Rusalka Water Spirits

The rusalki (singular rusalka) are the water maidens of Slavic rivers and lakes. They are at once beautiful and terrifying, with long green hair, pale skin, and the gift of song. They live in the water, they come out to dance on the banks at certain times of year, and they are the cause of a great many of the accidents, illnesses, and disappearances that the village ascribes to the river. They are part of a wider European family of water beings that includes the mermaid of the western seas, the nixie of the German rivers, and the naiad of the Greek tradition. The Slavic rusalka is one of the most vivid and best-documented of the European water beings.

This article is part of the Slavic Folklore section, which itself sits within the wider survey of European Folklore.

The Name

The name rusalka is a Slavic word of uncertain etymology. The most common folk etymology connects it to the verb rusat’, “to pall” or “to grow pale”, and the rusalka is sometimes said to be the pale one, the figure of the pallid dead. Whatever the etymology, the figure is widely attested across the Slavic world, and the name is used for water spirits in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Czech lands, Slovakia, Poland, and the Balkans.

In Polish the figure is rusałka; in Czech rusalka; in Serbian and Bulgarian rusalka or samovila; in Ukrainian rusalochka (the diminutive). The wide distribution of the name shows the depth of the tradition, and the variations show the local colour of the figure in each region.

The Appearance of the Rusalka

The rusalka is, in the older Russian and Ukrainian tales, a young woman with long green hair, pale skin, and a garland of flowers on her head. She has the gift of an entrancing song. She emerges from the water in the early morning or on a moonlit night, and she sits in the branches of a willow tree to comb her hair. The figure is, on the surface, a beautiful woman, and the young man who is drawn to her is in danger of his life.

The rusalka’s beauty is, however, an ambiguous one. Her skin is the pallor of the dead, her hair is the green of the water, and her voice is the voice of one who has been drowned. The figure is closely related to the older Slavic cult of the dead.

The Rusalka Week

The most important time for the rusalki is the Rusalnaya Nedelya or Rusalka Week, the week following Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday falls in late May or early June, and the Rusalka Week is the time when the rusalki are thought to be most active. The young women of the village weave garlands and float them on the river, and the rusalki are said to come out of the water to dance in the meadows. In some districts a doll is made and floated on the river at the end of the week.

The Rusalka Week is closely related to the older Slavic Semik, a pre-Christian festival of the summer solstice. The Christian Trinity overlay is a familiar pattern: the older festival is preserved, and the new Christian name is given to it. The result is a holiday that is, on one reading, a Christian feast and, on another, a survival of the older water cult.

The Rusalka and the Drowned Dead

The rusalka is closely connected to the drowned dead. In many Russian and Ukrainian tales, the rusalka is the spirit of a young woman who has drowned in the river, and who lingers in the water as a kind of ghost. The figure is, in many readings, a kind of unquiet dead — the spirit of someone whose death was untimely and whose soul has not been properly at rest.

The connection to the drowned dead explains why the rusalka is especially feared around rivers and lakes. A man who goes swimming on the day of the rusalka is in danger of being pulled under by her, and a young woman who goes into the water at the wrong time may be carried off to the rusalka’s realm.

The Rusalka and the Unbaptised Child

A second strand of folk belief connects the rusalka to the unbaptised child. In Orthodox Russia, a child who died unbaptised was thought to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven, and the soul of such a child was said to wander in the air or to live in the water as a rusalka. The connection explains why the rusalka is sometimes said to be accompanied by the souls of children, and why the rusalka is sometimes said to cry out for baptism.

The Rusalka in Literature and Music

The rusalka has been an extraordinarily productive figure in Slavic literature and music. The most famous work is the opera Rusalka (1901) by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. The opera is based on a tale of a water nymph who falls in love with a prince and who, in order to join the human world, must lose her voice and become mortal. Dvořák’s score — with its famous “Song to the Moon” — has made the figure of the rusalka a permanent part of the wider European musical heritage.

The Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol wrote one of the most powerful short stories of the Slavic tradition, “May Night, or the Drowned Maiden” (1831), in which a young man falls in love with a rusalka, the ghost of a girl who had drowned herself after being forced into a loveless marriage. The rusalka, in Gogol’s story, is the figure of the unjustly dead, and her story is part of the older pattern of the unquiet dead who must be laid to rest. The figure also appears in Pushkin’s unfinished “Rusalka” of 1832 and in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, where the rusalka-like figure of the witch Hella is a clear echo of the older tradition.

A Comparison with the Mermaid

The rusalka is closely related to the mermaid of the wider European tradition, and the two figures share many features. Both are female, both live in the water, both are beautiful and dangerous. The differences are also significant: the mermaid of the western seas is a figure of the open sea with a fish-like lower body, while the rusalka is a figure of rivers and lakes, almost always a human woman who has drowned and lingers in the water. This is one of the most distinctive features of the figure.

The Rusalka and the Vodník

A figure who should be set beside the rusalka is the vodník of the western Slavic and Balkan tradition. The vodník is the water man of the Slavic ponds and rivers, the husband (in some tales) of the rusalka, the keeper of the fish and the drowned. The vodník is at once more comical and more dangerous than the rusalka: he is the figure of the trapper, who catches souls in the way he catches fish, and who keeps them in pots beneath the water until the end of time.

The vodník is a clear cousin of the German Nix of the rivers and the Scottish Kelpie of the lochs, and the figure belongs to the wider European family of male water spirits. The rusalka is the female counterpart of the vodník, and the two together are the older Slavic couple of the water.

Modern Survivals

The rusalka has not disappeared from the modern Slavic world. She is still mentioned in rural Russia and Ukraine as a cause of drowning. The Rusalnaya Nedelya is still observed in some districts, and the kupalo of Kupala Night is still a major festival in Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Poland.

The rusalka has also entered the wider popular culture. She is the figure of the water maiden in much of modern Slavic fantasy, the green-haired witch of the river in Soviet animation, and the mysterious lady of the lake in contemporary novels.

Sources and Further Reading

Ivanits, Linda J. Russian Folk Belief. M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
Zelenin, D. K. Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde. De Gruyter, 1927. Reprint, 2010.
Hubbs, Joanna. Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture. Indiana University Press, 1993.
Guérin, Frances. “The Rusalka Cycle in Russian Literature and Folklore” (multiple studies in Slavic folklore).