Vodyanoy

"Vodník" redirects here. For other uses, see Vodnik (disambiguation).

Vodyanoy by Ivan Bilibin, 1934

In Slavic mythology, vodyanoy (Russian: водяной, IPA: [vədʲɪˈnoj]; lit. '[he] from the water' or 'watery') is a water spirit. In Czech and Slovak fairy tales, he is called vodník (or in Germanized form: Hastrman), and he is considered to be the equivalent creature as the Wassermann or nix of German fairy tales. In Ukrainian fairy tales, he is called “водяник“ (vodyanyk).

He may appear to be a naked man with a pot belly and (or bald-headed and wearing hat and belt of reeds and rushes, conflicting with other accounts ascribing him green hair (and long beard). The varying look has been attributed by some to his shape-shifting ability. When angered, the vodyanoy breaks dams, washes down water mills, and drowns people and animals. Consequently, fishermen, millers, and also bee-keepers make sacrifices to appease him. The vodyanoy would sometimes drag people down to his underwater dwelling to serve him as slaves.

When angered, the vodyanoy breaks dams, washes down water mills, and drowns people and animals. Consequently, fishermen, millers, etc. make sacrifices to appease him. The vodyanoy would sometimes attack people entering water.

Russia

In Russia, the vodyanoy is sometimes called the děduška vodyanoy (Дѣдушка-водяной, "Water-Grandfather") or vodyanik (водяник).

Habitat

He is said to dwell in a slough (омут), kettle hole (Котловина), or in a whirlpool of a river, pond or lake, and liked especially to live near a watermill. One that dwells in marshlands may be called a bolotnyanik (Болотняник).

Appearance

V. Malyshev. Vodyanoy, 1910

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, but a later English commentary using similar phraseology, insisted the creature was not nude but "a bald-headed old man with fat belly and puffy cheeks", wearing "a high cap of reeds on his head, and a belt of rushes round his waist". He is also described as an old man with green hair and a long green beard. The green beard turns white with when the moon wanes, as the immortal Vodyanoy ages or rejuvenates with the phases of the moon.

Or, rather than wearing plant-based clothing, a different source states he is covered in weeds and slime, and scaly-skinned in his true form. Or rather a figure of giant stature covered in grass and moss. Or be "quite black with enormous red eyes and a nose as long as a fisherman's boot". 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.

He has the capability of shape-shifting. and this has been suggested as an explanation of its varied descriptions. He can appear in the form of a naked woman combing her hair, giant moss-covered fish, a log or even a flying tree-trunk with small-wings, skimming over the water's surface.

Offering and boon

Since he tampers with the waterwheel, the dikes, or control of water if he is not pleased, an operator of a mill must known 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 (at Lake Ilmen for instance), and may drown a person as forewarned.

The fisherman can also benefit from the boon of the vodyanoy, receiving a bountiful harvest in their fishing nets. He may receive this reward after returning a child which was accidentally netted.

Mount

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) as his mount to ride on. But he will catch the farmers cattle or horses (in water) and jolly-ride them, till they drop dead in the wetlands. The farmer fording his livestock will make a sign of cross (emblem of Perun's weapon) over the river as protection from this happening.

Attacks on humans

The vodyanoy also posed risk of attacking people entering bodies of water, hence popular belief was to make the sign of the cross before swimming or bathing in such waters. An anecdote tells about a hunter trying to retrieve his duck, and the attack left the creature's finger-marks on his neck. And children are instructed to chant a certain rhyme.

Family

He is known to take on a wife (or wives), and espouses "water-nymphs or drowned and unhappy girls who have been cursed by their fathers or mothers". According to Afanasyev, the "water-nymph" ("water-maiden") is known by various names in Russia, including the rusalka.

It is believed that vodyanoys have a ruler: the Tsar Vodyanik, or the Vodyan Tsar. He is described as an old man armed with a club, who can rise to the sky sitting on a black cloud and create new rivers and lakes.

Czech

Typical projection of vodník in Czech or Slovak folklore

In Czech, Slovene, and Slovak folklore, the features of the vodník are markedly different from the East Slavic conception; he has a completely human constitution and habits, except for few differences – vodníci (plural of vodník) have gills, webbed membrane between their fingers, and their skin is algae-green in colour (as well as their hair, which is typically of pale green tone). Their overall dress and appearance is bizarre, sometimes even resembling a vagrant; patchy shirts and (by modern standards) odd hats — often boaters with long speckled ribbons — are commonplace. They can withstand lingering for hours outside their ponds. When they do so, one can easily discern them by their coattails, which are always dripping wet. The vodník's face is usually unshaven and it is not uncommon for a vodník to have a large, wet, tangled beard.

Other folklores

Czech, Slovenian and Slovak tales have both evil and good vodyanoys (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 in porcelain teapots. They consider their teapots their most valuable heritage and display their "work", using the number of teapots to represent their wealth and/or status among other vodníci. When the lid of such a pot is removed, the soul within (in the form of a bubble) will escape and be liberated. 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 of tobacco in the water and saying, "Here's your tobacco, Lord Vodník, now give me a fish." In Czech, Slovak and Slovene tales vodníci live in ponds or rivers; there is no mention of a particular dwelling and the "half-sunken log" does not appear. There are almost no references to vodníci in connection with seawater, probably because they belong to the folklore of mostly landlocked nations.

Companion spirits

Bolotnik

Main article: Bolotnik

Bolotnik (Russian: болотник) is the owner of the swamp. He is often considered a relative of the vodyanoy and the leshy. 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.

Vodyanitsa

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. The term is often used synonymously for rusalka.

Cultural references

Czech Vodník in Peklo u Nové Město nad Metují

• The first Slovene ballad, written in 1826 by the Slovene national poet France Prešeren, was titled "The Water Man" (Povodni mož). It is about Urška, a flirt from Ljubljana, who ended up in the hands of a handsome man who turned out to be a vodyanoy. The poem is based on a story from The Glory of Carniola, about a dance at Old Square in Ljubljana in July 1547, when Urška Šefer was enchanted by a vodyanoy and tugged to the Ljubljanica. Prešeren wrote it due to his unfulfilled love towards Zalika Dolenc. In the first publication of the poem, the flirt was named Zalika.
• Composer Antonín Dvořák wrote a symphonic poem entitled Vodník (1896) about this creature, who is also a character in his opera Rusalka.
• Karel Jaromír Erben's poem "Vodník" is the ninth poem of his Kytice collection, and inspired Dvořák to compose the above-mentioned symphonic poem.
• The 1974 Czechoslovak comedy film about the end of vodníks in Bohemia, How to Drown Dr. Mracek, the Lawyer (Jak utopit dr. Mráčka aneb Konec vodníků v Čechách).
• David Wiltshire's novel Child of Vodyanoi (1978, adapted into the TV series The Nightmare Man) used the water spirit as a metaphor for a miniature Russian submarine.
• Vodyanoy is one of the best known characters of the Soviet cartoons. In the Soviet animated film The Flying Ship (1979), he sings about his loneliness and need to talk with someone.
• A vodyanoi named Hwiuur features in C. J. Cherryh's Russian novel trilogy, Rusalka (1989), Chernevog (1990), and Yvgenie (1991).
• In China Miéville's Bas-Lag novels, the Vodyanoi are an aquatic people skilled in water-based magic. In Miéville's Perdido Street Station (2000), Vodyanoi dockworkers go on strike and use their magic to blockade a river shipping route.
• An aging vodnik is the main character of the novel Hastrman by Czech writer Miloš Urban published in 2001. The novel won the Magnesia Litera prize for literature in 2002. A Czech film based on the first part of the novel was produced in 2018.
• Vodnik is the main character in the 2013 thriller Croaker, written and directed by Pittsburgh area filmmaker Fred Terling.
• A Vodyanoy features early in Larry Correia's 2017 novel Monster Hunter Siege.
• A Vodník appeared as an antagonist in episode 3 of the animated Netflix series Legend Quest, where it terrorized a village by stealing the souls of children.
• A Vodyanoy is a spirit partner to a Russian shaman named Zria Gagarik in the manga and anime series Shaman King.
• The Ghosts of Rose Hill features a vodnik named Rudolf Wasserman as its primary antagonist.

In games

• The Vodyanoi appears as a monster in Dungeons & Dragons. It is described as a variety of Umber hulk.
• The Witcher video game (2007) portrays a race of water creatures called the vodyanoi, also known as the Fishpeople. Drowners are also referred to as Vodniks.
• Vodyanoy appears as a playable dragon in the 2018 Nintendo game Dragalia Lost.
• A Water-attribute monster called the Vodianoi appears in the 2003 FromSoftware game Lost Kingdoms II.
• A ship called Vodianoy entered Call of Duty: Warzone at the start of Season 2, bringing zombies to Warzone once more, and potentially hinting at the oncoming destruction of Gora Dam.
• Vodyanoi are depicted as small winged frog monsters in Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader. They are commonly found near the coast and rivers.

See also

• Bolotnik
• Grindylow
• Kappa (folklore)
• Lazavik
• Merman
• Sea Tsar
• Su iyesi
• Topielec

References

Bibliography

• Hennessy , William M. , ed., tr. (1868). Poėtičeskie vozzrenija Slavjan na prirodu Поэтические воззрения Славян на природу. Moskva: Izdániye K. Soldatenkova.
• Rose, Carol (2001). Giants, Monsters, and Dragons. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 384. ISBN 978-0-393-32211-8.

External links

• Media related to Vodyanoy at Wikimedia Commons
• Works related to Lidushka and the Water Demon's Wife at Wikisource