Egyptian mythology · 3 chapters

The Shipwrecked Sailor

A lone survivor washes onto an island ruled by a divine serpent who has seen everything

A sailor, stranded on his way home from a failed expedition, recounts his story to a companion to prepare him for delivering bad news to the pharaoh. He had been shipwrecked on a mysterious island after a great storm. The island was ruled by a vast divine serpent, golden-scaled, with lapis lazuli eyebrows, who had lost his entire family in a meteorite strike. The serpent told the sailor: you will be rescued and return home, and all I ask is that you remember this island. The sailor is indeed rescued. He looks back, and the island is gone. The story is Egypt's oldest surviving adventure narrative, from around 1800 BCE, exploring grief, providence, and the impossibility of returning to paradise.