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the Flood Myths page.In one version of the myth of the Wawalik sisters, the sisters, with their two infant children, camped by the Mirrirmina waterhole. Some of the older sister's menstrual blood fell into the well. The rainbow serpent Yurlunggur smelled the blood and crawled out of his well. He spit some well water into the sky and hissed to call for rain. The rains came, and the well water started to rise. The women hurriedly built a house and went inside, but Yurlunggur caused them to sleep. He swallowed them and their sons. Then he stood very straight and tall, reaching as high as a cloud, and the flood waters came as high as he did. When he fell, the waters receeded and there was dry ground. [Buchler] Two orphaned children were left in the care of a man called Wirili-up, who shirked the responsibility. The children, always hungry, cried so much that a _ngaljod_ (rainbow serpent) rose from his waterhole and flooded the countryside. Wirili-up fled, but the children drowned. [Mountford]
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References: Buchler, Ira R. & Kenneth Maddock (eds.). The Rainbow Serpent, A Chromatic Piece, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, 1978. Mountford, Charles P. "The Rainbow-Serpent Myths of Australia", in Buchler. Norman, Howard. Northern Tales, Traditional Stories of Eskimo and Indian Peoples, Pantheon Books, New York, 1990.