Creation Myth

Horace and the Boy

            In the very beginning, there lived a single god. His name was Horace. He controlled the wind, the rain, and the seas. Horace got lonely living in his world without any people to speak to or any animals to keep him company.

            One day, Horace came up with the idea to make animals that he could care for. The next day he created the wolf and the tiger. He thought that both of his creations would love to live with him in his home, but they both wanted to be outside and to run around with animals like themselves. So Horace created land for them to live and run on. Sadly these animals got hungry and Horace had to create deer, moose, elk, caribou, beavers, fish, and all small and large prey animals. Sadly, these animals had nothing to eat so Horace made the plants and trees of the world. The small prey animals were too plentiful and the simple tiger and wolf could not eat them all, so he created the cheetahs, the bears, the mountain lions, and all large carnivorous animals. The fish needed something to eat so he created insects and algae to feed the fish and birds and sea animals. This created balance for all the animals. Finally, Horace thought he was happy with his world.

            After a few years, Horace realized he wanted someone to talk to, but he did not want to change any of his animals that he loved so much. He realized he could create a replica of himself so he could talk to someone and have companionship.

            Horace took one of his ribs and laid it on the ground. He put grasses and herbs around it and went to sleep, dreaming of his companion. He awoke to find a strange creature sleeping where he had laid the rib and grasses. It somewhat resembled him but it had long flowing brown hair that reached to the middle of her back; it had curves that were strange to him, and very delicate features. After Horace had been staring at her for quite some time, she spoke.

            “My name is Sahara, what is this place?” She had a very soft, feminine voice that surprised Horace.

            “My name is Horace and this is my home,” Horace said softly, still in amazement of her strange features.

            Horace and Sahara, together, created other humans so they could have friends. All of the people that they created were living very happily together with Horace and Sahara until a woman had two children and threw off the balance of the people. The second child, a boy, grew extremely rapidly and within one year was fully-grown. Horace was very concerned what would happen to his perfect world now that it seemed that all the balances had been shifted. He watched the child’s growth with fear. He decided that the child needed to be put in the wild to learn how to appreciate its world as all children did.    

            When the child was a year and a half old Horace took him into the woods and introduced him to the tigers and the different forest animals. He told the child that he would spend one month in the woods, learning from the animals and after that Horace would take him back to his family. Horace, still worried about the boy, followed and watched the child closely as he wandered through the woods, ignoring the animals that tried to befriend him and breaking the beautiful plants the Horace had worked so hard to make.

After a week in the woods the boy grew very hungry and started to fashion a sort of spear. When he was done making his spear he started hunting. Hunting had never been done in the perfect world so Horace was very confused as he watched the boy. The child found a young deer eating in a beautiful sacred meadow.

The animals had never had any reason to fear any of mankind so the deer never moved as the boy approached with his spear. Once the boy got close enough he raised his spear and brought it down through the deer’s back. Thankfully, the deer died instantly, not realizing what had been done to her. Horace ran out, shocked at the first death to ever occur in his perfect world. He ran to his deer and held her, trying to will her to come back to him from wherever she may have gone. The boy, infuriated that Horace had put him in the woods, raised his spear again and stabbed Horace in his back.

Immediately after he killed Horace he felt a shift in the air, the ground, in everything around him. All over the world the people felt this strange sense of loss and sadness. It was very strange to the people, as they had never felt those feelings before.

At the end of the month, three weeks after the people felt the strange, foreign feelings the boy returned. He was carrying Horace’s body over his shoulder and had a deer pelt wrapped around him. Sahara and the people had all gathered in Horace’s home to await his and the boys return. They were stunned to see the state Horace was in and everyone except Sahara fell to the ground weeping. Sahara flung herself in rage at the boy, she managed to kill him but he also managed to stab her through her stomach.  She died four hours later after struggling and struggling to live.

            The death of the young deer, Horace, the boy, and Sahara unleashed sadness, jealousy, death, hatred, hunger, and all of the evil feelings and thoughts into the world. The stretch of land that had been Sahara’s favorite place to visit shriveled up and turned into what is now known as the Sahara desert. Horace was reunited with his beloved deer and Sahara and from then on whenever one of his beloved creatures died they went to rejoin their creator forever.