The Rainbow Serpent and the Story of Creation In the beginning, there was no life on the surface of the Earth. But beneath the surface the Great Mother Snake, the Rainbow Serpent, lay asleep. She slept for a long, long time. Then one day she woke up, uncoiled herself, and crawled into the open. As she moved slowly over the flat, dry, empty land, she said to herself, ' "This isn't much of a place.' " So she used her magic to make rain. It rained day after day. Week after week.

Month after month. Year after year. And after a while the tracks left by the body of the Rainbow Serpent filled with water. This is how the long winding rivers, the billabongs and the waterholes came into being. Sometimes, as the Rainbow Serpent moved forward, she pushed her nose into the Earth, and the soil piled up in front of her. This is how the mountains, the hills and the valleys came into being. In some places, the milk from her breasts soaked into the Earth and made it fertile. And here great rainforests sprang up, and all sorts of grasses, and carpets of bright-coloured flowers.

When the Rainbow Serpent had made the land to her liking, she went back inside the Earth and woke the creatures who, like her, had been asleep there.