 Well, as many legends of creation as there are groups of people on the coast, I suppose. But the one that I illustrated this piece on up at the anthropology museum was a story of the raven and how he finds the first man. The great flood which had covered the earth for so long had at last receded. And even the thin strip of sand, now called Rosebit, stretching north from Naikun village, laid dry. The raven had flown there to gorge himself on the delicacies left by the receding water, so for once he wasn't hungry. But his other appetites, lust, curiosity, and the unquenchable itch to meddle and provoke things, to play tricks on the world and its creatures, these remained unsatisfied. At first he saw nothing. But as he scanned the beach again, a white flash caught his eye, and when he landed he found at his feet, half buried in the sand, a gigantic clam shell. When he looked more closely still, he saw that the shell was full of little creatures, cowering in terror of his enormous shadow. So the raven leaned his great head close to the shell, with a smooth trickster's tongue. He coaxed and cajoled and coerced the little creatures to come out and play in his wonderful, shiny new world. So it wasn't long before one and another of the little shell dwellers timidly emerged. Some of them immediately scurried back when they saw the immensity of the sky and the sea, and the overwhelming blackness of the raven. But eventually curiosity overcame caution, and all of them crept out or scrambled out. Their descendants built on its beaches the strong and beautiful homes of the Hades, and embellished them with the powerful Irelic carvings which told of the legendary beginnings of the great families.