A Pre-BOOMist Benacian Creation Myth

[Shyriath]

The following is a translation of the most prevalent version of the Benacian creation myth. Although BOOMism is, and for some time has been, the majority religion of the island, the tale (which dates back to pre-Khaz Modanian days) continues to be recited as a matter of tradition. It differs greatly from the BOOMist doctrine of the Big Bang; it is unclear whether the locals prefer to believe the myth over the Big Bang doctrine, or if its recital is purely ceremonial.In the beginning, there was Uvun which is the Void. The Void was empty of substance but full of possibility, as a dream that has not yet been fulfilled.From the Void there came forth the Gods of their own will, and they looked upon the Void and saw that it was empty save for them, and were amazed and saddened. But finding that they, first of the first, were given great power to shape what came after, and to draw new reality from the seething couldron of the Void, they conceived a great plan to fill the emptiness with new things.Therefore the Gods gathered in council and decided among themselves which aspects of the new creation each of them would govern. And so there were gods of fire, and of water, and of air, and of weather; and there were gods to rule the stars, and the moon. And there were gods for all tasks in the Creation.And then did the greatest God of Fire, and the chief of all Gods, stride into the midst of the Void; and holding a great hammer of light he reached down with a mighty hand into the depths, and raised up a great pillar from the blackness, and with his hammer he pounded and shaped it. And he said unto the host of the Gods, "Behold, from the stuff of dreams I have forged Being. This shall be the World, home of all we make; and I name it Ara, which is the Pillar of the World, for it shall carry the weight of our work."And the Gods marveled at the pedestal, and made their plans for its shaping. In the first times Ara gleamed still bright and hot from the violence of its making. But the gods of water poured down their rushing liquids to cool it and make it solid; and the gods of weather directed the water, go that the rain would not come down all at once and wash away the pillar; and the gods of air blew their winds so that the cloud-chariots of the weather gods could move about; and the gods of the rock built walls and dug valleys upon the summit of the pillar, to direct water to where it was needed most. This is why the world has the shape it does today; and the work continues, for the pillar of Ara still cools from the heat of its birth, and even today flame and vapors will bellow from deep within its core.But when the greatest fraction of the work was complete, the Gods looked down upon Ara to see its shape. Now Ara is shaped as a column, protruding from the chill dark of the Void; it has a flattened top upon which the lands and oceans rest, many thousands of miles wide, but the pillar is far, far taller than it is wide.Now upon the top of the pillar, in the very center, there is a great mountain; and this is what remains of the peak of Ara, before it was made flat by the King of the Gods. It stood in the midst of a great land surrounded by the waters of the sea; and elsewhere in the sea, further from the center but closer to the great cliff-edges of the world, there were other lands, great and small, with other mountains. But the Uttermost Peak was the tallest and the lands about it were the widest.And seeing this new landscape, the King of the Gods said unto the host, "Now Ara is a place fit for habitation; but it is still and quiet. We must make us living things to have dwell there."And so each of the gatherings of the Gods conceived of creatures to live upon the face of Ara, and told of them to the King of the Gods so he might draw them up from the Void. The gods of water made the things that swim and crawl beneath the waves; these were the fish, and the sea-birds, and the strange shelled creatures of the sea-bottom, and the plants that float. The gods of air made the birds and insects that fly, and bats. The gods of the earth and rock made the burrowing things that dig tunnels, and the plants that grow in soil. The gods of weather made the things that walk and move atop the ground, the furry beasts and the scaly and the slimy; for like the weather, their bodies and temperaments rarely remain still.And the Gods asked their King, "But what shall be born of Fire?" And he said to them, "I shall make the hosts of humanity to people the earth. They shall share in the gifts of each of your realms; for they shall swim in the sea, and dig up the earth, and leap toward the airs, and move and travel as does the weather. But fire shall burn in their hearts, and fire they shall make for their warmth. And they shall have governance over Ara, just as I do over the Gods; and to this end they shall speak and think, as other creastures do not."And so upon the slopes of the Uttermost Peak he set the first peoples. And they spread out onto the lands about, and thence over the sea to the other lands, and they were given dominion over the face of Ara.And the King of the Gods spoke to the gods of the stars and the moon, and they set their lights in the heavens to light the way for the first peoples. But they were not bright enough, and the plantings of men began to fail, and their wanderings too often strayed into dark shadows and thus were lost.And the King of the Gods, sitting in thought, asked the Gods to aid him in bringing a greater light to Ara. And so the gods of water brought him the lights of fishes in the deepest parts of the sea; and the gods of earth and rock brought him the glint of jewels and gold; and the gods of weather brought him the flash of lightning, and the gods of air brought him the clarity of the skies, and the gods of the moon and the stars brought him precious pieces of their work (and thus is the moon not pure white, but partially grey, for from those places the moon-stuff was taken).And the King of the Gods took up his bright hammer, already suffused with heat and light from the mighty work of the forging of Ara, and bound it up in the gifts of the other Gods, so that it shone with a mighty brilliance, and brought light to all but the deepest places. And naming it the Sun, he threw the hammer aloft, sending it into the air; and such was the path it took that it continued to circle Ara forever; and the moon was set into a similar path as its guardian, but its damage made it slow, able to approach the Sun only occasionally.Thus was the face of Ara made fit for habitation, and the first peoples spread and multiplied in peace.

[Kaiser Alejian I]

*applaudes*As allways, great work!