Long, long ago, at the beginning of the Dreamtime, Earth was a vast plain where nothing grew. It was flat, with no hills or valleys. It was dry and dull, with no rivers or lakes. And everything was brown. The few people who lived on Earth didn't know how to be happy and they never smiled. After all, they had nothing to smile about.
Sometimes they saw bright colours, but these were up in the sky and lasted only a short time. Sometimes after it rained, the sun shone through the last raindrops, making a curved band of colour in the blue sky.
The people down on Earth looked up in envy at the beautiful colours over their heads. But they faded quickly and were gone too soon.
One day, something very strange happened to the bow of colours in the sky. It burst into a shower of coloured sparks that scattered into every corner of the sky. Then the sparks started to form a new shape. The people on Earth watched in wonder.
Soon the colours had taken on the form of a giant serpent. Winding and coiling, its body glowing with colour, the snake twisted its way down to Earth and started slithering along through the flat, empty, colourless landscape.
With every move of his gigantic body, the Rainbow Snake dug deep trenches in the land that would soon fill with water and become rivers. His movements piled up high heaps of land that became mountains. Plants and trees grew on the mountains, and colour came to the land.