Miscellaneous Myths: Thoth Gambles With The Moon

Egyptian mythology is rife with shenanigans, drama and bodily fluids, but today let's talk about a surprisingly SFW myth with a vital role in establishing the calendar year!

Alternate title: Red Complains That The Universe Doesn't Align With Her Personal Aesthetic Sensibilities For Five Minutes

PARTIAL TRACKLIST: Sky Becomes Water (City of the Fallen), A Hole In The Sun (Two Steps From Hell), Starfall (Two Steps From Hell)

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

[corabranch]

It is times like these that I remember Red did math in college. I don’t think she would be so frustrated by the chaos of calendars otherwise

[JacksonJinn]

Sometimes you're just having an off day.
But thanks to this Egyptian myth, five times a year, you're having a *Thoth* day.

[strawberrysangria]

Typhon saying "I have a girlfriend" supports my headcannon that he's so powerful because he's the one thing Zeus could never be; faithful to his wife.

[MeliesCinemagician]

I love how the little serpent on Ra's headdress is wearing reading glasses when Ra's looking over the new calendar.

[danielgonzalez-pfel]

The fact you draw Khonsu with the infant side braid shows how much you care for historical/cultural accuracy. And that you do your research.

[wargriffin]

Ra: "I FORBID you from having children any day of the year!"

Thoth: "Life, uh... finds a way."

[alcyone]

Red always loves to fill our brains with confusion trying to comprehend the knowledge she just threw at us at the the start of the videos, just so we can be prepared for the incoherence of mythology

[jackielinde]

Kind of funny how in Greek mythology, Chronos is upset that one of his sons is going to overthrow him, so he eats them and Zeus eats the mother of his alleged usurper to try to head off a similar prophecy. Ra's just upset that Nut and Geb are constantly bumping fuzzies, so Ra just makes it illegal for Nut to ever give birth on any given day. Why didn't Chronos or Zeus think of that? Oh, yeah. Someone found a loophole.

[jodracona]

Y’know, I just realized, Red went to school for Math, but now she does like nearly *all* of the humanities/arts.
Cultural studies, language (when she has to understand translations and research all the different pronunciations), reading comprehension, writing, speaking/performance, drawing, music (both playing an instrument and singing), and even occasionally full-on animation!
Like wow, that’s so many skills, holy!
Everyone say “thank you, Red!” For sharing all her work with us, and for showing us her journey of growth instead of deleting older videos. It’s incredibly inspiring and encouraging, and I’m personally very thankful for getting to see it!

[herothecrow]

OSP is the only place that I accept characterizations of gods that aren’t explicitly stated in the mythos

“You altered our cosmology for THIS?”
“You left a very exploitable loophole.”
“The YEAR?”

[gwanael]

The fact humans figured out leap years and it was a concept that was understood enough to become AN ACTUAL DECREE in 200 BCE is absolutely insane to me.

[ArchonKain]

The ancient Greeks spelled Thoth, the Egyptian deity, as Θώθ. Thoth was the god of knowledge, so it would be appropriate to ask, "Θώθ, what's this?"

[beretperson]

Red. Red it's okay. You can just start a series where you talk about space for the sake of talking about space instead of having to come up with an excuse.

I promise we'll like it.

[lazulenoc]

It's weird how gods can just prevent other gods from having babies but there's always a bizarre solution to this problem that makes even less sense than the ability of a god to prevent another's childbirth without being a god intrinsically linked to bearing children.

[Skycroft]

The sheer goddamn _mess_ of a lunisolar calender is also why Julius Caesar had to reform the calendar. Contrary to some popular accounts (especially on Tumbler) the Roman Calendar by then had 12 months (personally I'm skeptical it _ever_ had ten months, our direct evidence for this is pretty scant) and the year started in January (it did _use_ to start in March, which is why the names of the months are so strange e.g. _Sept_ -ember is the 9th month). But the way the Romans kept the calendar in line with the seasons was by inserting an extra month every once in a while. The problem was that the length of a consulship was a _calendar year_ which meant that the people deciding whether or not there was an extra month did so more on the basis of whether or not their allies were in power than on the basis of keeping the calendar in line with the solar year. By 46 BCE this was an absolute mess, so Caesar just removed the lunar element entirely.

This is, btw, not when Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed to July and August. That happened later, after Julius' death and during the reign of Augustus respectively. Various other Roman Emperors also tried to get months named after them (e.g. 'Neronius' instead of April) but it never stuck.

The real mystery of the Roman Calender to me though, is why they named half their months after gods and then just... gave up?? and named them "Month 5" "Month 6" etc. That's just lazy.

[MsPageMistress]

I always like that Thoth was like "Okay, yeah, I'm gonna help you two out". I hope he got to be the cool nerd uncle for this.

[scripsiabiete]

I'll never get tired of Red geeking out over space. I hope she does it more.

[austincoker]

3:34 was the best part for me, just the concept of greek Godzilla being a more loyal spouse than 90% of the greek pantheon

[chewiecheshire]

For anyone confused by Horus being the son of Geb and Nut in this myth when you probably know him as the son of Isis and Osiris, remember Egypt is a 2000 year old civilization (3000 if we include the Ptolemys). Gods were switched around all the time. Anubis was originally the son of Ra before he was added to the Osiris myth. Ra has a ton of different names (Amun, Amun-Ra, Kephri, etc.), and there are two Horuses. They're referred to as Horus the elder and Horus the younger, and they are sort of two separate deities but also the same person. Egyptian mythology is a mess. A beautiful, furry filled mess.

[woodrobin]

They should have created a myth that Khonshu had accused Thoth of cheating him, and to placate his anger, Thoth, Ra, and the other gods had agreed to create one day every four years that was to be dedicated to the veneration of Khonshu, on which no work was to be performed during the day, and the night was to be dedicated to gathering outside and celebrating with food and drink and praise to the Moon.

That sells it to the populace as a vacation/party day, and the priesthood as a religious holiday to increase veneration of the gods. Win/win.