English
Spain
GREAT CACKLER Name for the sacred goose who appears in the creation myth of the Ogdoad. One version of the myth tells us that the Great Cackler laid the primeval egg from which the Earth was hatched. In that myth, the Great Cackler is associated with Atum, the creator god who is sometimes depicted as a goose. The Great Cackler is mentioned in the Coffin Texts (Spell 307):
It is said that the sound of the Great Cackler broke the silence that existed before the world was created:
I am the soul who created the watery abyss and made a place in god's land: My nest will not be seen nor my egg broken, for I am the lord of those on high, and I have made a nest in the sky.
He cackled, being the Great Cackler, in the place where he was created, he alone. He began to speak amid silence. He commenced crying when the earth was inert. His cry spread. He brought forth all living things which exist. He caused them to live. He made all men understand the way to go and their hearts came alive when they saw him.
The Book of the Dead associates the Great Cackler with the goddess Nut:
Hail thou sycamore of the goddess Nut! Grant me the water which dwells in thee. I embrace the throne which is in Annu (Hermopolis) and I watch and guard the egg of the great cackler. It groweth, I grow. It liveth, I live It breathes the air, I breathe the air
Mythology tells us that around the great sycamore tree of Heliopolis grew a variety of plants, and this is where the Great Cackler laid the egg of the sun, and thus the Great Cackler became associated with the sun god Re.
