Vera/Donatese creation myth

In Donatese mythology, the **Donatese creation myth** (Donatese: раст света / *rast sveta*literally "**growth of the world**") is the myth that describes the elements transforming themselves to become the world, primarily Donat. Traditionally, this story was carried between generations orally, though variations of it have been recorded several times through history. It is atypical for its focus on matter only changing forms, instead of being created.

## The myth

At the beginning of everything, the world consisted of a dark unorganized mess of desire. From this desire emerged first the good cloth and the bad cloth, and they intertwined among one another to form the seven elemental pairs. However, the rest of the universe was still empty. By the desire from which they were woven, they sought to weave together the rest of the universe, and this desire spread like a wildfire. Once the entire universe was burning with the elements, they rearranged themselves into complicated selves, creating the Sun, the planets and their moons.

But the planets were barren and dry, so the earth became water, from which trees as tall as clouds emerged, and fruit fell from these trees, and wherever the fruit landed, the water would dissipate and reveal the land. And wherever land was revealed, another living being rose from the earth. And once there was enough land and animals, the grass began to grow. And wherever a stag nicked a blade of grass, a person would be born from the earth. But once there were enough people, land, animals and grass, it all stopped growing, and the first tree stopped bearing fruit, and the first grass withered through the snow, and by extension, the first animals and people started dying.

The world did not want life to be in vain, so a piece from the still elemental universe was taken, and from it the ghosts were raised. But the good and bad cloth divided them, and some became guides, while some guided away. Above them all were Duosters, who were created before the ghosts, and the cloth could not act upon them, so they stayed eternal and elementally pure. The Duosters taught the living how to continue their kind and reproduce amongst themselves. But, over time, the people grew ungrateful and forgot the Duosters. They started worshipping idols, animals and creators, except for the people where the first fruit had fallen, in the land which would become Donat.

## Analysis

The Donatese creation myth consists of some common elements that are present within most religions, such as the world being barren before the arrival of the divine, yet it turns the typicality by implying that nothing was ever created out of thin air, and that matter only changed its external structure. "Desire" being the root of that which everything is derived from is unique to the myth, and has matured in Vera as the concept of controlling one's character, which is again woven from virtue and sin (the good and bad cloth). The stag is mentioned as the initiator of people and it still holds symbolic significance as the national animal of Donat. The myth separates natural experience as something mortal, and that which was considered learned experience, such as reproduction, as a gift from the divine. The myth assumes Donat to be the land of the only rightful believers left in the world. This stigma was carried over into medieval Donat, where it was common for foreigners to be shunned because of their religion. The stigma most likely arrives from the uncommon presence of other intelligent races in medieval Donat, due to the land's isolated geography.