The Prince Who Knew His Fate

by Lise Manniche

A young Egyptian prince tries to live a normal life despite the fact that he knows he is destined to be killed by a crocodile, snake, or dog

Genres: Picture Books, Mythology, Fiction

40 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1981

About the author

Lise Manniche is Professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen

Reviews

[Sean Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure how to rate this. It seems unfair to judge a story from 3000 years ago that was written in pictures (though aren't all letters pictures, really?)

The premise of the story is that a bunch of goddesses told a king that his son would be killed by a crocodile, a snake or dog so he is locked up until he is an adult and asks to leave (he gets some serious defence for his journey though).

There are a couple of facepalm moments. When he asks for a dog his father goes "yeah, give him a puppy" and at the end, after the most spectacular deus ex machina I have ever seen, it says, I kid you not, "With the help of the author, the story has reached a happy ending. Those who speak evil of it will have to contend with Thoth, the god of scribes". Well that's one way to get good ratings.

But serious kudos to the person who painstakingly translated it. I like the dual-linguistic aspect of the book. There are even a few pages at the back describing the context of the times that the story was written.

[Allie]

An interesting "bilingual" fairy tale told in the original hieroglyphics and a literal English translation by Egyptologist Dr. Lise Manniche. The endnote was super interesting and the concept is very cool, but the story itself (and that it's a literal translation) is super boring.