In the great darkness of the void he found a clam shell. What a clam shell was doing in the void before creation is an as-yet-unexplained mystery.

The clam shell was open, and inside was a tiny snail. Areop-Enap was unable to resist having a peek inside, but wham! the shell snapped shut. The snail was now trapped inside. Areop-Enap suggested that the snail might be able to prize the clam open at the hinge, so the snail went to have a look, leaving a phosphorescent trail behind it.

A little white wormy caterpillar thing was revealed in the light. “Hello, my name is Rigi,” it said. Meanwhile the snail, puffing and straining, was trying to open the shell. “Hey, what’s going on in there?” cried Areop-Enap, somewhat confused.

Rigi gave the spider a running commentary, but the snail’s prowess just didn’t match up to the likes of the Godchecker Holy Snail. “Let me have a go,” said Rigi, and set to work fortified with strength spells and encouraging shouts from Areop-Enap.

He heaved so hard his sweat poured into pools, spread into lakes and finally became the sea. But how the seas and lakes appeared before the earth was created has yet to be explained. This clam is bigger than you can imagine.

Eventually the Big Clunk came and the clam popped open. The lower portion was the Earth, covered in Rigi’s sweaty sea, and the top half became the sky. The exhausted snail turned into the moon, and poor old Rigi, who did not survive the ordeal, was turned into the Milky Way.

After that Areop-Enap seems to have taken up residence in Heaven where he surveys the world. Apart from sending the Young Spider Areop-It-Eonin off to obtain the secret of fire, he doesn’t seem to have done much since. We just hope he’s not tempted to poke his spidery nose into the Great Clam again or the sky will come slamming down on top of us.

Share this page Cite this article

Article last revised on April 29, 2019 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

Permissions page

---