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The water-man (Wendish wodny muz),
also called the nix (Wendish nykus), as well as his spouse the water-woman (wodna
zona), lives in the rivers, lakes, and ponds of Lusatia. He tempts
passers-by to go bathing, in order to drown them. This he does to everyone
who trespass into his domain while bathing. Blue spots on a drowned person's
body are a sign that the nixes caused the drowning.
In appearance a nix cannot be
distinguished from a human. On dry land he is powerless, and can be taken
prisoner and forced into servitude. He produces children with his wife, and
these interact with human children. They even associate with humans at
dances and fall in love with pretty girls and young men. The daughter of a
water-man can always be recognized by the wet hem on her skirt.
The water-man usually wears a red cap on
his head, and the water-woman red stockings on her feet. Further, in the
towns of Upper Lusatia it has been observed that if a man wearing a linen
jacket with a wet bottom hem comes to the weekly market and buys grain at
above the market price, then grain will become more expensive. However, if
he sells grain at a better price than others, the price of grain will fall.
This man is the water-man.
His wife is often seen sitting on a bank
in her red stockings spinning or bleaching her laundry. In this last
instance it means there will be rainy weather or high water. Just as the
water-man bargains with grain, she bargains with butter, thus giving an
indication of future prices.
In the region around Zittau during the
moon's first and last quarters, the water-man sits on riverbanks where the
water is slow and deep and makes no sound. His appearance is ugly, with a
very pale face and long black hair that hangs down to his shoulders. He is
dressed from head to foot in brownish-yellow leather that has been put
together entirely from little scraps. By moonlight he counts them aloud, at
the same time slapping his legs with his hands. He can be recognized by this
sound.
Curiosity seekers and daredevils, lured by
this sound, have seen him sitting there on an overhanging bank and have
attempted to interrupt him by counting and clapping. He slipped into the
murmuring water, and nothing happened to them, but then they had the
unpleasant experience of hearing clapping and counting in front of their
house every night. This continued until fear and anger finally caused them
to join in with the counting, upon which they heard loud laughter, and were
then no longer disturbed in their rest.
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Source: Karl Haupt, "Die Wassernixen, der Wassermann und seine Frau,"
Sagenbuch der Lausitz (Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann, 1862),
vol. 1, no. 44, pp. 46-47.
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Translated by D. L. Ashliman. © 2000.
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Lusatia (German Lausitz) is a region centered on the Neisse and Spree
rivers with a historically mixed culture of Slavs (known as Wends or
Sorbs) and Germans. The western portions are now part of Germany; the
eastern portions belong to Poland.
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Note by Karl Haupt:
The Slavic woda (water) and wodny (nix)
have been associated with the Germanic Wodan. The Scandinavian Odin is,
of course, also a nix (or Nichus, a personification of Odin's). However,
the German Wuothan appears foremost as the ruler of the air, as a god of
wind and storm, whose breath [German Odem] blows in the woods and
around the mountain summits. It is possible, of course, that the Slavs
transformed the air god into a water god. Slavs have a great affinity
for water. They practice water oracles, water sacrifices, and sacred
ablutions in the manner of Oriental custom. The musical nix of the Wends
is just as significant for the Slavic perspective as are the dwarfs and
the wild huntsman -- who live within the mountains and in the air -- for
the perspective of the Germans. Just as the music of a storm is more
magnificent, simpler, and at the same time more spiritual than the more
artful but smaller splashing of waves, so do the two nations differ from
each other. Lusatia shows both tendencies. Its religious views differ as
greatly as do the Germanic mountain forests of the south and the Slavic
water forest (along the River Spree) of the north. But concerning the
similarity of the words, their meaning can well reflect the view that
water plays the same role for the Slavs that air does for the Germans,
thus indicating a common linguistic root.
Resource List - entries taken verbatim from:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/water.html
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