"(Some find this fable more than fabulous,
But we must keep faith with our ancient legends)
Pebbles grew into rocks, rocks into statues
That looked like men; the darker parts still wet
With earth were flesh, dry elements were bones,
And veins began to stir with human blood -
Such were the inclinations of heaven's will.
The stones that Deucalion dropped were men,
And those that fell from his wife's hands women.
Beyond, behind the years of loss and hardship
We trace a stony heritage of being."

      Ovid, The Metamorphoses, 8 A.D.