The Spear and the Brine

Japan's two oldest surviving chronicles open with formless generations and then with a pair who can act. The tradition has Izanagi and Izanami stand on the floating bridge of heaven, lower a jewelled spear into the brine below, and stir. What drips from the lifted point piles up into an island, Onogoro, and the two of them go down to it. The account is short and strange and does not explain itself, and both chronicles preserve it carefully, one of them setting variant versions beside the main line as though the compilers did not feel free to choose between them.