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 name King Sekhemib, "Per-en-ma'at" (meaning "he who achieves Ma'at"), is the clearest early expression of this. As already mentioned, most Egyptian kings favored Horus as their dynastic name patron. In a few cases, especially during the midst of the 2nd Dynasty, at least two serekh names seem to contradict the Horus tradition. The most prominent example is king Seth-Peribsen. He first replaced the falcon figure of his serekh by the walking animal of the god Seth. Then, his name was written in a plural form, thus being addressed to Seth as well as to Horus. The serekh names of his followers