We dipped back into holidays last weekend with the Dożynki/Obzhynki harvest festival, but this Slavic Saturday we return to spirits and demons with a pretty famous one: the Wodnik (also called the Vodyanoy/Водяной, Vodenjak/Водењак, Vodyanyk/Водяник, Voden dukh/Воден дух, Vadzianik/Вадзянік, Vodník, and Vodanoj).
(June 2021 Updated) Note: If you enjoy Slavic mythology, check out A Dagger in the Winds, the first book in my Slavic fantasy series called The Frostmarked Chronicles. You can also join my monthly newsletter for updates and free novellas (such as the prequel, The Rider in the Night) set in the world of the series.
At first glance, the Wodnik looks very similar to the Utopiec/Topielec, another water demon – particularly of the swamps. Some regions consider the two creatures to be basically the same, while others (such as parts of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia) believed that the Wodnik could be both helpful and harmful while the Utopiec was only evil. Among the eastern Slavs as well, there were a variety of appearances for the Wodnik, including a tsar, but we’ll get more into that later.
A key differentiator between the Wodnik and the Utopiec as well is that, while some considered both to be demons, the Wodnik was sometimes thought of as a separate, protector spirit for a body of water. This made the Utopiecs the lingering souls of those the Wodnik drowned. Regardless, both wear the label of “drowner” made popular by the English version of the Utopiec/Topielec in The Witcher stories and video games. Interestingly as well, The Witcher includes both the Wodnik and Utopiec as separate creatures. While the Utopiec is the drowner, Wodniks are creatures living deep in the sea in their own cities – likely drawing from Polish beliefs that a Wodnik would live in a crystal or ice palace at the bed of their claimed body of water. Of course, The Witcher just draws inspiration from mythology more than using it directly, it is an insight into ways these two have been interpreted.
The Wodnik’s appearances are more variable than its Utopiec counterpart. While the latter is often pictured as an ugly, slimy beast, the Wodnik ranges from a more frog-like creature among East Slavs to an old man with greenish skin and beard along with webbed fingers among West Slavs. His eyes are often big and goggly, dark as coals, burning bright as a flame, or bright green like moss. Often, he dressed in red and could shape-shift into people of a village or various aquatic animals as well. In other stories, he had a merman’s tail.
What happened when a Wodnik was in a bad mood? Occasionally, he could be helpful, but when angered, Wodniks would grab people crossing their waters and take them to the depths. Stories told of them living by mills and water wheels. When the mill owner failed to give the Wodnik sacrifices he wanted (either animals or even people), the mill owner could pay the price. The spirit was thought in some regions to have children, and he drowned people to make them into his son or daughter-in-laws. Some people also associate the Wodnik with the banning of bathing ahead of Noc Kupały/Kupala Night, a summer festival.
Various regions had different ways of ensuring the Wodnik was appeased to prevent these attacks. The first was, from Poland, simply sacrificing animals to the water spirit, particularly hens in some areas. In Ukraine it was believed you should bury a horse’s skull near the water, and in Belarus they buried a black rooster under the doors of the mill and kept black cats and roosters within the mill.
According to Elena Levkievskaya, Russia has its own twist on the Wodnik as well. In the north especially, they believed that there was a king of the Wodniks, called Tsar Vodyanik. He and the other Wodniks would sleep beneath the ice in the winter and then rise when it melted to torment those alongside the water.
In The Frostmarked Chronicles, the Utopiec is more prominent early in the series than its Wodnik counterpart, but it’s difficult to resist the idea of a demonic king of the waters. He will be a creature to watch for in later books and side stories as people try to avoid being plunged into the Wodnik’s realm.
That’s all for this week’s Slavic Saturday. Be sure to keep a lookout for more posts next week, and if you haven’t seen the full series of posts, be sure to check them out.
*As always just a quick disclaimer. Slavic mythology is broad and not written in many if any primary sources, so there’s a variety of interpretations. The interpretations I’m using here are from the sources I’ve found to be reliable and as well as some creative freedom for my book series.