Beginnings

That white horse you see in the park could be a zebra synchronized with the railings.

(Ann Jellicoe)

Old Spider was unspeakably hungry. Not a morsel had passed her lips for several centuries. Alone in the darkness before creation, she hung her web for passers-by. The web hung empty. Now and again Old Spider ate the web, re-wove it and hung it again. Silent, without even Radio Three's interval talks for company, the black stillness pervaded every inch of her world. Dangling from her safety thread, she probed gingerly into every nook and cranny of the void, her long legs searching for food. After a great deal of emptiness, she came across something hard that smelt alive and, tapping it, found it hollow - a giant clam.

Having the good fortune to possess all the magic of the universe, Old Spider charmed the giant clam with an opening spell. Hastily bundling up her legs, she nipped inside before the clam snapped shut.

Inside the shell, two very bored snails and a worm joyfully greeted the surprised spider. The worm exerted so much effort trying to re­open the shell that her sweat became a pool, a lake, then an ocean, flooding the clam, which opened with a shuddering heave. Old Spider created earth from the lower shell and fashioned the sky from the upper half.
Raising the two snails into the sky, she named them Sun and Moon. The unhappy worm did not survive the effort of opening the clam. Wrapping her body in a silk cocoon, Old Spider carried it up to the sky, casting her silken skein into a glorious web. It became the Milky Way, giving the earth a coverlet of stars.
While this transformation of the Void was taking place on the Island of Nannu, equally remarkable events were taking place in another universe.

'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' (Genesis, v.l) In seven successive days, through the power of his word, God created light, heaven, land, plants, trees, sun, moon, stars and animals. Eastward he made a beautiful garden. Taking dust from the ground, God created a man, blew life into him and from his rib brought forth a woman whom he called Eve. The rest, as they say, is history.
These two very different accounts of The Beginning' are early attempts to explain our origins. Perhaps they do not seem to have any connection with the enterprise of Unravelling the Universe, but they are early attempts to do just that. One of the distinguishing features of human beings is the persistent need to explain the universe and our place in it. Today a person who studies the universe is called a cosmologist. Yet cosmology asks similar questions to those that have been asked for thousands of years

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Former world views often look curious. (Bodleian Library)