Vodyanoy

A 19th-century folk figure, not a pagan-era god

The vodyanoy ("water one") is recorded in East Slavic peasant folklore collected by 19th-century ethnographers, including Afanasyev's Poeticheskie vozzreniya slavyan na prirodu. He appears in no pagan-era source and is a figure of village belief tied especially to the dangerous, working relationship peasants had with watermills and deep water, not a remnant of an attested medieval cult.

Character

Usually pictured as an old, bloated man with a fish's tail, green hair and beard, and a body covered in mud, weeds, or scales, the vodyanoy was believed to live at the bottom of ponds, especially near mill-dams, where millers were thought to make small offerings (tobacco, a black animal) to keep him from damaging the mill. He was blamed for drowning careless or disrespectful swimmers, especially at midday, at midnight, or during unlucky calendar periods, and stories described him keeping the souls of the drowned as his servants beneath the water.