Horus begins life as the ultimate underdog: his father Osiris is murdered and dismembered by his uncle Set, his mother Isis reassembles the body with one crucial piece eaten by a Nile catfish, and he is born in secret in the chaotic marshes of the Nile Delta. This episode builds a biography of the Egyptian sky god from those origins through an 80-year war with Set, exploring how the ancient Egyptians read these stories not as parables but as the literal mechanics of their world, from the phases of the moon to the legitimacy of the pharaoh.

The discussion covers the gouged eye that explains why the moon is dimmer than the sun, the bizarre Lettuce Incident from the Contendings of Horus and Seth, and the boat race Horus wins with a wooden boat painted to look like stone. It then follows Horus into his reign as the divine template for every liv ...