In Slavic mythology, vodyanoy (; 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: ), and often referred to as Wassermann in German sources. 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 of reeds and rushes, conflicting with other accounts ascribing him green hair and a long green beard, while many depictions restore him as an anthropormophic frog. 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 also bee-keepers make sacrifices to appease him. The vodyanoy would sometimes drag people down to his underwater dwelling to serve him as slaves.
The vodník 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.
Russia In Russia, the vodyanoy is sometimes called the (, "Water-Grandfather") or ().
Habitat He is said to dwell in a slough (), kettle hole (), or 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 ().
Appearance
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,, in ('The Poetic Outlook of Slavs about Nature'): "" where wikt:голый is glossed as "naked, nude, bare". 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 (), wearing a high ) made of green "club-rush" (or other sedges) and a green belt of that same "grass". citing Иллюстрация, 1845, p. 298
He is also described as an old man with green hair and (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 is 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, which has been suggested as an explanation of its varied descriptions. He may crawl out of water in the dark of the night and comb his (green) hair on shore, citing О. З. 1848, IV, смѣсь, 145-6; Ѵ, 24 and other sources. but he can also appear in the form of a naked woman combing her hair. He may be heard all along the shore while he is slapping the water with his palm (, or paw) on moonlit nights.
He can appear as a 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 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 (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., with note 3) citing "О. З." abbrev. for Отечественныя записки (Otechestvennye Zapiski) 1848, IV 145 The fishermen offer sacred libation, especially melted butter or oil () into the river.
There seems to have been a cult recognizing vodyanoy as a patron saint of bee-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 Saints Zosimus and Sabbatius and dip a honeycomb into the water by the mill, while pronouncing an incantation.
He will also foretell the coming harvest. He comes into the village disguised as human, but the edge of his coat () 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.
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 (; Silurus glanis, aka "wels catfish") as his mount to ride on. But he will catch the farmers' cattle or horses (in water) and 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. In Ukraine, children were instructed to chant a certain rhyme before going bathing/swimming.
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.
Other folklores
The Russian vodyanoy corresponds to Czech (and Slovak) vodník, Slovene ("water-man"), and Polish topielec ("Drowner").
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 Slovak vodníci (plural of vodník) can also take on an appearance of ordinary humans, but often with water dripping from their clothing, which makes their false identity easily discernable. But their version says the demon, sometimes impersonating peddlers, use colored ribbons to lure humans., See §Czech under and §Slovakia under Some accounts give them green color," [Water demon as nectar]", evidently in the sense of being a sugar daddy for a mother's enrichment, and " [~and his wife]", and also long hair or beard in Slovak versions. There is an isolated Czech example of the water-demon being human-like but transforming into frog, but the water-demon's wife being froglike is commonplace. A widely known tale type of vodník or wife hiring a woman as godmother or housekeeper tale is found in Czech and Slovak versions.
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, and the liberated souls can ascend to heaven, or even revive.
Czech Republic
The Bohemian male water demon came to be called vodník or , but their ancient names have not been found in older sources. 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. Sometimes the vodník 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. 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. and "Die Wohnung des Hastermanns",
There are also a tale and a legend concerning the hastrman or vodnik living near mills."Der Hastermann in der Mühle"Jungbunzlau legend/rumor,
Physical description
The net-casting vodník (cf. 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. But in several accounts he manifests himself as an ordinary human being (cf. ), or the peddler by the pond north of Přeštice, wearing a dripping wet coat.Informant: J. Gruber aus Merklin (Merklín), The tale states starting from Merklín the pond is in the area around Přeštice, i.e., north of it. He is known as the "green man" at the market, appearing like an ordinary man wearing a green coat, with the left coat-tip () always wet, and also missing the thumb on his left hand. The merchants welcome him because when he makes purchases, business does well., pp. 4–6, portion undersigned K. J. Erben.
Man-snatching The vodník 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. 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., lore of Jungbunzlau (Mladá Boleslav).
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.
The peddler vodník displays some sort of trinkets hanging on a rack in order to lure his prey into water. Most especially the peddler () vodník uses the colorful ribbon (, pl. ; or its dim. to lure humans, according to numerous accounts., mostly localized in Czech regions, e.g. Nasavrky, (Záhorská kronika) are named, and in Moravia the hastrmann displaying fancy beaded ribbons () occurs. Some Slovak examples are given also.Polívka's list also includes Grohmann's tale () localized at dam at Veltrusy, Bohemia, where the hastermann [sic.] displayed red and yellow Maschen (ribbons) on a green little branch. In the Quarter of Prague, the vodník was seen on a raft (, pl. locative vorách) in the evenings, and he hangs red ribbons over the water to lure children and drag them down. 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.
The vodník or hastrman 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" () 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."Die Wohnung des Hastermanns", , citing Vernaleken, Mythen und Bräuche, p. 178.
As frogs