Note 406 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

See the chapter on "Magic" in Jevons, "Comparative Religion". In his article "Magic (Egyptian)," in Hastings' Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (p. 266), Dr. Alan Gardiner makes the following statement: "The mystical potency attaching to certain numbers doubtless originated in associations of thought that to us are obscure. The number seven, in Egyptian magic, was regarded as particularly efficacious. Thus we find references to the seven Hathors: cf. αἰ ἑπτὰ Τύχαι τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (A. Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, Leipzig, 1910, p. 71): 'the seven daughters of Re,' who 'stand and weep and make seven knots in their seven tunics'; and similarly 'the seven hawks who are in front of the barque of Re'."

Are the seven daughters of Re the seven days of the week, or the representatives of Hathor corresponding to the seven days?