10 Egyptian Myths

Living in Egypt can be a rollercoaster ride. It's fun at times, heartbreaking during others and absolutely breakdown-inducing 97% of the time. However, one of the best things about living in om el donya is the cultural richness and diversity. Wherever you go, you'll hear some ancient proverb or some old wives' tale. We're not even going to mention the lectures and sermons our grandmothers give us every time we go for a visit. You get exposed to a lot of predisposed myths and fairytales, passed down from generation to generation, meant to provide caution and sometimes fear. We have so many of them, it's super hard to keep count. However, we've compiled a list of ten of the most popular Egyptian myths to grace our country.

1- If you sing in the bathroom, you will be possessed by the devil.

2- If you don't finish your food, it will run after you on Judgement Day.

3- Don't leave scissors open because doom WILL rain down on your household.

4- If you die while listening to music, you automatically get a one-way ticket to hell. Dance with the devil anyone?

5- Never enter a household with your left foot.

6-If you leave your house with wet hair, you'll get a terminal disease that, by the looks of this photo, J.Lo already has.

7- If you drink from the Nile, one way or another, you'll always end up coming back to Egypt.

8- El Nadaha. Egypt's version of Sirens, who instead calls on lonely travelers by the sea to drown them. If El Nadaha (who may or may not look like Egyptian actress, Zeina) calls you, it means you're going to die.

9- If you play with fire before sleeping, you'll wet your bed. That's even more bad news for Sawsan and Soad.

10- You have to do this intricate and extremely complicated gasp while cooking molokheya, else it will taste awful (shah2et el molokheya).

That's only scratching the tip of the iceberg. There's much more where those came from; just go ask your grandmother and we're pretty sure she'll have an arsenal of stories and myths up her sleeve!