Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

XVIII INTRODUCTION.
Beasts and a spccch to a pfiiice whom he intends to make
poCers'ofhis victim/ and in yet another story a certain
speech.
island contained a serpent nearly fifty feet long
which held converse with an unfortunate mariner
who was wrecked there ;^ for birds and beasts to
talk was to the Egyptian no uncommon event. The
string of papyrus and the seal proclaim at once
the origin of this part of the story, and the gold
ring with a bezel inscribed in hieroglyphics was
a common sight in Egypt. The arrangement of
the signs almost suggests that the inscription was
the prenomen or nomen of a king. In passing we
may note that the name "Two-horned", by which
Alexander was known in later days, is the literal
translation of the two Egyptian words sept dbui
"provided with two horns", which formed one of
the titles of Amen-Ra, whose son he was said
to be.
The travels The abovc consideratious will probably be
ander story' thought Sufficient to prove the Egyptian origin of
the Alexander story, and it is now necessary to
indicate briefly how the story travelled and grew.
Within a very short time after the appearance
of the historical biographies of Alexander in Egypt,
whether written in Egyptian or Greek, a number
of apocryphal stories about him and fabulous
' Goodwin, Translation of a Fabulous Tale {Trans. Soc.
Bibl. Arch., vol. iii. p. 356).
" Golenischeff, Ermitage Imperial. Inventairc de la Col-
lection Egyftienne, p. 178.