7. Pramzimas

(Latvian, Latvia)

When Pramzimas, the highest god, looked down from the window of his heavenly residence, he only saw war and injustice among the people. He sent two giants down to the sinful earth, Wandu and Wejas, wind and water. Twenty days long they devastated whatever existed.

Once again Pramzimas looked down, while he was eating nuts. He dropped one nutshell. It came down on the top of the highest mountain. On that top animals and a few people had sought safety in flight during the rising storm flood. Together they entered the nutshell and soon they floated on the water that covered the whole earth.

When Pramzimas looked at the world for the third time, he calmed the storm and made the floods sink down. In pairs the people who had been saved went into different directions. One pair stayed where they were, and they are the ancestors of the Latvians. However, those two were already old, and that made them feel sad. To comfort them God sent them the rainbow which advised them to jump over the bones of the earth. They jumped nine times, and this is how nine couples emerged from the earth. They became the ancestors of the nine Latvian tribes.