ancient Egypt

He´s pretty weird . . . but I kinda like him.
A little help from the gods . . .
Not all of the gods had animal heads. One of the most popular, Bes, had the head of . . . errr, a beardy, cheeky, little guy with his tongue poking half way down his whiskery chinny-chin-chin.
(No, we are not totally making this stuff up.)
rattle to scare off snakes
Bes wasn’t the god of wild party dudes
who like sticking their tongues out at people – although that does sound like a pretty cool kind of god. In fact, the ancient Egyptians turned to him for protection when a baby was being born and he helped ward off bad spirits, so he was very important.
Lion’s tail
Check out my cool wand, bro.
bow legs
Another lucky charm was a wand made from hippopotamus tusk (not quite so lucky for the
hippo, of course). It was decorated with hieroglyphs and was said to protect a child from being bitten by poisonous beasties with big pointy teeth as they slept.
Next time you’re worried you’re about to be stung by a wasp, just waggle a hippo wand in its direction. That’ll teach it!
Sigh. I suppose this means I can’t eat you?
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