Bes
"Run out, thou who comest in darkness, who enterest in stealth, his nose behind him, his face turned backward, who loses that for which he came.
Run out, thou who comest in darkness, who enterest in stealth, her nose behind her, her face turned backward, who loses that for which she came.
Comest thou to kiss this child? I will not let thee kiss him.
Comest thou to soothe him? I will not let thee soothe him.
Comest thou to harm him? I will not let thee harm him.
Comest thou to take him away? I will not let thee take him away from me.
I have made his protection against thee out of Efet-herb, it makes pain; out of onions, which harm thee; out of honey which is sweet to living men and bitter to those who are yonder (i.e. the dead); out of the evil parts of the Ebdu-fish out of the jaw of the meret; out of the backbone of the perch. "
- – An Ancient Egyptian magical lullaby, commonly thought to be invoking Bes
Bes, along with his feminine alternative, Beset, are the Ancient Egyptian Dwarven God, seen as the protector of children, mothers, childbirth and the home. Typically he was depicted as a warrior who would drive off evil spirits, bad omens, demons, ghosts, dark magic, and snakes. He eventually also became associated with the pleasures of life: namely, sex, music, and dance.
Bes was often depicted along the more prominent Taweret, the Egyptian Goddess of childbirth and female fertility known for looking like a Giant Hippopotamus,
Differences from the rest of the pantheon
Unlike most Egyptian Art, Bes was shown in frontal view, and was almost always perpetually naked with a prominently erect penis. He has only one temple in the Bahariya Oasis protecting the local vineyard which is dated to be around the time of Alexander the Great, and was more generally worshiped in local homes.
The reasoning given for why he is so distinct from other Egyptian Gods is that rather than being a deity that originated within Egypt or the Levant, his worship was likely to have come from the south towards Nubia or Somalia, as not only did he not appear until the Middle Kingdom, but he did not gain prominence until the New Kingdom, and even then worship seemed to have distinctive differences from the other major Gods of Egypt.