#water spirits
Rusalka, Lake Maiden, Kelpie, Selkie, Merrow, and Morgen - a little compilation of my water spirits series for mermay!
[ID: A series of six digital artworks, depicting various popular water spirit figures in mythology. The first is a rusalka holding a lantern, accompanied by a white swan. The second is a lake maiden with white cloth wrapped around her waist, holding a golden sword. The third is a kelpie with a horse skull headpiece, standing hip deep in murky water. The fourth is a selkie with curly red hair and a seal coat draped over her head. The fifth is a merrow watching a sunset, wearing a delicate pearly headpiece. The sixth is a morgen curled on a rock under a moonlight tide, wearing a glimmering seashell necklace.]
When someone says ‘nymph’, this is not what you think. You don’t think upper arms that bulk from the broadness of their shoulders or bodies so heavy with muscle that the earth trembles beneath their feet. You don’t think chlorine hair or five-thousand-calorie diets. You certainly don’t think sweat dripping onto the floor where a puddle has already formed as they settle yet another twenty-kilo weight onto the machine. You think skinny; elegant; desirable. But these women — The Naiads of Greece, Team Iara from Brazil, the Russian Rusalkas — they are not the delicate, fragile flowers of the myths. To them, it’s the feeling of perfecting an inch of a stroke; of that tenth-of-a-second cut off their times after half a year of sweat, tears and vomit; of watching the sun rise over the pool as they finish their first practice of the day… It’s power, not elegance or femininity. They don’t care about the attentions of men. All they care about is winning.
AESTHETIC
PUNKMYTHS→ 2/4 Creatures/monsters
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Slavic Mythology - Rusalka
Rusalka, in Slavic mythology, is the lake-dwelling soul of a child who died unbaptized or of a virgin who drowned. They appear in different forms depending on the region in which they dwell. Around the Danube River, where they are called vila, rusalki are beautiful, charming girls, dressed always in light robes of mist, singing sweet, bewitching songs to the passersby. The rusalki of northern Russia are ugly, unkempt, wicked, invariably naked, and always eager to ambush humans. All rusalki love to entice men—the vile to enchant them and the northern rusalki to torture them.
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“The Child talks to the Drops of Water”
Frank C. Papé, illus., The Story Without an End, 1913
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