Great Flood

Flood Stories from Around the World by Mark IsaakOriginal source

IntroductionThe stories below are flood stories from the world's folklore.

I have included stories here if (1) they are stories; (2) they are folklore, not historical accounts or fiction by a known author; and (3) they involve a flood.

For example, one story (Hopi) tells of a flood which was avoided and never occurred.

My method for collecting these stories is simply to collect every flood story I find.

I have omitted a few extremely fragmentary accounts, such as sources that say "These people have a legend of a flood in which most people were killed" and little or nothing more.

However, where the story gives intricate account of events before and/or after the flood (such as in the Zhuang story of Bubo vs.

the Thunder God), some of the details peripheral to the flood itself may have been summarized out of existence.

See Language Grouping for Flood Stories for elaboration of the language groups which, as best I can determine, the stories belong to.

EuropeGreek:Zeus sent a flood to destroy the men of the Bronze Age.

The animals came to him, and by God's help, remained friendly for the duration of the flood.

The flood waters escaped down a chasm opened in Hierapolis.

The Megarians told that Megarus, son of Zeus, escaped Deucalion's flood by swimming to the top of Mount Gerania, guided by the cries of cranes.

An earlier flood was reported to have occurred in the time of Ogyges, founder and king of Thebes.

The flood covered the whole world and was so devastating that the country remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops.

Nannacus, king of Phrygia, lived before the time of Deucalion and foresaw that he and all people would perish in a coming flood.

The floods, especially the third great flood before Deucalion, washed away most of Athens' fertile soil.

Arcadian:Dardanus, first king of Arcadia, was driven from his land by a great flood which submerged the lowlands, rendering them unfit for cultivation.

He was about to set the earth to burning, but considered that that might set heaven itself afire, so he decided to flood the earth instead.

With Neptune's help, he caused storm and earthquake to flood everything but the summit of Parnassus, where Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha came by boat and found refuge.

Recognizing their piety, Jupiter let them live and withdrew the flood.

His spilling blood caused a great flood which killed all humans except a single pair, who were saved in a ship made by a beneficent Titan.

Everybody climbed in and survived the flood floating in the nutshell.

They multiplied slowly so that many thousands of years passed before people were again as numerous as they were before the flood.

Enraged at her insolence, the conqueror determined to punish the queen by drowning her in a great flood.

The flood spread over Queen Katife's country (drowning her) and several cities in Africa.

Evidence of the flood can still be seen in the form of drowned cities on the coast of Africa and ship moorings high above the coast of the Black Sea.

The god Enlil warned the priest-king Ziusudra ("Long of Life") of the coming flood by speaking to a wall while Ziusudra listened at the side.

Violent winds came, and a flood of rain covered the earth for seven days and nights.

[Faulkner, plate 29] (Unfortunately the version of the papyrus with the flood story is damaged and unclear.

The third time, Enlil advised the gods to destroy all humans with a flood, but Enki had Atrahasis build an ark and so escape.

After the seven-day flood, the gods regretted their action.

Even the gods were frightened by the flood's fury.

Chaldean:The god Chronos in a vision warned Xisuthrus, the tenth king of Babylon, of a flood coming on the fifteenth day of the month of Daesius.

After the flood had come and abated somewhat, he sent out some birds, which returned.

After a year and 10 days from the start of the flood, everyone and everything emerged from the ark.

Noah sacrificed some clean animals and birds to God, and God, pleased with this, promised never again to destroy all living creatures with a flood, giving the rainbow as a sign of this covenant.

Men lived at ease before the flood; a single harvest provided for forty years, children were born after only a few days instead of nine months and could walk and talk immediately, and people could command the sun and moon.

God determined to destroy the sinners, but in mercy he instructed Noah to warn them of the threat of a flood and to preach to them to mend their ways.

This book was made of sapphires, and Noah put it in a golden casket and, during the flood, used it to tell day from night, for the sun and moon did not shine at that time.

The flood was caused by male waters from the sky meeting the female waters from the ground.

Since seven pairs of each kind of clean animal were taken, the clean animals outnumbered the unclean after the flood.

The giant Og, king of Bashan, was also too big and escaped the flood sitting atop the ark.

When the flood began, the sinners gathered around it and rushed the door, but the wild beasts aboard the ark guarded the door and set upon them.

Those which escaped the beasts drowned in the flood.

A week later Noah sent out a dove, and on its third flight it returned with an olive leaf plucked from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, for the Holy Land had not suffered from the flood.

Aprocryphal scripture tells that Adam directed that his body, together with gold, incense, and myrrh, should be taken aboard the Ark and, after the flood, should be laid in the middle of the earth.

At one time he cast a flood of water from his mouth trying to wash her away, but the earth helped the woman and swallowed the flood.

The first flood drowned the creatures, but the dead noxious creatures went into holes in the earth.

Before returning to cause the second flood, Tistar, in the form of a white horse, battled the demon Apaosha, who took the form of a black horse.

The poison washed from the land by the second flood made the seas salty.

In return for the kindness, the goat told her there will be a flood that day and advised her and her brother to run elsewhere immediately.

After the flood, they lived on their own for many years, unable to find mates.

When they were all aboard and provisioned, God caused a great long rain which caused a flood, and all other men and beasts drowned.

The rain finally stopped, and Tumbainot let loose a dove to ascertain the state of the flood.

The vulture returned that evening without the arrow, so Tumbainot reasoned that it must have landed on carrion, and that the flood was receding.

It shattered, and the resulting flood drowned everything.

The flood rose, covering the mountains.

He cut open the trunk, and water came out in a great flood that spread all over the earth.

There was a flood when this happened.

Without his assistance, mankind couldn't interpret the desires of the gods, and one god, Olokun, in a fit of rage, destroyed nearly everybody in a great flood.

Efik-Ibibio (Nigeria):The sun and moon are man and wife, and their best friend was flood, whom they often visited.

They often invited flood to visit them, but he demurred, saying their house was too small.

Sun and moon built a much larger house, and flood could no longer refuse their invitation.

When flood was knee-deep in the house, he asked if he should continue coming and was again invited to do so.

The flood brought many relatives, including fish and sea beasts.

The flood kept rising, submerging the house entirely, and the sun and moon made a new home in the sky.

Everyone ran to Etim 'Ne, fleeing the flood.

Etim 'Ne prayed to Obassi, who stopped the flood but let a lake remain covering the farm of the bad son.

Samoyed (north Siberia):Seven people were saved in a boat from a flood.

A terrible draught followed the flood, but the people were saved by digging a deep hole in which water formed.

Yenisey-Ostyak (north central Siberia):Flood waters rose for seven days.

Kamchadale (northeast Siberia):A flood covered the whole land in the early days of the world.

Seven days later, the cables gave way from the earth, showing that the flood had risen 80 fathoms.

After the flood, Kezer-Tshingis-Kaira-Khan created everything around us.

Years later, Hailibu heard some birds saying that the next day the mountains would erupt and flood the land.

To convince them, he told them how he had learned of the coming flood and told them the full story of the precious stone.

It rained all the next night, and the mountains erupted, belching forth a great flood of water.

The flood destroyed all animals left on earth, including the Prince of animals, whose bones can still be found.

When the devil found out, he destroyed by night what Noj built by day, so the boat was not completed when the flood came.

When the flood rose, the fish came, and Manu tied the craft to its horn.

After the flood, a messenger of Rama sent to find the state of affairs discovered the box by the cock's crowing.

The man and woman heard it coming, so they shut their children in a hollow piece of wood with provisions to last until the flood subsides.

The birds told God, who caused the flood to subside, took the children from the log, and heard their story.

Assam (northeastern India):A flood once covered the whole world and drowned everyone except for one couple, who climbed up a tree on the highest peak of the Leng hill.

Tamil (southern India):Half of the land mass Kumari Kandam, which was south of India, sank in a great flood, destroying the first Tamil Sangam (literary academy).

Lepcha (Sikkim):A couple escaped a great flood on the top of a mountain called Tendong, near Darjeeling.

Threatended by waters which continued to rise, the people threw Ngai-ti into the flood, which then receded.

That is how the flood began.

A pair of golden birds flew down to them one day, warned them that a huge wave would flood the earth, and told them to take shelter in a gourd and not to come out until they heard the birds again.

Then torrents of rain fell, and the resulting flood washed everything away.

After long waiting, they heard the birds calling, left the gourd, and found they had landed atop a mountain, and the flood had receded.

Jino (southern Yunnan, China, near Mekong R.):From the time of creation, people's lives were happy and peaceful, but one year a great flood came.

They instructed the children not to come out until the flood had gone down.

The flood came, and the children floated for an undeterminable period.

But the flood suddenly subsided, stranding him there.

China:The Supreme Sovereign ordered the water god Gong Gong to create a flood as punishment and warning for human misbehavior.

Gong Gong extended the flood for 22 years, and people had to live in high mountain caves and in trees, fighting with wild animals for scarce resources.

Unable to persuade the Supreme Sovereign to stop the flood, and told by an owl and a turkey about Xirang or Growing Soil, the supernatural hero Gun stole Growing Soil from heaven to dam the waters.

Yu led other gods to drive away Gong Gong, distributed the Growing Soil to remove most of the flood, and led the people to fashion rivers from Ying's tracks and thus channel the remaining floodwaters to the sea.

The old man said their work was futile because a flood would soon come.

Let him go and make a wooden barrel." When the flood came, the older brother sank in the iron barrel, but the younger brother, with his sister, floated.

Joser (Ye Seo), the Spirit of the Sky, sent two spirits to warn the people of a coming flood.

The spirits told them that a flood was coming and they should be preparing drums instead of farming.

When the flood came, he put his two children, a brother and sister, in the drum, and they floated up to the sky.

He built a raft and sailed on the flood to the gate of heaven to fight the thunder chief, but the flood withdrew too quickly.

In the enemy camp, he found a black face belching fire at the castle, a genii studying astrology, a rat whose swinging tail produced a flood which threatened the castle, and a giant who hurled flames at the King's camp.

He fled with the king to an island, but the rat tried to submerge it with an even greater flood from its tail.

When a third island was threatened with the flood, they took refuge on a ship.

He carried them to shore and released them, but the boy had lost his parents in the flood and so became the man's adopted son.

Waterfall, though, made water which not only put out the fire, but created a flood that nearly drowned the tigers.

Iron-shoes skated out and kicked the heads off the tigers, and Long-rake broke up the ice and threw it far and wide, eliminating any trace of the flood.

Sing Bonga regretted creating them and resolved to destroy them by flood.

They took refuge in a stone cave and emerged unharmed when the flood was over.

Then the brother heard a cock crowing outside, sent by the spirits to signal that the flood had abated.

Kammu (northern Thailand):A brother and sister tried to dig out a bamboo rat, but it told them it was digging to escape a coming flood and instructed them to seal themselves inside a drum to save themselves.

(In another version, they took along a needle and knew the flood was over when no water leaked in the hole they poked.) They looked far and wide for mates, but they were the only survivors.

The rat begged for its life and offered, in exchange, to tell them how to survive the great rain that would soon flood the entire world.

He sent Bok Glaih to make thunder and rain, causing a worldwide flood that drowned humanity.

In anger, Puluga, the Creator, sent a flood which covered the whole land, except perhaps Saddle Peak where Puluga himself resided.

Of all creatures, the only survivors were two men and two women who had the fortune to be in a canoe when the flood came.

Incensed, Puluga hurled the brand at the bird, but it missed and landed where the four flood survivors were seated.

However, the Creator warned them away from such rash action, explained that men had brought the flood on themselves by their disobedience, and that another such offense would likewise be met with punishment.

The children were angry that he had tricked them, but Thunder God promised that he would repay them by saving them from the flood that he would bring in a few days.

Pelting rain then fell from the sky, and soon there was a vast flood.

Lip-long had seen ill omens while auguring with chicken bones and knew a calamity was coming, so he was not surprised to hear the water-god tell him that Ling-lawn, the storm god, would soon flood the earth and destroy everything on it.

A few days after he finished the raft, the flood came, rushing violently.

One vine ran downward and rotted and died from soaking in the water from the flood.

Sao-pang dried what remained of the flood with waves of heat.

In another version of this legend, the survivors were the most righteous seven men and seven women, who crawled into the dry shell of a giant gourd and survived the flood floating in it.

Tsuwo (Formosa interior):When the Tsuwo ancestors were dispersed, a great flood came, and everyone was forced to flee to the top of Mount Niitaka-yama.

The people agreed, the pig swam off, and soon the flood water sank.

The people decided to make a new river, with the help of the animals, to prevent another great flood.

A crab appeared and cut through the body of the snake, and the flood subsided.

Immediately a great flood covered the world.

Before the flood, the land had been quite flat; many mountains and valleys were formed by it.

Wandering away on foot, they saw smoke in the distance and, fearing another eruption and flood, hastened away.

During this fight, a great flood came down from the mountains, drowning everyone except two or three menials who had been sent to the hills to gather firewood.

Only a brother and sister named Wigam and Bugan survived a primeval flood, on Mount Amuyas.

Mandaya (Philippines):A great flood once drowned all the world's inhabitants except one pregnant woman.

Tinguian (Luzon, Philippines):When the god Kaboniyan sent a flood to cover the earth, fire hid itself deep inside bamboo, stone, and iron.

Debata, the Creator, sent a flood to destroy every living thing when the earth grew old and dirty.

The last pair of humans took refuge on the highest mountain, and the flood had already reached their knees, when Debata repented his decision to destroy mankind.

When the flood sank, she came down from the tree and found herself alone.

She found a fish, but it hid in one of the corpses left by the flood.

When the flood came, a man named Trow made a boat from a large wooden mortar previously used for pounding rice.

He took with him his wife, a dog, pig, cat, fowl, and other animals, and rode out the flood.

No sooner had he done so, however, when a terrible storm arose, causing a flood which killed all but the few who escaped to the highest hills.

They dwelt there for three months until the flood subsided.

Toradja (central Celebes):A flood once covered everything but the summit of Mount Wawom Pebato (seashells on the hills are evidence).

Alfoor (Celam, between Celebes and New Guinea):As a great worldwide flood receded, the mountain Noesake emerged with its sides clothed with trees whose leaves were shaped like female genitalia.

Nage (Flores):Dooy, the forefather of the Nages, was saved from a great flood in a ship.

Then he stood very straight and tall, reaching as high as a cloud, and the flood waters came as high as he did.

Women lost their grinding stones from their vagina when the flood washed them out to sea.

Fitzroy River area, Western Australian:During the Dreamtime flood, woramba, the Ark Gumana carrying Noah, Aborigines, and animals, drifted south and came to rest in the flood plain of Djilinbadu (about 70 km south of Noonkanbah Station, just south of the Barbwire Range and east of the Worral Range), where it can still be seen today.

[Flood, p.

Mount Elliot (coastal Queensland):A great flood drowned most of the people.

He tried to warn his people, but the flood came and washed away all the people and their possessions, forming a hill of silt.

A terrible flood washed over the hills and killed the two women.

Victoria:Bunjil, the creator, was angry with people because of the evil they did, so he caused the ocean to flood by urinating into it.

The people fled to a high hill, but the flood rose, and when it touched their feet, they turned into black swans.

Many were drowned in the flood.

Kurnai (Gippsland, Victoria):Long ago, a great flood covered the country.

The frilled lizards had made shelters on mountains, and some animals managed to make their way there, but nearly all life was destroyed in the great flood.

When the flood ended and the sun shone again, the kangaroo called animals together to discover how the platypus family had fared.

Because of the flood, the platypuses had decided that the animals, birds, and reptiles were their enemies and only moved about at night.

The earth had been much changed by the flood, and the people on the raft were the only survivors.

In another version, the flood was caused by the copious weeping of Tawhaki's mother.

Soon a great flood came forth, and the people had to retreat to the highest peaks until the sea receded.

Mamberao River (Irian Jaya):A rising river caused a flood which overwhelmed Mount Vanessa.

Papua New Guinea:A flood covered the whole world except for the summit of Mount Tauga.

The gods came looking for her again after the flood ebbed, but they found her dead.

The flood came and covered the village at the next full moon.

Milathk perished in the flood, but was recalled to life by the oldest Obakad god.

When he had done so, she said that a great flood will come and kill all the people of Yap, so they must climb the highest mountain and build a seven-story pile-dwelling there.

In anger, she rolled away the stone which had confined the sea, and the sea poured out in a great flood.

The husband said they should escape to Mount Orofena, but the wife said (correctly) that the flood would reach even there, and they should go to Mount Pita-hiti instead, which they did.

She warned him that her parents, Kahinalii and Hinakaalualumoana, would cause the ocean to flood the land so that her brothers, the pao'o fish, may search for her.

The people fled to the mountains, and the flood covered the mountains; they climbed the trees, and the flood rose above the trees and drowned them all.

This flood is called kai-a-ka-hina-lii.

The people had turned to evil, so Kane punished their sin with a flood.

After the flood, these people repopulated the islands.

North AmericaInnuit:An unusually high tide caused a global flood.

Ice drifted on the water, and when the flood subsided, ice was stranded to form ice-caps on the tops of mountains.

Tchiglit Eskimo (Point Barrow to Cape Bathurst):A great flood broke over the land.

Then he threw in his earrings, causing the flood to subside.

Herschel Island Eskimo:Noah invited all animals to save themselves aboard his ark, but the mammoths thought there would not be much of a flood and that their legs were long enough to deal with it, so they stayed outside and became extinct.

Netsilik Eskimo:A flood killed all animals and humans except for two Shaman, who survived in a boat.

Proof of the flood is found in the form of sea fossils on high mountains.

In a rage, the uncle called for a flood, and a flood came and covered all the mountains.

Hareskin (Alaska):Kunyan ("Wise Man"), foreseeing the possibility of a flood, built a great raft, joining the logs with ropes made from roots.

He told other people, but they laughed at him and said they'd climb trees in the event of a flood.

Then came a great flood, with water gushing from all sides, rising higher than the trees and drowning all people but the Wise Man and his family on his raft.

Six times the fox ran around the island; by the seventh time, the land was as large as it was before the flood, and the animals disembarked, followed by Wise Man with his wife (who was also his sister) and son.

But the flood waters were still too high, and to lower them, the bittern swallowed them all.

One man foresaw the flood and warned his fellows, but in vain; the flood covered their intended mountain escape.

He scrambled into a giant hollow straw that floated past, caulked up the ends, and floated safely until the flood dried.

One old man had foreseen the flood and warned everybody, but the others had thought to escape to the hills; they drowned in the flood.

Kaska (northern inland British Columbia):A great flood came; people survived it on rafts and canoes.

When the flood subsided, people landed at the nearest land and lived where they had landed.

Thompson Indians (British Columbia):A flood once covered all but the summits of some of the highest mountains.

When the flood subsided, leaving him in the Thompson River area, he resumed his normal shape.

The flood left lakes in the hollows of the mountains, streams flowing from them, and fish in them; none of these existed before the flood.

Long ago there was a flood which killed all creatures except a single raven.

When the flood had gone down, he looked about but found no mate, so he became very lonely.

Tsimshian (British Columbia):The flood was sent by the god Laxha, who had become annoyed by the noise of boys at play.

All people except for a few were destroyed by a flood, which was sent by heaven to punish man's ill behavior.

The earth had no mountains or trees before the flood.

Kwakiutl (north Vancouver Island):Very long ago, a flood covered everything but three mountains, one near Bella-Bella, one northeast of there, and a hill called Ko-Kwus on Don Island which rose with the flood to stay above the water.

There was no fresh water when the flood subsided.

The husband and wife escaped to a mountain until the flood receded.

The husband killed it, and its blood caused the flood.

Squamish (British Columbia):When the Squamish saw the great flood coming, they held a council and decided to make a giant canoe.

Diversity of language arose from their being scattered; there was but one speech before the flood.

The others fled to the mountains, but the flood rose to cover them, too.

The flood covered all land except the peak of Split Mountain (Ncikato) on the west side of Lower Lillooet Lake.

Klallam (northwest Washington):People escaped the great flood in canoes tied by ropes to the summit of a tall mountain.

The top of the mountain broke off in the flood, leaving two peaks visible in a ridge in the Olympics.

The canoes floated away and came to rest, after the flood, in the region where Seattle is now.

Once a big flood came.

The flood covered the Olympic Mountains.

When people started talking to the trees the change came in the form of a flood.

When the people saw the flood coming, they made a giant canoe and filled it with five people and a male and female of all plants and animals.

Next, at the direction of the Old Creator, he gathered the bones of the people who lived before the flood, waved the blanket over them and named the four names, and made people again.

Then they spoke many different languages, and Doquebuth blew them back to the places they lived before the flood.

Someday, another flood will come and change the world again.

Twana (Puget Sound, Washington):The people were wicked, and to punish them, a flood came which covered all the land except one mountain.

When the flood nearly reached the sky, they thought to fetch up some earth.

Cascade Mountains:A flood overflowed the land.

Spokana, Nez Perce, Cayuse (eastern Washington):These tribes also have traditions of a flood in which one man and his wife survived on a raft.

Soon after the canoe was finished, the flood came, filling the valleys and covering the mountains.

We don't know how long the flood stayed.

The earth will be destroyed by another flood if people do wrong a second time.

Warm Springs (Oregon):Twice, a great flood came.

When they saw a third flood coming, they put the bravest young men and fairest young women in the canoe, with plenty of food.

Then the flood, bigger and deeper than the earlier ones, swallowed the land.

But he found more tracks again, coming from the west, so he caused a second flood.

Ohlone (San Francisco to Monterey, California):A fight between the great forces of Good and Evil was followed by an immense flood.

Humans and animals were all washed away by a flood which covered everything.

Afterwards, taskmasters forced the remaining people to build a great temple so that the ruling caste may have a refuge in case of another flood.

The flood was gone, and the world was beautiful.

Everyone but Gopher was killed in a flood.

Yuma (western Arizona, southern California):Komashtam'ho caused a great rain and started to flood out the large dangerous animals, but he was persuaded that people needed some of the animals for food.

She emerged when the flood subsided.

Ashochimi (California):A great flood covered the earth and drowned every living creature except the coyote.

Wherever a wigwam had stood before the flood, he planted a feather.

A flood came, and they could save only those four things.

After a second flood, only those four were left on earth, and they created the rest of the world.

Nenebuc built a raft, which was ready no sooner than the flood reached him.

As the raft floated on the flood, Nenebuc took on animals that were swimming in the waters.

He ran to a bluff; a pine tree there told Wenebojo to climb it, and the tree stretched higher, saving Wenebojo from the flood with his nose barely above water.

However, Manobozho couldn't disperse the flood without some earth to use as a nucleus.

The underground Ana maqkiu soon came back, saw the wounded Bear chiefs, and called for a flood from the earth.

Later, they went south again, but another flood came and scattered them, and they never came together again.

Rebuked by his master, the dog said a flood was coming, and he must build and provision a boat.

The Mandans celebrate the subsidence of the flood every year with a ceremony called Mee-nee-ro-ka-ha-sha, held when willow leaves are fully grown because the twig that the turtle-dove brought home had such leaves.

If this sacrifice is not made, the man says, another flood will come and destroy everyone.

He created the rainbow as a sign that there would be no more great flood, but warned that he had destroyed the first world by fire because it was bad, and the second world by flood, and he would destroy this world too if people make it bad and ugly.

Unktehi, a water monster, fought the people and caused a great flood.

A giant eagle, Wanblee Galeshka, swept down, saved one girl from the flood, carrying her to a tree on the highest pinnacle, the only place not covered by water.

This caused a great flood which covered the country.

Choctaw (Mississippi):A prophet was sent by the high god to warn of a coming flood, but nobody took notice.

When the flood came, the prophet took to a raft.

Natchez (Lower Mississippi):A great rain fell so abundantly that it extinguished all fires and caused a flood which drowned all but a few people who saved themselves on a high mountain.

People were warned to go to the tops of four mountains (Tsisnatcin, Tsabidzilhi, Becdilhgai, and another whose identity isn't known), and not to look at the flood or sky.

Those who looked at the flood turned into a fish or frog (as did some who were caught in the flood); if they looked at the sky, they turned into a bird.

Eight other people survived the flood who were able to travel by looking where they wanted to go, and they were there.

These people told the Apaches about the flood before going into two mountains themselves.

When they later emerged, the surface of the earth was covered with water from that flood.

People lived happily in the lower world for eight years, but in the ninth, a flood came.

Turkey was the last to ascend, and the foaming flood waters touched his tail and left their mark there to this day.

Luiseño (Southern California):A great flood covered high mountains and drowned most people.

A few saved themselves on a knoll called Mora by the Spaniards and Katuta by the Indians, staying there until the flood went down.

Pima (southwest Arizona):After the earth had become peopled, the great eagle told a seer in the Gila valley, on three occasions, to warn the people about a great flood that would soon come, but the seer ridiculed him and ignored his warnings.

Szeukha made a ladder that reached into the clouds and went to fight the great eagle, whom he thought had caused the flood.

He resolved further to destroy mankind entirely with a great flood.

(The people were amazed and frightened by the powers shown by Elder Brother and his agent during these years.) This last child's screams shook the earth, and it was he who caused the flood.

The Creator called the people together and warned them of the nearing flood.

Elder Brother did tell coyote to find a big log on which to float safely on the flood.

Elder Brother closed himself in the jar, known as Black House, and the flood came.

The Creator survived the flood by enclosing himself in his reed staff and floating.

Some people ran up Slanting Mountain (Superstition Mountain) and prayed to the Great Spirit to stop the flood, but when the water threatened to swallow them up, they turned into rocks in fright.

Se-eh-ha and his brother Juvet-Makai (Earth Medicine Man) hurriedly made canoes and rode out the flood in them.

The flood rose high enough to drench their tails, leaving them drenched-looking for all time.

The flood lasted four days, and Se-eh-ha, Juvet-Makai, and Coyote were tossed in different directions.

Papago (Arizona):Back when the sun was closer to the earth, Coyote foresaw the coming of a flood, gnawed down a great tree, entered it, and sealed the opening.

Only they survived the flood, which covered all the land.

They met again on the top of Monte Rosa, which rose above the flood waters.

Sotuknang caused a great flood with rain and waves, and the people floated in their reeds for a long time.

Zuni (New Mexico):A great flood once forced the Zunis out of their valley to take refuge on a nearby tableland.

But the flood rose nearly to the top of the tableland, and the people, fearing it would drown them all, decided to offer a human sacrifice to appease the angry waters.

A youth and maiden, children of two Priests of the Rain, were dressed in finery and thrown into the flood.

Central AmericaTarascan (northern Michoacan, Mexico):When the great flood came, God built a house.

The house floated on the flood, and all who had helped build it were saved in it.

When the flood started going down, the man sent out a raven, but it stayed out to eat dead bodies.

After the world was destroyed by a flood, a boy, very hungry, got out of his canoe to heat a gorda.

Michoacan (Mexico):When the flood waters began to rise, a man named Tezpi entered into a great vessel, taking with him his wife and children and diverse seeds and animals.

After the flood, two angels appeared to two of the survivors, and the angel San Gabriel came, sent by Dios, telling the people to "go by the way of our Dios and Father." When they arrived at Venedici, they heard the voice of Dios, who promised the rainbow as a sign that no other flood would destroy earth.

After the flood, God sent three men and three women to repopulate the earth.

They came down when the flood subsided, bringing with them three grains of corn and three beans.

She told him that he was working in vain because a flood was coming in five days.

(In other versions, the vessel was a canoe.) She closed him in and caulked the cracks, and he floated in the flood for five years, first floating south, then north, then west, then east, then rising upward as the whole world flooded.

The old woman, who had sat upon the box with a macaw during the flood, turned to wind and disappeared.

Cora (east of the Huichols):As in the Huichol myth, a woodman was warned of a coming flood by a woman.

He embarked at midnight as the flood began.

When the flood subsided, he waited five days and sent out the sandpiper, which came back and cried, "Ee-wee-wee", indicating the earth was too wet to walk upon.

Survivors of the flood escaped in a canoe.

The old man told him not to work anymore because a flood was coming, and instead to build an ark and take on it pairs of all animals, corn, and water.

The flood came, and the ark wandered over the waters for forty days.

The monkey told him that God didn't want him to work because a flood was coming, and it gave him instructions for building a coffinlike craft.

The man built the box and got into it, and when the flood came, the monkey rode atop it.

When the flood subsided, the man got out and built a fire to cook some fish he found.

The other gods, angry at his audacity, had Quetzalcoatl destroy the sun and the earth, which he did with a flood.

The man survived the flood in this box.

The earth was peopled, but a flood destroyed them, and Creator-of-All-Things restored the world.

Zapotec (Oaxaca, southern Mexico):The Angel Gabriel warned Noéh that a flood was coming because of mankind's sins.

The buzzard became ugly because of his actions, and the trip of a person unmindful of his mission is called a "buzzard's trip." Petela, a great Zapotec chieftain of Ocelotepeque, was descended from the survivors of the flood.

Some giants, feeling that a flood was coming, carved underground houses for themselves out of great slabs of rock.

Trique (Oaxaca, southern Mexico):Nexquiriac sent down a great flood to punish mankind for its very wicked ways.

When the flood was almost over, Nexquiriac told the man not to come out, but to bury the box, along with himself, until the face of the earth had been burned.

Totonac (eastern Mexico):A man, warned by God, survived the flood in a tree he had hollowed out.

A flood destroyed mankind.

Right after the flood, he lit a fire, and God smelled the smoke.

The Padre Santo warned two brothers that a flood was coming, and they, with many animals, survived in an ark.

So Heart of Sky destroyed them with a flood.

God destroyed them with a flood because of their carelessness in their observation of custom.

These, too were destroyed by a flood.

The Maya reigned during the third period, but their period was also ended by flood.

Three people escaped a third and final flood in a canoe.

The flood came and subsided.

God told a man to stop working, because a flood was coming.

Panama:One man, with his wife and children, escaped the flood in a canoe.

This flood separated the Carib's islands from the mainland and caused their present terrain.

But the water began overflowing and threatened to flood the land, so Sigu wove a magic basket and covered the trunk with it.

Kuamachi dropped one fruit; water came out of it, spread, and caused a flood, covering everything but the trees.

Later the evil spirit got more power on earth, so Makunaima sent a great flood.

He sent a rat to see whether the flood had abated, and the rat returned with a cob of maize.

When the flood had subsided, the man threw stones behind him, which became other people.

To destroy the good works of her husband, she magically caused the river Funza (Rio Bogota) to flood the whole Cundinamarca plateau.

Tamanaque (Orinoco):In the time of the great flood, "the Age of Water," the sea broke against the Encamarada mountain chain, and people were forced into canoes.

After the flood, as they descended the mountain grieving the destruction of mankind, they heard a voice telling them to throw the fruits of the Mauritia palm over their heads behind them.

Arawak (Guyana):Since its creation, the world has been destroyed twice, once by fire and once by flood, by the great god Aiomun Kondi because of the wickedness of mankind.

The pious and wise chief Marerewana was informed of the coming of the flood and saved himself and his family in a large canoe.

When they came down after the flood, they could not find even a sign of a single corpse.

According to some Jivaro, the flood was survived by a man and woman, who took refuge in a cave on a high mountain along with samples of all the various animal species.

Two brothers survived the flood in a mountain which rose higher and higher with the flood waters.

They went looking for food after the flood, and when they returned, found food set out for them.

When he heard it thud on ground rather than splash, he knew the flood had subsided.

Cañari (Quito, Ecuador):Two brother escaped a great flood on top of the tall mountain Huaca-yñan.

Ancasmarca (near Cuzco, Peru):A month before the flood came, the sheep showed much sadness, watching the stars at night and not eating.

As the flood water rose, the mountain rose higher, so its top was never submerged, and the mountain later sank with the water.

The six children repopulated the province after the flood.

They all cried, and their crying produced rain, earthquake, and flood.

When its human owner complained that it wouldn't eat, the llama told him that the flood would occur in five days and suggested they go to Villca Coto mountain with five days' food.

The flood came as soon as they arrived and lasted five days, then it dried to the ocean's normal position.

Inca (Peru):Pictorial records of ancient Incan rulers show that a flood rose above the highest mountains.

When the flood subsided, the floating box was driven by the wind to Tiahuanacu, about 200 miles from Cuzco, where the Creator told them to dwell.

He destroyed the rest with a great flood.

When the flood subsided, it left the lakes Titicaca and Poopo, and it left seashells on the Altiplano at elevations of 3660 m.

Viracocha saved two stone giants from the flood and with their help created people his own size.

One day, a group of ragged Indians came and warned the proud inhabitants that the city would be destroyed by earthquake, flood, and fire.

Other earthquakes and more rain followed, and a flood soon covered the ruined city; this water is Lake Titicaca today.

Khuno, the snow god, decided to kill them with a flood, but the mountain god Illimani suggested instead that they be driven to great hardship.

Khuno sent a flood that spared their lives but destroyed everything they had managed to build and grow.

The flood rose, covering the earth and killing the rest of the Chiriguanos, but the two babies survived and eventually landed on solid ground when the flood sank.

Fortunately, before the flood, a frog had taken some hot coals in his mouth, and it kept them alight during the flood by blowing on them.

It kept rising until it became a flood.

The great god Tupi warned a medicine man named Tamanduare of a coming great flood that would cover the earth, and he told Tamanduare to seek refuge on a lofty peak with a palm tree at its top.

Only a few people survived, who descended when the flood had gone.

Coroado (south Brazil):A flood once covered the whole earth except for the top of the coastal range Serra do Mar.

When the flood subsided, the Coroados descended, except for the ones which had climbed into trees, who became monkeys.

The flood came after a strong earthquake and volcanic eruption.

All were drowned in the ensuing flood.

A flood came which covered the world.

Some people reached the five mountaintops which stayed above the flood.

The moon-woman Hánuxa caused the flood because she was full of hatred against the people, especially the men, who had taken over the women's secret kina ceremony and made it their own.

10/6/2001: New Hindu flood from Mahabharata.

The flood myth and the origin of ethnic groups in Southeast Asia.

"The Flood Motif and the Symbolism of Rebirth in Filipino Mythology", in Dundes.

Dundes, Alan (ed.) The Flood Myth, University of California Press, Berkeley and London, 1988.

Flood, Josephine.

(Most of the flood stories in this work are taken from Frazer, 1919.)

"Noah and the Flood in Jewish Legend", in Dundes; reprinted from The Legends of the Jews, vol.

"Some Observations on the Assyro-Babylonian and Sumerian Flood Stories", in Dundes.

"Myth Motifs in Flood Stories from the Grasslands of Cameroon", in Dundes.

"The Principle of Retribution in the Flood and Catastrophe Myths", in Dundes.

"The Flood: Three Northern Kammu Versions of the Story of Creation", in Dundes.

"The Flood Myth as Vesical Dream", in Dundes.