Historian William Halliday wrote that “the evil spirits in the forests of Burma find running water as difficult to cross as do the witches of Scotland.” In Beyond Faery, a compilation of northern English and Scottish mythological creatures, researcher John Kruse notes that crossing a watercourse ensures safety from supernatural pursuers in a vast amount of Indo-European mythology. But overall, folk traditions present rivers and streams as truly vital for life, while still bodies serve mostly to threaten us or, at best, offer a pretty view.Įven when a river or stream is not directly linked to a goddess, flowing water still plays a powerful role in folklore, often as a protective boundary. There are exceptions, certainly, from the sprites known as shellycoats that haunt Scottish rivers, to the Greek goddess Bolbe, who inhabited Lake Volvi in what is now Macedonia. A river is powerful, a thing alive, in turns nurturing and vicious but always active a lake or pond is far more passive. A lake or pond, by contrast, may be scenic or a dangerous drowning ground, or both at once. While rivers get associated with deities, lakes are far more likely to be associated with a resident nymph or lurking monster. This tracks with how bodies of water are used: a river is a means of travel and a source of drinking water, and thus viewed as a powerful and nurturing goddess. Harvard professor Michael Witzel notes that in Hinduism flowing rivers are seen as more divine than the still waters of the temple tanks. Religious practices echo this distinction between still and moving water.
Yet lakes and ponds usually lack these divine connections. It’s also true for Ireland’s longest river, the Shannon, which takes its name from Sionann, granddaughter of the Irish sea god Lir, and France’s Seine, which takes its name from the Gallo-Roman goddess Sequana. This is true of the Osun River in Nigeria, named after a Yoruba goddess, and the Ganges, in India and Bangladesh, which bears the name of the Hindu goddess Ganga. The result is a slew of rivers named for the divine female patrons associated with them. I think it has to do with that creativity, this matrix that women are, and that water also is, for human existence.” Nagy stresses that an association between femininity and water is common in the mythology he studies, musing that “it’s not surprising that something as fluid and flexible and transformative as water would be associated primarily with females. Rivers are often connected to the supernatural, typically goddesses, says Joseph Nagy, a professor of Irish studies at Harvard University. These traditions were used to pass down knowledge through generations, and in some cases continue to do so. While modern society appears disconnected from the ancient world of myth, some of the knowledge hidden within these stories remains relevant today.
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Stories and practices centered around water hint at the similar ways different cultures have thought about fresh and running water-how it might be contaminated, how pollution might be avoided, and how to reconcile water’s necessity with its danger. The folklore of many cultures points toward water spirits and deities who require respect and due caution. This story, related by Ravšan Rahmonī, a professor of Tajik literature, comes from Central Asia, but the mindset behind the wisewomen’s verdict is not unique to that part of the world.
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