The Demon Days…

It had been a long time since I opened the book “The Red Pyramid” by Rick Riordan. Most of us know him as the author of “Percy Jackson”, and if you follow his work, know that he has woven an intricate number of series around ancient civilizations and the modern world.

The Red Pyramid is book 1 of the trilogy known as The Kane Chronicles. The series follows the journey of siblings Carter and Sadie Kane as they find out that the Egyptian Gods are real and alive and that the brother-sister duo come from a line of powerful pharaohs.

The Red Pyramid begins with a visit to the British Museum on Christmas Eve where the father of the Kane siblings blows up the Rosetta Stone and releases 5 gods- Osiris, Set, Horus, Isis and Nephthys.

Set, the god of storms, chaos and deserts is set up to play the antagonist of this book and the Kane siblings are now suddenly tasked with the job of defeating him before his birthday- the 29th of December.

At this point, I put my book down and chuckled. You don’t really see gods celebrate their birthdays, or even have a birthday like us mortals do.

But in Egyptian mythology, some gods did have birthdays. The 5 gods mentioned above had birthdays that the ancient Egyptians regarded as ominous as they were not part of their calendar year. The book referred to the birth of the 5 gods as the “Demon Days”.

I was curious to know more about the birth of the 5 gods and the myths, so I continued reading the book (it had me hooked!) and later on, started researching them.

The Gods Geb and Nut, the parents of Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys

The Egyptians had 2 main calendars- the solar/ civil calendar, and the lunar calendar. The lunar calendar was used before the solar calendar. Each month began with the new moon. The new year began after 12 months with the rise of the Sirius star.

The solar calendar, on the other hand, was developed during the Old Kingdom. The calendar was created based on astronomy and the flooding of the river Nile. The year was divided into 3 seasons-

1. Akhet- Season of Flooding, 4 months
2. Peret- Season of Emergence (they began growing their crops), 4 months
3. Shemu- Season of Harvesting, 4 months

These all came up to 360 days. However, the 360 days did not align with the rising of the star Sirius (which signalled the beginning of Akhet, and of the new year). To rectify this issue, 5 extra days were added and these days were known as the epagomenal days.

Now that we have a basic understanding of the Egyptian calendar and know how the 365-day calendar was developed in Ancient Egypt, let's hear the myth of the demon days or epagomenal days (if we are being fancy).

(demon days, in my opinion, sounds much cooler )

According to the stories, Geb (earth god) and Nut (sky goddess) were in love and Nut had become pregnant. But Ra, the king of the gods (also the sun god) seems to have suddenly forbade this union for multiple reasons.

One version said that Ra was in love with Nut and was jealous, another claimed that Ra heard of a prophecy claiming that a child of theirs would eventually overthrow him and rule as king

In either case, Shu (the god of air) was ordered to separate the two forever and Ra decreed that Nut would not be allowed to give birth on any of the 360 days (so basically never).

Tormented by this, Nut goes to Thoth (god of wisdom and writing) for guidance. He suggests that Nut gamble for moonlight against Khonsu (moon god).

So she and Khonsu played a game of dice.

Luckily for her, Khonsu lost repeatedly until Nut had enough moonlight to create 5 extra days. These 5 days were added to the end of the Egyptian calendar. And on each day, Nut gave birth to one child:

27th December- Osiris

28th December- Horus the Elder

29th December- Set

30th December- Isis

31st December- Nephthys

That’s pretty much the story behind the dreaded Demon days and the birth of the 5 gods. These deities later set the stage for the next great story of the gods.

It is quite interesting to see how the ancient Egyptians came up with a creative myth just to explain the addition of the 5 days.

I applaud them for this cause I am a sucker for good stories over everything else.

(Oh and do give the Kane Chronicles a read, it’s a pretty good one!)