Gengen-Wer and Weret-Hekau – Creative Energy and Magic

A very ancient creation myth tells of the primordial creator deity, Gengen-Wer, who took the form of a Nile goose to lay a golden cosmic egg from which hatched the sun, divinely personified as the sun god Re. The god’s name originates from “honker” (gengen) and “great” (wer), so he is Gengen-Wer or also called “Cackler.”

The Great Honker is mentioned in Chapter 59 of the Book of the Dead, in the context of a spell for breathing air and gaining access to water:

“I have guarded the egg of the Great Honker. It is sound, so I am sound. It lives, so I live. It breathes air, so I breathe air.”

Gengen-Wer symbolizes a force of creative energy. His manifestation of the power of creation was expressed by carrying the egg from which all life emerged and, in order to be part of this creation, a person in the Underworld might be described as closely guarding or actually being the egg within the Great Honker.

The Ancient Egyptians spoke of flying towards heaven as celestial geese and geese are often found in tomb paintings and inscriptions

Weret-Hekau, “great one of magic, great enchantress,” was an important ancient Egyptian deity. She served as the personification of magical supernatural powers. The words Weret-Hekau were also one of the Goddess Aset’s most powerful epithets, “Great One of Magic” and “Great Enchantress.”

“O, Isis, Great of Magic, deliver me from all bad, evil, and typhonic things…”~ Ebers Papyrus 1500 BCE

Weret-Hekau (Mighty of Magics) was designated upon items of power, and especially the royal crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. The Goddess Weret-Hekau may have in some sense embodied the magical power of these crowns. The magic of the crowns is enhanced by the protective uraeus serpents often shown upon them. However, they are not just snakes, they are Goddesses; most often the Uraeus Goddesses are Wadjet and Nekhbet or Aset and Nephthys, representing Lower and Upper Egypt. However Weret-hekau is also a Uraeus Goddess and the priests of Weret-Hekau were chamberlains to the crowns of the king.

Weret-Hekau is often depicted as a woman with a with lioness head wearing a small uraeus cobra. She may also have the body of a woman and head of a cobra. Among the items in Tutankhamun’s tomb is a figure of Weret-Hekau with a human head and cobra body nursing the child Tut.

One of the epithets of the Goddess Weret-Hekau was “lady of the palace.”