The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor

One of Egypt's earliest adventure stories, the Shipwrecked Sailor is a rare example of Egyptian narrative fiction set outside the divine sphere. A sailor returning from a failed expedition is consoled by a subordinate, to whom he recounts how his ship sank in the Red Sea. He washed ashore on a magical island and encountered a great serpent — a god — covered in gold and lapis lazuli, with a beard of five cubits. The serpent reveals that his own family of seventy-five serpents was killed when a star fell and burned the island. He prophesies that a ship will come, loads the sailor with gifts — incense, oil, ivory, exotic animals — and as the ship departs the island sinks beneath the sea. The sailor returns to Egypt bearing treasure. The outer frame ends mordantly: "What's the point of your story? A man gives water to a bird at dawn before it is slaughtered in the morning."