Page 31 - Animals of the Sakhalin Region in myths and legends

It was a long time ago. There was no land then yet. It was empty, sad.

There was only water then, it reached the very sky. And the loon duck
swam in the water.
She swam, swam until she became lonely. She found a lump of clay that
stuck to the ice, crumpled, crumpled and blinded her comrade — a goose
duck.
They began to swim together. One duck swims to the north, the second
to the south. One to the west, the other to the east. Ducks will meet, talk,
talk and back in different directions. Once voices from the sky speak to

them:
— Create the land! Create the land!
— You, loon, swim well, dive well and fly well too, dive, loon, to the
bottom of those waters, bring a pinch of earth. And the loon was afraid to
dive to the bottom of those waters, and says:
— Oh, I’m afraid, I’m afraid I’ll be lost there!

But the goose agreed. She dived. For three days she was gone, only
by the end of the fourth day did her head appear on the surface of those
water with the lump of soil in her beak. The goose was so exhausted that
she could not move.
With that soil the loon started creating the land.
Rivers flowed on the land, sparkling and clean. The sun above her
shone brightly. Warm winds blew. The water surface sparkled in the lakes.
And then the goose woke up, says the loon:

— I dived and dived to catch the soil, and you’re doing it all here
without me!
The goose was offended, spat on the ground with crumbs that remained
in its beak — high mountains grew on the ground — gloomy, shrouded in
fog. The caves appeared, damp and deep.
The ducks began to scream, fight, fiddle, crushed the whole earth.

Rivers and lakes muddied. Dust rose up to the sky, nothing was visible,
but nothing became.
The mother of heaven heard their cries, went down to earth and asked:
— Why are you shouting and fighting?
And the ducks answer her, they shout and fight because they cannot
decide who will be the owner of this land.
The mother of heaven says to them:
— Since you goose dived under the water, you will be the mistress of the

underground, and the loon stays on the ground.
But the goose saw that the light was dim under the ground, that there
was little land. And so she says to the loon:

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