The Devil's Schemes Against God's Feats

-Romanian Mythology - part 02

The Making of All Creatures

After God made the earth he did not like seeing it empty and barren. Then he began to plant grass, flowers, and all sorts of seeds from which tall and beautiful trees sprang. But the Devil stuck to God like usual never letting up, just to get in his hair. So, he planted his seeds of his own, weeds and ugly sticks. Where God sowed wheat, the Devil scattered cock weed, where God planted flowers, the Devil put thistle and henbane. God cultivated fir trees, oak and beeches with thick foliage, while the Devil made grow all sorts of crooked and useless plants like dwarf elders and knee pines.

The Making of Animals

When God decided to make the animals, the same story all over: the Devil was keen on being able to boast “when we made the world…” as the fly did about working the field. Anyway, the Devil tried hard to embroil things and ruin what God had done. Because he did not want the earth – which he had so much longed to steal from God – to be inhabited by godly creatures that had nothing to do with him. Also, he did not wish it to be too beautiful, given that it was not his.

Therefore, when God made the horses, the oxen, the sheep, the deer, the singing birds, the diligent bees and the ants, the fish and all the beetles in the air and in the water, the Devil invented all the wild, noxious things in the woods that pry on man and feed on the other animals. Owls and hawks, flies and all the nasty bugs, worms and caterpillars were unleashed on earth by the Devil’s crooked mind bent on evil, ugliness and destruction. So, from the beginning there was a distinction between good and bad animals, good and bad plants and flowers. No matter how much they mingled still what was made by the Devil would go bad, wherever you put it.

Just like good fights evil in man, so it is in the animal kingdom, and in the realm of plants. Weeds try to spread over grains and wolves to gobble up sheep. That’s how it has been since the beginning of time and that’s how it will be to the end of the world.