Who is the Rusalka?

Who is the Slavic water spirit, who tickles men to death, and is in charge of the fertility of crops?

I want to tell you about the Rusalka, a wonderful and complex being from East Slavic folklore that's both deadly and nurturing, and just as feared as she is revered.

The Rusalka is a Slavic female spirit associated with water, death and fertility.

Unlike some of the other spirits in Slavic folklore who have male counterpart, like the water spirits Vodyanoy and Vodianikha, or the household spirits Domovoy and Domovikha, there are only female Rusalkas.

Water is their element, but not their prison. Where other spirits may be tied to one particular location, like the field, forest, or house, rusalkas can leave their watery home and go to the shore, climb on trees, run around in fields and forests, and even visit villagers in their home.

“...the Rusalkas are looked upon in Russia as haunting lakes and streams, at the bottom of which they usually dwell in crystal halls, radiant with gold and silver and precious stones. Sometimes, however, they are not so sumptuously housed, but have to make for themselves nests out of straw and feathers collected during the "Green Week," the seventh after Easter.” - Songs of the Russian people

Rusalkas are associated with the world of the dead for two major reasons:

One - They are seen as the unclean dead - the spirit of someone who had an unnatural death.
And two - Whomsoever they get hold of, they dance or tickle to death. 9

This is why people feared them and avoided them for the most part.

Witches alone could bathe with them and remain unharmed. 9

Rusalkas also have the power of foresight and healing, but unfortunately they are most famous for their “seduction”. 1

Despite their deadly reputation, they were also revered, and at a certain time of the year, they were called upon to ensure the fertility of crops. This was the “Green Week” or “Rusalia Week”, when they would leave the water and travel on land, through forest, meadows and fields, and in their merry dancing made the grass greener and the grain more abundant. More about that in another video.

"Зелёные святки" - обряды на Троицу. Славянский хоровод
Музей Югорск

In folklore accounts from Ukraine, Belarus and South-West Russia this water spirit is often portrayed as a young, beautiful woman, with long flowing green or golden hair, wearing a white dress, or nothing at all, and often has “accentuated breasts”. Most often she has human legs, although some region-specific versions do resemble mermaids. In Northern Russia, they cease to be conventionally attractive and playful, and are instead described as “hideous, humpbacked, hairy creatures, with sharp claws, and an iron hook with which they try to seize passers-by.” 9

In stories where men come across them, they find them in groups, singing, dancing or combing each other’s hair. The men, seduced by their beauty, approach them, and the rusalkas either flee or include them in their dance, and playfully tickle them, until things get out of hand and the men end up drowning. Sometimes a man falls so deeply in love with a rusalka that he will agree to live in her underwater world.

Świtezianka (The Nixie) TRAILER
Bui Film

Next I will talk more about her connection with death, about how Slavic people perceived death, and how this affected the way they saw the rusalkas.