Hathor’s beer

Once upon a time, the god Ra started to grow old and humanity plotted to overthrow him. Upon discovering their treachery, he assembled the gods and decided to send against men a female embodyiment of his wrath: the goddess Hathor in the form of the Eye of Ra.

The goddess found the rebels hiding in the desert and slaughtered a great part of them, bathing in their blood.
Ra though that one day of slaughter was enough, but Hathor had enjoyed the slaughter a little too much, and she didn’t want to stop.

Ra summoned messengers who could travel as fast as shadows and sent them to fetch a large quantity of a certain red mineral. He then ordered his high priest in Heliopolis to grind the mineral, mix it with barley and make a crimson-coloured beer. The 7,000 jars of beer were poured in the fields, flooding them to the point that Hathor stopped to bathe in it and to look at her own beautiful reflection.

“She drank and it delighted her heart. She came back drunk without having noticed humanity. Ra welcomed her back and from that day on beer was drunk during the festivals of Hathor.”

And this is one of the many ways in which beer saved humanity.