Given its central importance in providing physical sustenance and spiritual purification, water looms large in the Slavic mythic consciousness. As an element, water serves as the permeable boundary demarcating “this” world from “that” one of the Otherworld: every well, holy spring dedicated to a saint, river, lake, and seashore can play host to a tutelary vodeni duh or grouping of vodeni duhovi. The two most widely known types of water spirits are the male vodenjak (the root of voda means “water” in most Slavic languages) and the female rusalka.

Also variously known as a vodeni čovjek (“water man” in Croatian), nečastivi (“evil one” in Serbian), or vodianoi chert (“water devil” in Russian), the vodenjak is almost universally regarded in the Slavic world as a dangerous being whose chief aim is to drown people.[1] Lacking the beauty of his female counterpart as well as her ability to switch habitats from water to trees, the humanoid-appearing vodenjak is thought to be ugly, green, bloated, bearded, scaly yet shaggy, and slimy. He largely stays confined to his own or neighboring waters, emerging no farther on land than the riverbank or the water mill, if there is one nearby.[2] 

However, he can conjure a glamour about himself to appear as a handsome mortal man if his objective is to whisk away a beautiful human woman who captures his fancy. He is thought to be fiercely strong, so much so that escape from his grip is impossible. A century ago, peasants in Russia’s Orel, Tula, and Kaluga provinces claimed to glimpse sightings of fantastic underwater crystal palaces where the vodianoi held court among their own kin and the ranks of the humans who died by drowning.[3]

Numerous villages throughout the Slavic world have their own repertoires of legends about the vodeni duhovi and how to avoid being drowned by them. In eastern Serbia’s Bor District, near the town of Donji Milanovac, two of the main cautions include never mentioning the phrase “water spirit” for fear of invoking him—the epithet of onaj stari, “that old man” is used instead—and never answering if one hears one’s name being called outdoors three times aloud at night, as this means the nečastivi is attempting to cast his net to drown a person. Other dangerous behaviors to avoid include gazing at your reflection in the water, as this enables the nečastivi to target you. Never make the mistake of taking a riverside nap, whether on the bank or even on a moored boat, as this can tempt the vodeni duhovi to dance their kolo around you and entrap you in their world.[4] Ethnologists in the field have recorded these kinds of accounts in the month of July in particular—the month in which the nečastivi is thought to be most active.[5]

Places where drownings had occurred were considered “unclean” and shunned, especially at night. In general, the learned habit of getting out of the water and avoiding swimming, fishing, and bathing in rivers and lakes at the taboo times of noon or after sunset were considered the most effective strategies of dodging the vodenjak’s attention.[6]

But, just as with those for whom forming a pact with the Devil sounds appealing, there are always those who deliberately courted the vodeni duhovi for favors in exchange for their human souls. Successful fishing was one motivation. Another motive, sought by women only, was for the outcome of obtaining tremendous powers in witchcraft. That could only be obtained through sexual congress with the vodenjak. The water spirit’s sexual appetite is said to be insatiable.[7] The price to be paid for this strange coupling is high: it might be the death of the would-be witch’s husband, if she is married, or her fertility. The ultimate payment of death by drowning is reflected in the Serbian proverb of “Došao Džavo po svoje”—“the Devil came for his own.” In the not-too-distant past, attempts to recover the bodies of drowning victims were thought to anger the vodenjak, as he wanted to hold onto his rightful “prizes.” Bruises on the victims’ bodies were interpreted as signs of struggles with the fearsome strength of the water spirit.[8]

Aside from successful fishermen and witches, another demographic suspected of having entered into pacts with the vodeni duhovi was the village miller. In fact, the miller was often regarded as a sorcerer for having a friendship with the local vodenjak.  It was known that, as with the construction of the bania or bath house in East Slavic lands, a rooster (ideally black) would have to be sacrificed at the threshold upon the construction of a water mill. Millers were known to continue to make offerings at least annually in the spring if not more frequently throughout the year to keep the local vodeni čovjek pacified. Vodka, bread and salt, tobacco, ram and horse heads/skulls, or entire slain black pigs were thrown into mill streams and offered to the water spirit.[9] Smooth operations at the mill and ease in catching multitudes of fish were surefire signs of a happy, well-placated vodeni duh.

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[1] Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1989), 70.

[2] Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak, The Slavic Myths, (London: Thames & Hudson, 2023), 199.

[3] Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief, 72.

[4] Conrad, “Male Mythological Beings Among the South Slavs,” 6.

[5] Dušan Bandić, Narodna Religija Srba u 100 Pojmova [Serbian Folk Religious Beliefs as Surveyed Through 100 Concepts], (Nolit, 2004), 159.

[6] Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief, 72.

[7] Ristić, Balkan Traditional Witchcraft (Los Angeles: Pendraig Publishing, 2009), 182.

[8] Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief, 73.

[9] Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief, 73.