world egg

plural world eggs

1. human sciencesA mythological motif, found in the creation myths of many cultures and civilizations, of an egg from which the universe or some primordial being is "hatched".

   The Mande people say that in the beginning the creator placed various kinds of seed in the world egg.

   2010, David Adams Leeming, Creation Myths of the World: Parts I-II, page 313

   1 more example

   With this shaping of chaos into a world-egg, or earth-sphere, arises then, according to the representation of these cosmogonies, the first being, the 'first-born,' or the first man. In Africa a Dogon myth says that in the beginning, a world egg divided into two birth sacs, containing sets of twins fathered by the creator god, Amma, on the maternal egg.

   1868, Johann Peter Lange, Genesis, Or, the First Book of Moses, page 181

   Synonyms: cosmic egg