A Study of Rusalki - Slavic Mermaids of Eastern Europe EBOOK

Mankind’s fascination with the sea has sparked imagination since the first person beheld its mighty waters. Curiosity led people to invent the means to travel across the great oceans and eventually explore beneath them, trying to discover their secrets. Throughout the centuries, millennia in fact, people have created myths and legends about creatures living within the sea’s depths. One of the most alluring and formidable beings to inspire writers, artists, children, and adults is the mermaid, who has been forever immortalized in stories such as Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. But there’s more to this sea maiden than that story tells. In Slavic folklore, she’s called a Rusalka and lives mostly in fresh-water bodies or swamps, rather than the sea.
Belief in the spirit was widespread across Eastern Europe: from Russia to the Czech Republic, from Poland to Bulgaria. Even today, she lives on in the minds and imaginations of many people.

Origins

The name Rusalka may be derived from an old Slavonic word rus (river or stream), ruslo (river bed), or even rosa (dew). Others have thought it comes from the word rusyj/rusaja (strawberry blond, golden [of hair]). Many scholars, however, believe the name of the spirits comes from the spring rusalia festival. (You’ll learn more about this in the “Rusalka Week” section.) Although the rusalia festivals have been mentioned between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, the term “rusalka” is more recent, first appearing in the eighteenth century.
These water spirits have existed far longer, though, so what did people call them before Rusalka became popular?