B79A. The bird laid an egg.. 14.17.20.23.29.31.32.34.37.

At the beginning of time, a bird flies, lays an egg or eggs, from which various objects or creatures hatch.

Ancient Egypt [a goose laid an egg: the sun (and something else?)] , Hawaii [earth and sky], Maori [first ancestors], sora [chicken laid an egg: land], haria [pava laid an egg: castes], Nogais (Kuban), Eastern Sami [animals, plants, people], Karelians and Finns [earth and sky, luminaries], Kalevala [earth and sky], Ingrians [luminaries], Estonians [luminaries], counselors and Veps [probably not known as Ingrians and Estonians], Mordovians [earth and sky], mari [two creators, they get land], Chuvash [earth and sky], Komi [earth, two creators], Siberian Tatars [duck lays eggs, earth and sky, stars], tofalars [duck lays egg, earth], Mansi [eagle drops earth], Kamchatka Evens [the eagle drops the ground], nivhi [earth].

North Africa. Ancient Egypt: Salonen 1969 [in all versions, primary waters first; The Creator (most often named Nun) raises Ta-Tjenen from the bottom of the hill; in Hermopolis, the hill is raised by Thoth, placed on it the egg, the sun hatches from it, soars to the sky; in Heliopolis, the lotus opened in the morning, released sunlight; in the evening it opened again, took the sun for the night]: 118-119; Mathieu 1956 [mentions are found either about an egg made of earth and moisture that appeared on the first hill that rose from the initial chaos (Harris Magic Papyrus, IV, 10-15), or about the egg of the "great Gogotun" (Book of the Dead, ch. IV and VI), demolished to the ground; based on such texts, one can get an idea of the legend that on the original hill there was a nest in which a goose egg appeared sun; in later times, the goose was the personification of the god of the earth Geb]: 78.

Micronesia-Polynesia. Hawaii: Makemson 1941 [a bird laid an egg on the water; the upper part of the shell became the sky, the lower ground, the contents of Hawaii]: 51-52; Tyerman, vol.1:523 in Williamson 1933 (1) [ Tangaroa, in the form of a bird, laid an egg on the surface of primary waters; the egg burst, giving birth to heaven, earth, etc.]: 19; Maori [the bird flew above the waters, dropped the egg, it swam, then split, inside were a boat, a man, an old woman, a boy, a girl, a pig, a dog, a couple of chickens; they got on a boat, they sailed to New Zealand]: Makemson 1941:52.

South Asia. Hill Saora [the land went under water; Ramma and Bimma lived in the sky, they had a chicken and a rooster; the chicken laid seven eggs; the eighth fell into the sea, crashed, the squirrel spread, became dry; the shell turned into rocks]: Melwin 1954, No. 13:9; haria [God created heaven and earth, then pava, she laid an egg, it burst, haria arose from the shell, and the purana (Hinduized caste) from the squirrel, from yolks - Bhanja (dominant genus in Mayurbhanj)]: Roy, Roy 1937:26 in Kapp 197:13-14.

Caucasus - Asia Minor. Nogais (recorded by folklorist Tahir Akmanbetov) [at first only the eternal sky is Tangri, his companion Umai, Umai has two birds - Ak-Ku ("white swan") and Kara-Bapiy ("black duck"); Ak-Ku laid an egg, it consisted of water; Kara-Bapiy swam in the water, but she was drawn down, she dived and swam; one day she felt silt and sand at the bottom; she began to pull them to the surface and built a nest; she continued to put silt and sand around the nest, which made her nose red and long; the nest grew and became dry; Kara-bapiy knew that she could not do anything; when she created the earth in fear punishment, dived into the lower world; she was restless and persistent, which is why she was named Erke Khan]: Kapaev 2012:30, 226.

Baltoscandia. The Eastern Sami [was the head of an old man with wells on the crown; the thunder crushed his hat, streams of water escaped, rising to the sky, flooded the ground; the duck sees a blade of grass syyin in the ocean, that grows into the ground; the duck lays five eggs; of which 1) vegetation, 2) birds (the first duck, then the gray goose, the white swan, the crow, the pyz-kydtsynke bird) and fish, 3) animals, 4) a man and woman; (the fifth egg is no longer mentioned); the first couple has a son and daughter; the father sends them in different directions along the seashore; after going all over the earth, they meet again; they descended from human genus]: Czarnoluski 1922:84-85; Estonians: Viidalepp 1980 [the well-known "Creation Song" (Loomine; most popular in central northern Estonia and on the SW coast); the bird appears above the sea in search of a nest; makes a nest in a golden bush; puts three eggs there, incubates three chicks; turns one of the chicks (or one of the eggs) into the sun, the other into the moon, third in the star]: 55-56; Tedre 1969, No. 1 (Haljala) [an apple tree on the mountain, a branch on the apple tree, a flower on the branch, an apple (from) the flower, the wind tore it off, threw it into the water, into the spring, the apple was born blue-mottled a bird flew to our alder, aspen tree, to our pine grove, to our pasture, there are three bushes on our pasture, blue, red and golden, a blue-mottled bird made a nest in golden, laid eggs, sat chicks, made one a month, another a star, the third by the sun (=Laugaste 1998:9-10)], 2 (Jõhvi) [the bird flew around the world, across a large lake, looking for a place to lay eggs, did not find it, rejected a blue bush, a red bush, chose a golden one, bred chicks, made one berries, the other with stones in the field, the third month, the fourth by the sun; the berries are harvested, the stones are used to make beer, the sun counts down the time, the month counts down the clock], 3 (Karuse) [men, women, girls, guess what (the appeal repeats before every next question) is under our yard? - Sea. - What's in the sea? - Island. - What's in the middle of the island? - Apple tree. - The apple tree has 6 branches. - The apple tree has 6 flowers. - The apple is multicolored. The wind blew him into the sea. A colorful bird rose from the sea, flew to our pasture, made a nest at the top of the spruce tree, bred chicks, gave one the lower world, another clouds, the third Morning Star, the fourth North Star, the fifth Big Dipper, sixth month old, seventh Pleiades, now we count the time, we know the hours], 4 (Halliste) [the swallow made a nest in a steam-plowed field, laid three eggs, the first chick became the Morning A star in the lower world, the second by the sun in the world on the surface, the third by a month in the sky]: 13, 14, 14-15, 15; Finns, Karelians [Karelian runes about birds are known (duck, eagle, goose, swallow, etc.) flying over the waters of the primary ocean in search of a place to nest; the bird lays an egg (3 or 7 eggs) on the knee of Väinämöinen, the only inhabitant of the ocean (in Kalevala, on his knee) mother V., air maiden Ilmatar), or to a hill in the middle of the ocean; the egg rolls down the knee (down the hill), breaks; the sky forms from its upper part, the earth from the lower part, the sun from the yolk, the sun from the yolk, and the squirrel for a month , from "colorful parts" - stars; according to Ukhta Karelian runes, three eggs laid by an eagle are swallowed by a pike, but an eagle rips open the belly of a pike; in some runes, the bird itself creates the world, in others by V. (more often he is the creator of the landscape, the relief of the seabed)]: Eichenwald 1982:163-164; Karelians: Evseev 1950, No. 30 [Väinämöini catches salmon with a fishing rod without realizing that it is an underwater maiden Vellamo; she says that she did not go out to be eaten, but to become a wife; V. repents of her lack of guessness; for nine years V. wanders, installing underwater rocks and shallows; raised his knee, the goose demolished he had six eggs, the seventh was iron; his knee became hot, V. straightened his leg, his eggs fell into the sea; the yolk became the sun, the squirrel became a month, the shell fragments were stars], 95 [Lemmingjani tells us not to shoot Väinämönen, otherwise songs will disappear on the ground; shot at the horse, V. fell into the sea, swam there with a log for seven years; the duck was looking for a place to sit, laid an egg on V.'s knee, the lower half became earth, the upper sky, pieces stars, moon white, sun yolk]: 76-79, 213-214; (cf. Makarov 1959 [proverb: "Vesi vankhin vojtehista, payu puista, mätäsh maista, tiaini ilman lintusista (Ukhta)" ("Water is the oldest of potions, willow is from wood, hummock is from sushi, tit is from birds of heaven"]: 172); Ingrians: Kiuru 1990, No. 2 [the swallow flew 9 seas, found blue, red, yellow hummocks in the middle of the tenth, made a nest, laid three eggs, the wind flew in, ran in waves, eggs fell into the water; the swallow asked the blacksmith to tie her an iron rake with copper teeth; with this rake she took half a squirrel, made it the sun, and half a yolk into the moon; she made stars out of crumbs]: 36 -37; Kiuru et al. 1974, No. 1 (zap. 1965) [about the same; 47 options in total]: 253-254, 488; Kuusi 1956 in Sarv, Sarv 1979b [the bird finds a hummock in the sea, makes a nest; the wind rolls the egg into the water, takes it out with a rake, makes it heavenly bodies]: 449; counselors (Õgõperä): Ariste 1986:30 [excerpt, No. XIV.14.1; the swallow flew on a summer day, played on a dark night, looked for land to sleep, lay grass, lay eggs, leaves to rest ], 66 [the informant no longer remembered; said that Izhora women sang this way, but the text was in good water], 77 [water versions can be borrowed from Izhora]; Kalevala. Rune 1:35-43. The daughter of the air descends into the sea, where, pregnant with wind and water, she becomes the mother of water; the Duck makes a nest on her lap and lays eggs there; the eggs roll out of the nest, break into pieces, they turn into earth, sky, sun, moon and clouds; the mother of water makes capes, bays, shores, depths and shoals; Väinämöinen is born to the mother of water, rushes along the waves for a long time until it reaches land; Veps [western 1943; {most likely the rest of the cosmogonic plot}; a duck (sotk - "dive") flies across the sea, sits on a bump, lays three eggs, hatches three chicks, puts the eldest in the groove, medium in the grid, the youngest in the dark; where should she go? Sing on the roads with a crane, tapping on the swamp]: Sovijärvi, Peltola 1982:64 in Vinokurova 2006:50

Volga - Perm. Komi-Zyryans: Plesovsky 1972 (Western 1923 in the village. Prondor, P.G. Doronin's list) [the duck is swimming, does not know where to lay its eggs; four are swallowed in the depths, kept the last two under its wing, of which the ducklings Yong and Omöl hatched; the mother asked them to get the lost eggs from the bottom, break them on her body, took off herself, killed herself against the water; E. dived, O. shouted, the water was covered with ice, O. broke the ice with thunder and lightning; E. hit the egg he had brought about the mother's body, the body grew, turned into land, the sun appeared from the broken egg; he brought a second egg, angel assistants came out of it; O. brought two eggs covered with mud; threw one up, arose moon; from the second he made helpers - evil spirits; E. made useful birds and animals, O. - reptiles; E. sculpted Adam's man, blew, revived; O. sculpted a woman, could not revive her, E. revived her; wife gave birth to 12 daughters, killed them herself at the instigation of O.; E. cursed her, she turned into death, her daughters became ill; from A. E. created Eve; O. seduced her, so the offspring were bad; E. made the first heaven, O. higher than the second, E. the third, etc., seven in total; E. destroyed the lower six with thunder and lightning, over O. and his assistants into forests, swamps and rivers; E. asked the demon leader Anthus if he and his army could climb into three pots; threw pots into hell, one crashed, some of the demons remained on the ground]: 39-41 (=Sidorov 1924, No. 1-2:24; =Limerov 2005, No. 2:17-20); Mordovians [Great Bird (Ine Narmon at Moksha, Ine Narmun at Zrzya) laid an egg (Ine al, Oqiu al); the round Earth arose from its embryo, heavenly and underground firmament - shell]: Devyatkina 1998:33; Marie [To the bosom of the primary ocean from her nest - Ludo Pyzhash (letters. "duck's nest" - Pleiades) a duck flew in. After laying two eggs, she sat them under her wings. Two drake brothers, Yumo and Yeun, were born from these eggs. Then they alternately dived under the water and pulled land from the ocean floor. The land that Yumo took out formed a flat surface. On the other hand, Eun choked and spit out his saliva along with the ground. This is how mountains, lakes and swamps appeared on earth]: Kaliev 2003:17-18 (quoted from Yuziev 2016:106; the same text cites Limerov 2016:22 with reference to Kaliev 2004:108).

Southern Siberia - Mongolia. Siberian Tatars [Sky, Earth, Sun, Moon and Stars formed from a duck egg]: Urazaleev 2005:4; tofalars [the first duck flew, sat down, laid an egg, it burst; the liquid formed lake, shell - earth; then Burkhan created man]: Rassadin 1996, No. 7:15.

Amur-Sakhalin. Nivhi [first one water; teal (var.: broad-nosed duck) swims, wants to lay eggs, plucks feathers and fluff, makes a nest; ducklings grow up, do the same; nests join an island, on it grows trees, it turns into mainland; when larch resin touched the ground, nivkh appeared; larch nivhi, so red; wilta from fir, white-bodied; Ainu from spruce]: Sangi 1989: 295 (=Medvedev 1992:78).