It begins then on the many-layered surface of the globe. There is the muffled sound of footfalls. That is the ironic beginning of it all: "The world is empty and void of all life. There are muffled sounds of footfalls," like the beginning of a short story. The footfalls are those of Panther and his panthers. And who is Panther?
Panther is Pan-Therion or Pan-Therium, the All-Animal, the prototypical animal. He is the cool-fever-flesh from which all others diverge. He is the composite ("you should have seen some of the things and pieces of things that went into him") and the generating force. He is the red-clay which is clay-flesh. He is also the Dream-Master.
But many mythologies say that it was the Bear who made the world. Yet, there is no contradiction there. The Bear is one of the very strong elements in the Pan-Animal. This primordial dream-master beast is in fact the "Bearcat" who appears both in the Prophet Elias and in Mark Twain and who is found in the common expression of today "Boy, is that ever a Bearcat!" It is Pan-Therium, the Bearcat that is in the beginning. It's the flesh that is the red grass. It belches the dreams out of its stomach and they battle for supremacy, whether they shall survive as "World," or not survive at all.'
-R. A. Lafferty, The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny, collected in Apocalypses (1977)
