Typhon those surrounding Python. Although the Delphic monster killed by Apollo is usually said to be the male serpent Python, in the "Homeric Hymn to Apollo", the earliest account of this story, the god kills a nameless she-serpent ("drakaina"), subsequently called Delphyne, who had been Typhon's foster-mother. Delphyne and Echidna, besides both being intimately connected to Typhon—one as mother, the other as mate—share other similarities. Both were half-maid and half-snake, a plague to men, and associated with the Corycian cave in Cilicia. Python was also perhaps connected with a different Corycian Cave than the one in Cilicia, this one on the
Rainbow Serpent creation, in animal and human form that moulded the barren and featureless earth. The Rainbow Serpent came from beneath the ground and created huge ridges, mountains, and gorges as it pushed upward. The Rainbow Serpent is understood to be of immense proportions and inhabits deep permanent waterholes and is in control of life's most precious resource, water. In some cultures, the Rainbow Serpent is considered to be the ultimate creator of everything in the universe. In some cultures, the Rainbow Serpent is male; in others, female; in yet others, the gender is ambiguous or the Rainbow Serpent is hermaphroditic or