Flood
The Flood
During this time, the other gods were unsure of what to do. They called rain and storms to quench the flames, desperate to prevent the fire from killing all life on the planet again.
But rain and storms were not sufficient. Plants, animals, villages, and entire forests were swallowed by the mighty blazes. The fires continued to rage out of control until, finally, one goddess decided that, if nothing else could be saved, she would solve their problem even at a great cost.
Nuwa sympathized with Tsetse's efforts. She felt great regret that Tsetse's best intentions had led to such ruin. But Nuwa, being pragmatic, was determined to save as much life as she could. She began to push and pull the water of the oceans and seas around the planet, hoping to use the vast amount to quench the flames. But she could not control such a quantity by herself. In desperation, she looked for another source of energy that she could use to move the water. She knew that she could not use the energy from the Sun. The energy it gave off was too volatile and hot to control. She would end up vaporizing the oceans before she could get a handle on everything.
So, in the end, Nuwa decided to use the weaker energy given off by the Moon. Rising high into the sky, she pulled the Moon towards the Earth, and discovered that its mere presence began to move the water. With the Moon's assistance, Nuwa finally pulled all the water together and sent it across the blazing Earth in one ginormous wave.
Finally, Tsetse's fires were quenched. But, as Nuwa knew would happen, most life on the land was swept away in her mighty flood.
The gods were saddened. Over time, they knew that they could work to bring back most of the life that had been swept from the surface of the planet, but humanity, being such a unique creation of Ra and Ymir, would be lost to them forever.
But, to their surprise, they found that not all of humanity was gone. The cleverest among the humans had fashioned rafts and boats, staying just above the floodwaters until gravity had pulled it all back to its proper place. The gods were delighted to see that humanity had not vanished from the Earth. They quickly worked to restore the rest of the planet with plants and animals, and, over time, the Earth gradually came back to life.
Spring had come.
Wise Prometheus, however, knew that Winter would come again. And so, he spent time learning to control fire, and, once he had learned its secrets, he taught humanity how to carefully use its power without risk of the same disaster happening again. Fortunately, the humans that remained after the Great Flood were the smartest among their species, wily and intelligent enough to craft the vessels that had carried them to safety. With mastery of fire, these humans prospered. They grew and spread across the globe once again, rapidly advancing in intellect and technology until our time today...
Author's Note:
And here is where my original story ended. This was the last story that I wrote for the class and was the point where I felt that I could conclude my little literary universe. However, something about this story and the process that I went through to write it nagged at me with a certain sense of incompletion. Eventually, I decided to revisit the world of And Then They Rested and to continue writing out the story of my little universe. Except, as you will see if you decide to read on, I chose to do so not in the past of our Storyteller's account, but in the present of his current world. If you thought my Storyteller was just a literary device, you're not wrong. That was what he was originally intended to be. But, with this new story, I chose to take us out of the past so that we could explore the world that our Storyteller has just spent so long building up for us. It is my hope that if you have made it this far, you will continue to read on. I hope you enjoy and, as always, thanks for reading!
My original Author's Note for this Chapter:
Wow, what a journey it's been. I've ended things here (as I often like to do in my stories) at exactly 500 words. It feels fitting. Honestly, I feel like these last three stories don't exactly stack up to the first four, but I'm proud of them all the same. I realize that, with the addition of these three stories, my storybook is now much longer than it was really intended to be. I don't blame anyone if they didn't read all the way until this point. In the end, I just felt that I wasn't done writing yet. Really, these last three stories have been more for me than for anyone else. Still, I hope you enjoyed reading them!
Now for the actual myth origins part of this author's note. Obviously, the idea of a Great Flood is not even remotely original. In almost every culture, there seems to be some kind of Great Flood story. (And yes, sorry, but Christianity does not have the trademark on mythical floods.) Essentially, I felt obligated to include one in my stories! I figured that a storybook that sought to provide a coherent collection of all myths should probably include some form of Great Flood.
Moving on from the flooding, the main character of this story is really Nuwa. Originally, Nüwa (or Nuwa in my lazy writing) was the mother goddess of Chinese mythology. She is credited as the creator of mankind and for bringing peace during a time of great catastrophes. During this time, it was said that much of the world was either ablaze or buried beneath floods. Therefore, in my version, I sought to have Nuwa solve the catastrophe of a fire with a flood.
Additionally, we have the reappearance of Prometheus. In some ancient Greek myths, Prometheus is also credited as a creator of mankind and for stealing fire and bringing it to man. I wanted to pay homage to this myth along with the fact that Prometheus was often considered very clever or smart (his name literally means "forethought" after all).
I was happy to be able to include so many gods and goddesses in my stories. I hope that anyone reading this believes, like I do, that I at least partially accomplished my lofty goal of integrating as many cultures and religions into one cohesive story as I could.
That being said, I still didn't get the chance to include a whole host of other gods and goddesses that I would have loved to integrate into my stories. Deities from India, Australia, and South America didn't end up making it into these few stories and that's something that I sort of regret. It wasn't easy working in as many cultures as I could into these stories, but I always feel like I could have done maybe a little bit more. Who knows, maybe I'll write a few more of these stories just for myself...
Thank you so much for reading!
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