The tower of Babel was real. When struck with lightning, the Song shattered instead of unifying, tongues divided, and refugees fled south, north and west.

The revelation at the end of the sixth day had unsettled the order they believed they understood, and even the quiet routines of the vineyard showed the break in their thoughts. Eden had been kept from them until its purpose stood beyond question, and the knowledge had struck deeply.

The day opened upon a land that bore fresh scars. The great beasts raised on the fifth day lay broken across valley and plain. Traditions keep reports of stone falling from the heights, of earth riven, of seas lifting walls against the shore.

I set it here in the Secret Annex because the marvel of its construction deserves witness, though the Church would rightly question why a monk concerns himself with fortifications.

The fifth day marks the first quiet turning in the labour of creation. Scripture speaks of the waters bringing forth living creatures and of birds rising in the firmament.

The merchants who walk between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic carry stories stranger than Scripture records. They speak of beasts that moved upon creation before man was made, yet were not made during those six days.

The spring emerged at a point where the land changed character. South of the water lay red sandstone country, the soil heavy with iron. North of the spring stretched limestone uplands, white stone country where sheep found good grazing.

The Cymroth were a unified people who settled the high ridges of middle Wales c. 3800 BC, building resonance forts and maintaining harmony through song for nearly three millennia before fracturing into the Silures and Ordovices around 950 BC.

The Dragon Tongue, taught to refugees fleeing Shinar during their westward migration c. 4000 BC. This language restored speech to those struck silent by terror and became the foundation of Welsh, carrying harmonics that could make stone itself respond when properly spoken.

Refugees fleeing Babel's fallen towers migrated westward for generations. A mysterious stranger guided them toward an island in the western ocean, promising virgin hills where stone could sing. These peoples reached Wales near 4000 BC, named themselves Cymroth.

Brother Wyn wrestles with irreconcilable chronologies: merchants date events to 4000 BC while Scripture places them at 2200 BC. A merchant explains through the potter's wheel analogy that time spun faster after Creation, gradually slowing until reaching present measure around King David's era.

Cwmni'r Llwybrau operated as a merchant guild for six thousand years. They dealt in tin, amber, bronze goods, salt, and textiles across routes connecting the eastern Mediterranean to Atlantic coasts.

The account that follows gathers what the Church teaches concerning the first five days of the world's making, together with such explanations as may help the understanding of how that work was ordered.