In the beginning, the waters covered all. From the heart of the world to its skin – all was water. And the deep was frozen over too. Ice-laden the waters were as the world was lost in the void. Death held dominion over all.
Then She rose.
She said, “Let there be Life.” And there was Life to oppose the Death that still held sway over the world. She grew out creatures to live in sea, small fishes and crabs and larger things too in time. These creatures had life but not Life. The life they held was frail and weak. If not protected it would be snuffed out and that She could not abide. And so, for the first time She split herself and gave birth to a new Life.
She named this newborn “Cywa”. For She saw her, and her cries shook the waves.
And so, Cywa sunk into the waters, into the depths, and land rose.
It was barren and cold since Death still clung to it.
She would not let that stand.
“My life, my children, shall go forth and multiply over this land. Cold, snow, and ice shall now be my domain. Death shall no longer have it.”
And it was so.
There would be new life and new growth, but She could not do such a feat alone.
For the second time She split.
She named this one, “Tehne.”
The new life came swiftly. Grasses first covered the barren rock, then flowers, and then trees sprout up. Life poured out, fully in Cywa’s domain, and for a time things were good.
But then Death fought for that life too.
When next She split herself with Okhota, to fill the land with moving living things, Death infected it. It poured a bit of itself into the creatures, so they lusted to kill. This desire it called hunger. And for a time, things were born, hungered, ate and died. And such was the balance of things for a long time.
But then she decided “This is not enough. We must make life into Life.”
And so, They crafted man.
First, for the third time, for the final time, She split. “Voleniniye”. She named the new Life.
And Voleniniye brought for new life, the new life that would one day be man, and She filled them with the sacred waters of life – to forevermore be called blood.
Cywa coated the blood with the dust of the world. And earth became flesh.
Both Tehne and Okhoto worked on man next, and they said, “Take both from the fruits of the tree and the meat of the beast, but do not take gluttonously. Eat for you hunger; grow because you must live. But remember this oath.”
And so, they restricted man’s hunger. For this is the way it must be.
However, this was not enough. In these early days, humans were just animals, passionate animals, but animals all the same. More had to be done.
So, She, Mother-of-All, made one final sacrifice.
“I shall tear myself into many small pieces,” She told the Others, “and imbed my Life into them so that they may become truly Alive. From within, I shall watch them, from within my Life will grow, and they shall know that I love them.”
So She spoke and so it was.
…
We were born upon the shore.
We were born from the ice-laden waters.
Water brings life as our People learned long ago. The Mother-of-All, who lives inside of us, stems from such waters. The frozen tundra, our frozen tundra, is not a place of Death anymore. Life teems beneath the ice, all manner of fish, and that is how we as the People have lived on for so long. But such will not always be the case.
“The lands to the south are rich and fertile, let us go forth and scout out the lands blessed by Cywa.”
And so, the call came. It matters not who the men were who volunteered.
And so, the People Saw through their eyes and watched as those brave men ventured south – through the plains and grasses. They ventured past the Forest of Foxes – further than any man had gone before. Day turned to night, turned to day as at last they passed through the fields of wheat to see what lay beyond.
Trees. Trees without end. Trees to dot the sky. Truly Tehne must dwell here – must possess the bark and fitter among the branches. There could be no other explanation.
But an even bigger shock awaited beyond.
A great expanse of sand and heat awaited beyond the forest. Like the opposite of the Mother’s tundra. We could name the expanse for it was not ours.
Others lived in that expanse. The People were confused in those days. “How can this be?” they asked. “Are we not the People of the Mother? In us is the Life-giving spirit.”
They pleaded with the Mother-of-All and She answered, “In them is not Life but Death. They are only living as the animals do – they belong to Okhota.” [Some manuscripts read: Let us hunt them.]
Such assuage their fears for a time and those men moved on.
Into the Great Forest they moved, and once more they were struck by Tehne’s splendor. Truly, he flowed among the trees. Truly, this place was his home – where divinity touched the mundane world. For a time, those men were lost to us - immersed in a world not their own.
And then they came out.
For a while afterwards, they wandered – trapped in a daze but nonetheless pulsating with Life. The People Looked on with great fear and trembling as those brave men departed even further into the unknown. Then…
In that moment, in the aftermath of their return from the Great Forest, we met the Yerevans for the first time.
