Water sprites, Seamaids and lakemaids.

[Han]

Dear paracasters I have become fascinated by stories about, water sprites, nymphs, nixe, naiads, seamaids, lakemaids and all the other names for water spirits (generally female).
I would be very grateful for any information that you know, in particular about the rivers Danube and Rhine. However all stories would be welcome or even just pictures or locations.
I have had some limited success using a little intuition and a lot of google translate! (most of the stories are in german).

Any suggestions or ideas would be gladly received and in return I would be happy to offer some time researching a topic of your choice.

Here is an example of the kind of thing I am looking for:
The Nibelungenlied: A Summary in English Prose

and

Thank you in advance, All the best Harry

 

[Jeff Davis]

Harry,
I too have a sincere love of cryptozoology and all manner of paranormal reporting. It seems to me that Karl Shuker's blog would suit your request nicely. If you look in the archives it's a veritable treasure trove of crypto folk lore. ShukerNature Just use the search function on the first page.

If you like other alternative folk lore, another wonderful author is "The Professor" The Big Study Again, the archive is your friend.

 

[Han]

Brilliant Thank you very much, just the kind of thing I am after.
thanks again Harry

 

[Burnt State]

In other more recent collections i'm sure you've heard Jerome Clark talk about them on the Paracast in one of his many appearances. He has amassed quite a collection of these stories in his books that focus on strange encounters with otherworld beings. What is interesting in all of the cases he's reviewed he noted that all witnesses who report seeing such creatures in the modern era is that they are almost always referred to as an "it" as opposed to a "he" or "her" as if they were more animal than humanoid despite their very recognizable human features. Here's a limited discussion from him on merfolk: Unexplained!: Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences & Puzzling Physical ... - Jerome Clark - Google Books

I agree with you though - i find them and their sightings along with large, human sized and standing, walking, running amphibian creatures, to be absolutely mind blowing.

 

[Burnt State]

Lorelei

by Sylvia Plath

It is no night to drown in:
A full moon, river lapsing
Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping
Scrim after scrim like fishnets
Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets
Doubling themselves in a glass
All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face
Of quiet. From the nadir
They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier
Than sculptured marble. They sing
Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song
Bears a burden too weighty
For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country,
Under a balanced ruler.
Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order,
Your voices lay siege. You lodge
On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage;
By day, descant from borders
Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse
Even than your maddening
Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling-
Drunkenness of the great depths.
O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver
Those great goddesses of peace.
Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

 

[Jeff Davis]

In other more recent collections i'm sure you've heard Jerome Clark talk about them on the Paracast in one of his many appearances. He has amassed quite a collection of these stories in his books that focus on strange encounters with otherworld beings. What is interesting in all of the cases he's reviewed he noted that all witnesses who report seeing such creatures in the modern era is that they are almost always referred to as an "it" as opposed to a "he" or "her" as if they were more animal than humanoid despite their very recognizable human features. Here's a limited discussion from him on merfolk: Unexplained!: Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences & Puzzling Physical ... - Jerome Clark - Google Books

I agree with you though - i find them and their sightings along with large, human sized and standing, walking, running amphibian creatures, to be absolutely mind blowing.

The above book is on my "get it very soon" list. I do have this one below however, and can recommend it highly as well. IMO, Jerome is at the very top of the "documentation and reporting" pile. He is a VERY thorough and entertaining read.

edit: This one might not be too bad either. I am linking a very neat humanoid encounter/abduction tale along withthe book's photo. When I first saw this title, I thought Jerry might have sold the book to Brad, but now I see it's just a simularity to one another. But esthetically, what simularity it is!

BRAD AND SHERRY STEIGER ASK, HAVE YOU MET THIS ALIEN?

The above has a very strong water connection. Ok, ok, so I'm trying to lure you into a little water spirit deviation here. It's all in the spirit of things!
http://ufodigest.com/article/brad-and-sherry-1105

 

[Polterwurst]

Although I have travelled along and on the river Rhine dozens of times, I've never looked into the related legends much. And I've never seen any blondes sitting on the Loreley rock.

I'll see if I can find some stories in my book collection. May take a while though.

Oddly enough, the stories about river spirits I've heard are often not of the female variation (nix) but of male ones (neckers or necks). These stories remind me of irish or english faerie stories, in that the spirits are very human-like, mischievous and shouldn't be crossed.
Neck (water spirit) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[sagesigma]

I read this one a few years ago and really enjoyed it (in case you hadn't heard of it):
Mermaids, Sylphs, Gnomes, and Salamanders: Dialogues with the Kings and Queens of Nature - William Mistele.

 

[Burnt State]

I read this one a few years ago and really enjoyed it (in case you hadn't heard of it):
Mermaids, Sylphs, Gnomes, and Salamanders: Dialogues with the Kings and Queens of Nature - William Mistele.

Good find. Looks like Mistele is a gold mine for all things mer-like:

http://williamrmistele.com/uploads/mermaidwomen.pdf

The Mermaid Project

But then the more I read him the more I can see that he's literally been touched by quite a collection of mostly mer women. Must be a guy thing. But on some of his sites he as amassed quite a collection of related folk tales on the Undines.

 

[Polterwurst]

Not a water spirit per se, but a kobold or sprite associated with ships is the german "Klabautermann", who basically turns up in most fairytales connected to the sea or seafaring I've heard here. Often depicted as a miniature seaman, always male, with kobold-like or dwarfish features, complete with typical northern german oilskin clothing and baggage, big nose and a beard (sometimes he has green skin and teeth and red hair), holding a hammer or smoking pipe, he's mostly even-tempered and well-meaning and a mascot or lucky charm for ships. He can be found drinking with the captain late at night or sitting in impossible places in the rigging, on the masts or the anchor. As long as he stays aboard, the ship is safe. If he decides to leave, though, the ship will inevitably go down. For some reason, having a live chicken aboard is said to keep him away.

Interestingly (for me at least), the word "klabautern", coming from a dialect spoken n northern germany, means exactly the same as "poltern" (which actually doesn't just describe someone - or something - being noisy but more specifically, causing loud and repetetive knocking and rapping sounds), and I guess there is some reason to believe that, despite his fairy-tale characteristics, the klabautermann may have common roots with the less fairytale-like, allegedly real poltergeist phenomenon, mainly in that loud and inexplicable knocking sounds will be heard coming from the ship's walls and planks, and physical abuse "out of thin air" (like slapping, pushing and hitting by an invisible force) is said to occur. Of course, on a ship, seemingly inexplicable noises are even more likely to be caused by wind and weather, expanding wood etc. than with houses on land, and you have to bear in mind the expression "seaman's yarn" is synonimous with "probably hoaxed story by an unreliable source", especially here in germany.

But there are also numerous sighting reports of apparitions of dead seamen (sometimes in dreams or while falling asleep or waking up, but also in bright daylight and while the reporting witness, often a seaman himself, was sober and awake) turning up on ships they had been on all of their lives, which also allegedly happened in some poltergeist cases (the Enfield poltergeist is said to may have been a former inhabitant of the apartment, "Pete the Polt" is said to have been the ghost of a boy). IMO this might be two seemingly unrelated myths caused by the same phenomenon. Wether that's a real one or just "made up" is of course for everyone to decide for himself.

 

[Han]

I was just watching a documentary about ship wrecks, especially the Spanish Armada. In the show they spoke about an old superstition which was that: people were afraid to rescue a drowning person from the sea, because they believed that the sea would take revenge on them and their family for interfering. My understanding is that they believed that the sea had a "mind" of its own, and had good and bad "moods".
At first this idea seemed strange, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense in the context of the time. (16th century England and Ireland).