Horus as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as "The Contendings of Horus and Seth". In this tale, it was said that Set, the patron of Upper Egypt, and Horus, the patron of Lower Egypt, had battled for Egypt brutally, with neither side victorious, until eventually the gods sided with Horus. As Horus was the ultimate victor he became known as "ḥr.w wr" "Horus the Great", but more usually translated "Horus the Elder". In the struggle, Set had lost a testicle, and Horus's eye was gouged out. Horus represented the eclipsing binary Algol in the Calendar of
Horus regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife. Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of kingship and the sky. Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as "ḥr.w" "Falcon"; the pronunciation has been reconstructed as . Additional meanings are thought to have been "the distant one" or "one who is above, over". As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic varieties variously as or and was adopted into ancient Greek as "Hōros" (pronounced at the time as ). It also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric name forms such as Siese "son of Isis"