Muldjewangk

The available accounts do not provide a full cosmological origin for the Muldjewangk. Within Ngarrindjeri storytelling the being is situated in the waterways of the lower Murray and Lake Alexandrina and appears in local narratives (for example pestering Ngurunderi and his wives by wrecking their fishing nets). Oral tradition and later retellings present the Muldjewangk as a named water-creature encountered in the river environment rather than offering a detailed creation or origin myth in the sources provided.

Descriptions vary between accounts. Some sources portray Muldjewangks as "evil merfolk," suggesting merfolk-like forms in some tellings, while other accounts describe a "gargantuan monster." Specific story details include reports of "two great hands grasping the hull of the boat" in a steamboat legend and sightings of "large footprints." The sources do not supply a single consistent morphology; appearance is fluid across retellings.

Reported actions in the sources are limited and concrete: wrecking fishing nets (notably pestering Ngurunderi and his wives), attacking or grasping at a steamboat hull in one legend, and hiding beneath large clumps of floating seaweed which are said to conceal them. In the steamboat account, shooting at the hands led to a subsequent supernatural affliction on the shooter (weeping red blisters and eventual death), indicating narratives of retributive consequence for harming or attempting to kill the being. The Muldjewangk functions in stories as a practical deterrent and as an agent that can interfere with human activity on the river.