Vodyanoy

In Russia, the vodyanoy is sometimes called the ' (, "Water-Grandfather") or ' (). 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". He is also described as an old man with green hair and (long == Other folklores ==

The Russian vodyanoy answers to Czech (and Slovak) vodník, Slovene ("water-man"), and Polish topielec ("Drowner"). Some accounts give them green color, 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. There are also a tale and a legend concerning the hastrman or vodnik living near mills. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. As frogs In a Bohemian version of the butcher tale, a man from Předměřice was really a vodník, regularly shopping from a butcher at Tuřice, 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. recorded a tale about the pregnant wife of a vodník () 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 under §Slovakia). In this Moravian version (but recorded in Bohemian dialect[?]), the vodník returns from his absence in the guise of a red ribbon (), attempting to lure and snatch Liduška, just as he is wont to do with girls with rakes haymaking on meadows by the river. == Slovakia ==

In Slovakia, the same water demon may be called meaning "water guy" or "waterman". The water spirit may also be called a (var. ). There is a story of a localized in a lake in the forest of Dolný Kubín in Orava, where a peasant encounters a waterman (from a lake in Kriváň (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. Slovak folklore also speak of the vodník's pot (), attested in the former Trencsén County (now Trenčín Region or Trenčín District), and anecdotally, in the northwestern village of (now attached to Budča) a stream was home to a ("aquatic" man) who purchased potsgrajciar--> to trap souls inside. Appearances Also according to Boky lore, the vodník had a long beard, and would be naked one moment, then be wearing a blouse () dripping water from its side. Some say a vodník can be identified because the left side of his coat () is always dripping wet. Some ascribe long flowing hair, or blazing eyes as large as dishes (). It allegedly appeared out of the stream in the form of a "little green boy", according to one witness. The boatmen on the Váh 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. The vodník are said to employ ribbons to lure humans (as in Czech regions), according to lore found in the Bratislava area and Nitra in western Slovakia. Frog wives The wife of a vodník () 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 the plowman () where it was feasted, then entertained him in her own abode. In a more intricate but widespread tale, the froglike being with a swollen belly is met by a woman washing in the river Hron, 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. 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. This tale type is classed as ATU subtype 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 with the listing of Bulgarian and Polish cognate tales, and Slovene and other comparisons as well. == Companion spirits ==

Bolotnik Bolotnik () 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 () 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: ) 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 ==

• The first Slovene ballad, written in 1826 by the Slovene national poet France Prešeren, was titled "The Water Man" (). 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. 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. • In Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, there is a side-quest in which the player may find the rumored treasure hoard of a vodník. In the English localization it is referred to as a "water goblin". • In Warframe there is a character named Victor Vodyanoi who works with Neci Rusalka. They seem to be the leaders of the Scaldra faction as introduced in the Warframe 1999 update • In Genshin Impact, there is an upcoming playable character named Vodyanitsa, who is a singer in a Snezhnayan opera troupe. == See also ==