Egyptian mythology · 3 chapters

Thoth and the Five Stolen Days

The sky goddess is cursed to give birth on no day of the year, until Thoth gambles with the Moon

Ra curses Nut, the sky goddess, so that she cannot give birth on any day of the year. But she is already pregnant with the children who will become the great gods. Thoth, ever resourceful, challenges the Moon to a senet game and gambles for moonlight itself. He wins enough light to create five extra days that fall outside the year's calendar. On these five epagomenal days, Nut gives birth: Osiris on the first, Horus the Elder on the second, Set on the third, Isis on the fourth, and Nephthys on the fifth. The story explains both the five extra days of the Egyptian calendar and the origin of the entire divine family that anchors Egyptian mythology.