Monmigut

The number of gods who survived the destruction of Peladokus has always been a bit of a point of pointless contention among scholars. While the traditional numbers vary from 26 to 72, it is in fact believed by modern scholars to be much higher: aproaching several hundred survivors. What is agreed upon though is that certain gods did or did not survive. Likely the 40 gods immortalized in the poem 'Monmigut' are simply the ones who survived not only the serpent's mouth, but also the trials of wandering in the bitter fields, and the slow death of obscurity. Even without a sense of factual certainty, 'Monmigut' is useful both as entertainment, as a religious traditional text, and as a gateway to another era.

Monmigut ate the crystal towers and the marble walks.
Monmigut ate the bronze doors.
Monmigut ate fathers and grandfathers.
He ate neices and nephews,
and aunts and uncles, and boys and girls,
and frogs and dogs and cats and logs -

the jaws approached swiftly and destroyed what the gods had made.
The houses and manors, the parks and gardens, the markets and forums:
Food for the jaws.
A city in one bite: Monmigut;
Peladokus Lost.
A world in one bite: Monmigut;
All is lost...

but three who fell from off the wall,
one who slipped between the teeth,
twelve huntsmen riding far,
two lovers hiding in a glen,
a poet lost, a porter fast,
a bookbinder and a beekeeper,
eight farmers and eight widows,
the madman exiled from the city,
and the babe left to die of exposure.

Forty of forty thousand.
Seventy six tears were shed for the city;
there was time for no more.
One tear for each eye, but the madman grinned
and babe did not know what had passed.

The babe would not remember, but the rest could not forget:
Monmigut!