Shai

Shai is a life's allotment, walking beside the person who has it. He is present at the birth, he sets how long the thing will run, and he is still there at the weighing of the heart, which makes Egyptian fate a companion rather than a sentence. He is drawn as a cobra, or a snake-headed man, or — most tellingly — as a birth brick with a human face, which is the same object Meskhenet is. Shai, Renenutet and Meskhenet are really one moment described three ways: the brick you are born on, the milk and name you are given, and the number of years you get.

Domains

• fate

Relations

• spouse: RenenutetPaired with Renenutet in the commoner arrangement; other sources give him Meskhenet instead, which the record states rather than resolves. The three of them are one office split three ways.Reference treatment of Shai, Renenutet and Meskhenet, in which Shai is described as the husband of Renenutet, or in other sources of Meskhenet. (secondary)
• subordinate to: OsirisHe attends the judgement: the fate that was allotted at birth turns up as a witness at the end of it.Reference treatment of Shai, who accompanies the person to the judgement before Osiris. (secondary)

Sources

• Shai is the Egyptian personification of fate, born with each person, setting the length of their life and attending their judgement, shown as a cobra, a snake-headed man or a human-headed birth brick.: Reference treatments of Shai and of the Egyptian birth-and-fate triad. (secondary)