The Rainbow Serpent

Aboriginal Australian myth · c. 1800 CE · Myth / Legend · Aboriginal Australian · Romantic

In the Dreaming the great serpent moves across a flat and empty continent, and where it passes the rivers, gorges and waterholes are left behind. It gives the people their country along with the law that governs water, and stirs when that law is broken. Creation told as a landscape that is still the body of its maker.

Open The Rainbow Serpent in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

• shares sources with ↑ The Wawilak Sisters
  Yolngu myth · c. 1800 CE · Myth / Legend

Attributes

Closest analogues

• The Nanabozho Cycle
  Anishinaabe myth · c. 1800 CE · Myth / Legend

  52% · 11 shared
  Myth / LegendFantasyNature vs CivilizationTransformationJustice & RevengeRomanticCreatorOrigin Mythvs Naturevs SupernaturalMythic
• The Wawilak Sisters
  Yolngu myth · c. 1800 CE · Myth / Legend

  49% · 12 shared
  Myth / LegendFantasyAllegoryTransformationRomanticThe Great MotherOrigin MythThe Beastvs Naturevs SupernaturalMythicAboriginal Australian
• Māui Fishes Up the Land
  Polynesian myth · c. 1500 CE · Myth / Legend

  48% · 10 shared
  Myth / LegendFantasyNature vs CivilizationTransformationCreatorOrigin MythThe Seavs Naturevs SupernaturalMythic
• The Book of Revelation
  Christian scripture · c. 95 CE · Scripture

  42% · 8 shared
  FantasyAllegoryJustice & RevengeThe Great MotherShadowThe Beastvs SupernaturalMythic
• Diné Bahaneʼ
  Diné myth · c. 1800 CE · Myth / Legend

  41% · 10 shared
  Myth / LegendFantasyTransformationRomanticCreatorThe Great MotherOrigin Mythvs Naturevs SupernaturalMythic
• Coyote and the Monster
  Nez Perce myth · c. 1800 CE · Myth / Legend

  41% · 10 shared
  Myth / LegendFantasyTransformationRomanticCreatorOrigin MythThe Beastvs Naturevs SupernaturalMythic