The First of Love, Strife, and Death
From “Theogony ‘ja Amal,” by Margareth Gerard
Of all the theogona, the births and first conflict between Polmos, Quatha, and Vrauma is one of my favorites.
It is also among the oldest of the stories of the early world to come to us. It exists in a variety of forms and texts, and we know additional versions of it were passed on through the oral traditions of peoples and civilizations that have long passed. And yet, it remains surprisingly consistent. Here it is, as translated from one of the earliest surviving written records from the far east:
At the dawn of the world were three Goddesses. The first was Vrauma, goddess of love and peace, whose fall from the stars was broken by a boulder. Out of this boulder sprang her twin Quatha, goddess of war and strategy. Cousin Polmos, goddess of death and life, rose from the earth. With each was a Man in their image.
Vrauma’s and Polmos’s Men fell in love, and Quatha’s Man was jealous. So Quatha instructed her Man in subterfuge so He could forge a path for His desire. He chose Vrauma’s Man and thus sowed discord.
Now jealous, Polmos’s Man came to Polmos and asked for a lesson in death. She taught Him, thinking his curiosity benign. But then her Man slayed his lover, Vrauma’s Man, without knowing the permanence of death.
Vrauma, too, was distraught. Together, Vrauma and Polmos’s Man went to Polmos, begging for her to return Vrauma’s Man to life. But Polmos, still learning the extent of her own divinity, realized she could do no such thing.
Quatha slayed her own Man to hide her guilt. She soothed Vrauma’s grief with lies, and Vrauma swore to never forgive Polmos’s treachery.
Polmos’s Man wandered alone, driven mad with shame and grief. When He hanged himself from a tree, Polmos prevented His death and instead changed Him into a spider as a tribute to the fragile, silky web of human connection.
And then Polmos built her Bone Gates to forbid her twin cousins from ever entering her domain.
