The Aboriginal peoples of Australia, keepers of the world's oldest continuous living culture, tell of the Dreamtime — the first age, when the earth and all its creatures were shaped. Among the most cherished of these stories is the legend of the Rainbow Serpent, a great being who helped form the land in those earliest days.

In the beginning, the earth was flat, dry, and utterly still, with no rivers, no valleys, and no mountains. The giant serpent slept for a long age beneath the ground, and then awoke, beginning to move across the wide plains, her enormous body carving deep grooves in the earth wherever she passed.

Wherever the Rainbow Serpent travelled, rivers and valleys formed, following the winding trail of her body, and hills and mountains rose from the earth she pushed aside as she moved. She carried rain and fresh water with her, and life began to stir across the land: grasses sprouted, rivers flowed, and animals came to live in these new places.

Aboriginal peoples believe the Rainbow Serpent still lives today in the depths of rivers and deep waterholes, a guardian of water, rain, and life, and that the colorful rainbow appearing in the sky after rain is a sign of her presence and her continuing care for the land.

The legend of the Rainbow Serpent continues to be told with pride and respect across generations of Aboriginal Australians, a reminder of their deep connection to land and water, and of how every river and valley around them carries a story stretching back to the very beginning of time.