"This design is based on a Maori legend. It was procured from a source in the Otago Early Settlers Museum. It infers the origin of Mosgiel. The wool mural depicts the taniwha at rest on the coastline hills after a desperate search across the swamplands of the Taieri plain. ("Taieri" is a corruption of "Tai-ari" or "tide of the eleventh night of the moon".)

The story consists of exploits of Mere-Mere, a taniwha (or water monster) who was a guardian and pet of Te Rakitauneke, chief of Ngatimoemoe. The taniwha lost its master in the hills around Dunedin and in searching frantically found itself at Whare Flat. It turned round and round creating the flat and eventually found its way through the hills down what is now known as Silverstream to Mosgiel.

Somewhere on the trip it made a hollow, called by the Maoris "Waipotaka" or "turning round and round at midnight".

At Mosgiel the taniwha was really tired and made an even bigger hollow "Te-kokika-o-te Mata-Mata" or "Mata-Mata's crawl". This is where Mosgiel now lies. From there it wriggled down the Taieri Plain and followed the course of the river for a few miles below Allanton, forming the tortuous reach known by the Maoris as "Te Rua-Taniwha" - "The Monster's Lair".

Finally poor Mere-Mere, completely worn out and heartbroken at the loss of his master, writhed and stretched at full length across what was then the Taieri coastal plain and became the coastal range, Saddle Hill being his head."

Betty Fraser, 1981