Shai
Egyptian · deity · mythic · deity
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
Sources
- Reference treatments of Shai and of the Egyptian birth-and-fate triad.