InSlavic mythology,vodyanoy (Russian:водяной,IPA:[vədʲɪˈnoj];lit. '[he] from the water' or 'watery') is awater spirit. In Czech and Slovak fairy tales, he is calledvodník (or inGermanized form:Hastrman), and often referred to asWassermann in German sources.[a] In Ukrainian fairy tales, he is called “водяник“ (vodyanyk).
He may appear to be a naked man with a pot belly (and bald-headed) wearing a hat and belt ofreeds andrushes, conflicting with other accounts ascribing him green hair and a long green beard. The varying look has been attributed in commentary to his shape-shifting ability. When angered, the vodyanoy breaks dams, washes down water mills, and drowns people and animals. Consequently, fishermen, millers, and alsobee-keepers make sacrifices to appease him. The vodyanoy would sometimes drag people down to his underwater dwelling to serve him as slaves.
Thevodník in Czechia or Slovakia were said to use colored ribbons (sometimes impersonating peddlers, but also tying them to grass, etc., as lures in the landscape) to attract humans near water in order to snatch them.
In Russia, thevodyanoy is sometimes called thededushka vodyanoy[b] (Дѣдушка-водяной, "Water-Grandfather") orvodyanik (водяник).[3][4]
He is said to dwell in aslough (омут),kettle hole (Котловина), or awhirlpool of a river, pond or lake, and liked especially to live near awatermill. One that dwells in marshlands may be called abolotnyanik (Болотняник).[3]
His usual appearance is that of a naked old man with a fat paunch of a belly and swollen face according to the Russian folklore collector,[5] but a later English commentary using similar phraseology insisted the creature was not nude but bald, and concatenates additional commentary from the Russian source which says he is seen naked but covered in slime (тина), wearing a highboyar hat [ru]) made of green "club-rush" (or othersedges)[c] and a green belt of that same "grass".[6][7]
He is also described as an old man with green hair and (long[8]) green beard[10][11] The green beard turns white with when the moon wanes, as the immortal Vodyanoy ages or rejuvenates with thephases of the moon.[11]
Or, rather than wearing plant-based clothing, a different source states he is covered in weeds and slime, and is scaly-skinned in his true form.[8] Or rather a figure of giant stature covered in grass and moss.[11] Or be "quite black with enormous red eyes and a nose as long as a fisherman's boot".[11][2] Or that he is human-faced, but has huge toes, paws instead of hands, long horns, a tail, and eyes that burn like red-hot coals.[11][12]
He has the capability of shape-shifting,[4][8][11] which has been suggested as an explanation of its varied descriptions.[2] He may crawl out of water in the dark of the night and comb his (green) hair on shore,[13][4] but he can also appear in the form of a naked woman combing her hair.[11] He may be heard all along the shore while he is slapping the water with his palm (ладонь, or paw[11]) on moonlit nights.[13]
He can appear as a giant moss-covered fish,[11] a log[8] or even a flying tree-trunk with small-wings, skimming over the water's surface.[11]
Since he tampers with the waterwheel, the dikes, or control of water if he is not pleased, an operator of a mill must know how to have a good relationship with him. When a watermill is built, a sacrifice of pig, cattle, sheep, or even human (or a chicken) must be made to appease the vodyanik. There are reported cases of watermills destroyed by him (atLake Ilmen for instance), and may drown a person as forewarned.[14][4]
The fisherman can also benefit from the boon of the vodyanoy, receiving a bountiful harvest in their fishing nets.[d] He may receive this reward after returning a child which was accidentally netted.[15][8] The fishermen offer sacred libation, especially melted butter or oil (масло) into the river.[4][14][16]
There seems to have been a cult recognizing vodyanoy as a patron saint ofbee-keeping, as evidenced by the old custom of bagging the first swarm of bees and sacrificing it in water. And the bee-keeper wishing for a bounty of honey would choose the midnight hour of the feast days of SaintsZosimus andSabbatius and dip a honeycomb into the water by the mill, while pronouncing an incantation.[17]
He will also foretell the coming harvest. He comes into the village disguised as human, but the edge of his coat (балахон) will be visibly wet, and gives himself away. If he buys corn (grain) at a high price it forewarns spike in market price, i.e.,crop failure. But if he buys at low price, the bread will remain cheap.[17]
The vodyanik "owns" all the fish and aquatic creatures, and his control over them explains his ability to deliver fish. The vodyanik selects in particular the sheatfish (сом;Silurus glanis, aka "wels catfish") as his mount to ride on.[18][4] But he will catch the farmers' cattle or horses (in water) and ride them till they drop dead in the wetlands.[18][4] The farmer fording his livestock will make a sign of cross (emblem of Perun's weapon) over the river as protection from this happening.[18]
The vodyanoy also posed risk of attacking people entering bodies of water, hence popular belief was to make thesign of the cross before swimming or bathing in such waters.[8] An anecdote tells about a hunter trying to retrieve his duck, and the attack left the creature's finger-marks on his neck.[18] In Ukraine, children were instructed to chant a certain rhyme before going bathing/swimming.[e][19]
He is known to take on a wife (or wives), and espouses "water-nymphs[f][g] or drowned and unhappy girls who have been cursed by their fathers or mothers".[21][4] According toAfanasyev, the "water-nymph" ("water-maiden") is known by various names in Russia, including therusalka.[h][21][4]
It is believed that vodyanoys have a ruler: the Tsar Vodyanik, or the Vodyan Tsar. He is described as an old man armed with aclub, who can rise to the sky sitting on a black cloud and create new rivers and lakes.[22]
The Russianvodyanoy answers toCzech (andSlovak)vodník,[i]Slovenevodeni mož ("water-man"), andPolishtopielec ("Drowner").[4]
These water demons of West and South Slavic lore are similar to the East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, etc.) conception, though there are certain differences. The Czech and Slovakvodníci (plural ofvodník) can also take on an appearance of ordinary humans, but often with water dripping from their clothing, which makes their false identity easily discernable.[25] But their version says the demon, sometimes impersonating peddlers, use coloredribbons to lure humans.[26][29] Some accounts give them green color,[30] and also long hair or beard in Slovak versions.[31] There is an isolated Czech example of the water-demon being human-like but transforming into frog,[32] but the water-demon's wife being froglike iscommonplace. A widely known tale type ofvodník or wife hiring a woman asgodmother or housekeeper tale is found in Czech[33] and Slovak versions.[35][36]
Czech, Slovenian and Slovak tales have both evil and good watermen (relative to human beings) who do (or don't, respectively) try to drown people when they happen to swim in their territory. Vodníci would store the souls of the drowned inside pots,[37][24] and the liberated souls can ascend to heaven, or even revive.[38][39]
Except for fish (or perhaps fish spirits), they do not have servants. Otherwise, vodníci spend their time running their territory or – in their spare time – playing cards, smoking pipes or just sitting at the water surface (on rocks or willows nearby) and loitering. Fishermen ask the vodník for help by placing a pinch oftobacco in the water and saying, "Here's your tobacco, Lord Vodník, now give me a fish."[citation needed]
The Bohemian male water demon came to be calledvodník orHastermann, but their ancient names have not been found in older sources.[40] It dwells in every river, stream, or pond. Though several may share a body of water, they keep themselves apart since they are antagonistic towards each other.[41] Sometimes thevodník enters into a loving relationship with a human woman, and will live together with the family he has formed, but otherwise the bachelors are solitary.[37] Those in the pond are considered more feral, living amongst the reeds, but those in the river are believed to live in crystal palaces in a whole expansive world found underwater, where they keep the souls of the drowned dead, inside pots.[42]
There are also a tale and a legend concerning thehastermann orvodnik living near mills.[43][44]
The net-castingvodník (cf.§ Man-snatching below) is described as a green man, and comes out of the water combing his green hair on a day he does not hunt drowning victims.[37] But in several accounts he manifests himself as an ordinary human being (cf.§ As frogs), or the peddler by the pond north ofPřeštice, wearing a dripping wet coat.[23] He is known as the "green man" at the market, appearing like an ordinary man wearing a green coat, with the left coat-tip (šos) always wet, and also missing the thumb on his left hand. The merchants welcome him because when he makes purchases, business does well.[46]
Thevodník lures people into the water to drown them, and those who bathe after hours are especially vulnerable, but he can only drown those who were fated to die that way.[37] Fishermen were afraid of saving a drowning man from the clutches of a vodník, because they would come in a bad way and wind up being drowned themselves.[47][48]
In one version the water demon spans a fine invisible net across the river to trap people. But he sits in the grass mending his nets on Friday, his day off from man-snatching.[37]
The peddlervodník displays some sort of trinkets hanging on a rack in order to lure his prey into water.[23] Most especially the peddler (kramář)vodník uses the colorfulribbon (Czech:stuha, pl.stuhy;pentle or its dim.pentlička[49][j] to lure humans, according to numerous accounts.[51][52] In thePodskalí [cs] Quarter of Prague, the vodník was seen on a raft (vor, pl. locativevorách) in the evenings, and he hangs red ribbons over the water to lure children and drag them down.[54] A vodník in the guise of a red-haired man wearing green peddled green ribbons to a village woman, but the goods turned into grass when she returned home.[56]
Thevodník orhastrmann maintains a collection of captured souls inside pots in his underwater palace or mansion, as in the tale localized in Moldautein (Týn nad Vltavou), here specified as "earthenware" (German:irdenen) pots also filled with water. Here a poor day-laborer woman's eldest daughter becomes the Hastermann's servant, and when she sweeps, the dust she collects is gold. She liberates a soul from a noisy jar, which turns out to be her brother. She is forgiven, but after serving many years, homesickness hardens her decision to flee, and she frees all the souls on departure. The hastrmann pursues but she returns home to her siblings.[34][k]
In a Bohemian version of the butcher tale,[l] a man fromPředměřice was really a vodník, regularly shopping from a butcher atTuřice, but the out-of-town man's habit of pointing the finger at the piece of meat he wanted annoyed the butcher into cutting a finger off one day. But two days later, he was taking the valley path along the Iser (Jizera) and encountered a huge frog which the curious butcher, but it turned into the client he maimed and dragged the butcher into water.[59]
Matěj Mikšíček [cz] recorded a tale about the pregnant wife of a vodník (vodníkova žena) in frog form, which compelled a housekeeper named Liduška to be its child's godmother, though this tale type has been discussed elsewhere as a widely disseminated piece of Slovak folklore (see§ Frog wives under §Slovakia). In thisMoravian version (but recorded inBohemian dialect[?]), the vodník returns from his absence in the guise of a red ribbon (červené mašle),[m] attempting to lure and snatch Liduška, just as he is wont to do with girls with rakeshaymaking on meadows by the river.[39][33]
But in Jungbunzlau (Mladá Boleslav) it was rumored the water demon maintained two castles on the Iser (Jizera), one by the mill, and other by the brickhouse. At mill was seen a vodník who was completely green, and covered with filamentousgreen algae;[n] at the other abode was seen the vodník's wife, half maiden, half fish.[60]
In Slovakia, the same water demon may be calledvodný chlap meaning "water guy" or "waterman".[53] The water spirit may also be called amolek[48] (var.molok[63]). There is a story of a localized in a lake in the forest ofDolný Kubín inOrava, where a peasant encounters a waterman (from a lake inKriváň (village)) pursuing another waterman who stole his wife, guiding him to the lake of the perpetrator. The peasant watches as an underwater fight ensues, culminating in bubbling froth turning red, signaling a bad outcome, and the peasant flees as forewarned.[64][31]
Slovakian folklore also speak of the vodník's pot (vodníkove hrnce), attested in the formerTrencsén County (nowTrenčín Region orDistrict), and anecdotally, in the northwestern village ofBoky [sk] (now attached toBudča) a stream was home to avodný ("aquatic" man) who purchased pots to trap souls inside.[24]
Also according to Boky lore, the vodník had a long beard, and would be naked one moment, then be wearing a blouse (halena) dripping water from its side.[65] Some say a vodník can be identified because the left side of his coat (kabát) is always dripping wet.[66] Some ascribe long flowing hair,[67] or blazing eyes as large asdishes (tanier).[68] It allegedly appeared out of the stream in the form of a "little green boy", according to one witness.[69]
The boatmen on theVáh claim to have witnessed the vodník looking like a man with the head of a black ram, though another that was spotted had green hair and clothing.[70]
The vodník are said to employ ribbons to lure humans (as in Czech regions), according to lore found in theBratislava area andNitra in western Slovakia.[71][72]
The wife of a vodník (vodníkova žena) is said to have the appearance of a frog. There is an anecdote of one that transformed into a frog and went to the home of theplowman (oráč) where it was feasted, then entertained him in her own abode.[73] In a more intricate but widespread tale, the froglike being with a swollen belly is met by a woman washing in the riverHron, who offers to be the godmother of the unborn child. A servant (drowned man) arrives with news a girl was born, and conveys the godmother to the vodník's home, hidden under the stairs beneath river boulder, which the man splits open with a magic wand. The vodník's wife instructs the woman to sweep and take home the sweepings (which later turn out to be gold and silver), but not to touch the covered pots.[o] The godmother disobeys and overturns a pot revealing a soul had been captured inside. Then in a double pot she finds the soul of her two drowned children, who tells her they were thus captured by the vodník and could not ascend to heaven. She takes her children's souls in the pot and makes an escape; thereafter, the river throws up the children's bodies, and they breathe back to life.[74]
This tale type is classed asATU subtype[p] 476* "In the Frog House", where the type example is a Hungarian folktale, which was incorrectly given as the only variant in the original 1961 publication of the index, but later revised[75] with the listing of Bulgarian and Polish cognate tales, and Slovene and other comparisons as well.[76][77]
Bolotnik (Russian:болотник) is the owner of the swamp. He is often considered a relative of the vodyanoy and theleshy. There are many descriptions of him, but most often he was imagined as an old man with long green beard and his body covered in fish scales and algae. The bolotnik is dangerous, and he would pose an especially huge threat to those who play shepherd's pipe at night. In order to lure the person to the swamp, he would parody the sounds of various animals, create wandering lights and grow intoxicating plants. This spirit is often said to be a loner, although in some beliefs he has a wife, a bolotnitsa.[78]
Vodyanitsa (Russian:водяница) is a beautiful green-haired water maiden, and she is often said to be the wife of a vodyanoy. This spirit sometimes appears in the form of a golden-finned fish or a white swan.Vodyanitsy (plural:Russian:водяницы) prefer forested lakes, mill ponds, wells and (less commonly) seas as their habitat. They are considered harmless spirits, although sometimes they tear the nets and spoil the millstones; the sea vodyanitsy are more aggressive than freshwater ones and are dangerous to ships. According to some beliefs, the main difference between the vodyanitsa and other water spirits is that she is a baptized drowned girl.[79] The term is often used synonymously forrusalka.[80]
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