Water Spirit

Freshwater Nymph of Greek Mythology

The Naiad (Greek Naias, plural Naiades, English Naiad) is the freshwater nymph (Greek nymphe) who dwells in the freshwater (springs, rivers, lakes, wells) of Greek mythology, in the form of a beautiful human female, embodying the divinity of the freshwater source — the decisive canonical iconographic figure of Greek-mythological nature spirits. The etymology derives from the Greek verb naein ('to flow'), and within the four-fold classification of nymphs — Naiad (freshwater), Oceanid (Oceanids, ocean), Nereid (Nereids, salt sea), and Dryad (Dryads, tree) — the Naiad is the decisive canon of freshwater. The decisive textual canon is in the Theogony (Theogonia) of the Greek poet Hesiod (Hesiodos), c. 700 BCE — lines 364-370, the canon of the 3,000 sisters Oceanids and 3,000 brothers River-gods (Potamoi) born to the river-god Oceanus (Okeanos) and his sister Tethys — is the decisive textual canon of the Naiad, and the river nymphs appear decisively in Books 14 and 20 of the Iliad and Books 13 and 17 of the Odyssey by Homer (Homeros) of the eighth century BCE. The Naiad Castalia of the Castalian Spring (Kastalia) by the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece — the canonical inspiration of poetic prophecy — is the most decisive individual Naiad, and the 1896 painting Hylas and the Nymphs by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) established the visual canon of the Naiad in the nineteenth-century Victorian era.

Water Spirit of Germanic/Slavic Folklore

The Nix (Old English nicor, Old Norse nykr, German Nix/Nixe, English Nix or Nixie) is the canonical iconographic figure of the water spirit of Germanic and Slavic folklore dwelling in fresh water — rivers, lakes, and wells — appearing in alluring human form (mostly as beautiful women or handsome men) and luring humans into the water through music and song, with the true form being canonical iconography of a fish-tail, fish-scales, or green skin. The etymology derives from the Proto-Indo-European *neigw- ('to wash, purify') through the Proto-Germanic *nikwiz — the canonical vocabulary of Old English nicor, Old Norse nykr, and Old High German nihhus. The decisive textual canon is line 422 of Book 1 and line 1427 of Book 2 of the Old English epic Beowulf (Beowulf) by an anonymous author of the 8th-10th centuries — the water-monsters 'nicras' in the lake where the hero Beowulf fights Grendel's mother with the sword Hrunting — the decisive origin of the Germanic canon, and the canon of tale 79 The Nixie of the Mill-Pond (Die Nixe im Teich) of the Kinder- und Hausmaerchen of the German Grimm Brothers (Jacob and Wilhelm) of 1812-1815 is the decisive canon of the 19th-century German fairy-tale Nix. The 1779 poem The Fisherman (Der Fischer) of the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and the 1824 poem The Loreley (Die Loreley) of the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) established the 19th-century German Romantic Nix poetic canon, and the opera Rusalka by the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904), premiered on 31 March 1901 at the National Theatre in Prague, is the decisive musical canon of the Slavic Nix canon.

Fifty Sea Nymph Sisters of Greek Mythology

The Nereid (Greek Nereis, plural Nereides, English Nereid) is the canonical iconographic figure of the fifty sea-nymph sisters (nymphe) born to the sea-god Nereus (Nereus, 'wet one') and the Oceanid Doris (Doris) of Greek mythology. Within the classification of nymphs — Naiad (freshwater), Oceanid (ocean), Nereid (salt sea), Dryad (tree), Oread (mountain) — the Nereid is the decisive canon of salt sea, and the decisive textual canon is the canon of lines 240-264 of the Theogony (Theogonia) of the Greek poet Hesiod (Hesiodos) of c. 700 BCE — naming all fifty Nereids — the decisive canon. The most decisive Homeric canon is the canon of lines 35-64 of Book 18 of the Iliad of the eighth-century-BCE Homer (Homeros) — when the Nereid Thetis (Thetis), mother of the hero Achilles, grieves over the death of her son's friend Patroclus, thirty-three Nereid sisters rise from the deep-sea cave to comfort her — the decisive canonical scene of Greek epic, and the most decisive visual canon is the c. 1512 painting The Triumph of Galatea (Trionfo di Galatea) by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1483-1520) — held by the Villa Farnesina in Rome — the decisive culminating work of the Renaissance Nereid visual canon.

Water Spirit of Paracelsus

The Undine (Latin Undina, German Undine, English Undine) is the decisive canonical spirit of water (Aqua) among the four element spirits (Elemental Spirits) in the posthumous 1566 Latin treatise A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders (Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris) by the Swiss physician-alchemist Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541). The etymology is the canonical vocabulary of the Paracelsian coinage Undina derived from the Latin unda ('wave, billow'), and the decisive canonical iconography depicts her as a beautiful human female figure — dwelling in fresh water such as waterfalls, lakes, and springs — originally without a soul but acquiring one through marriage to a human. The decisive literary canon is the novella Undine (Undine) of 1811 by the German Romantic author Friedrich de la Motte Fouque (1777-1843) — the decisive Romantic tragic canon in which the Undine, who acquires a soul by marrying the human knight Huldbrand (Huldbrand), comes to death through her husband's betrayal — and the opera Undine premiered at the Royal Theatre in Berlin on 3 August 1816 by E. T. A. Hoffmann (E. T. A. Hoffmann, 1776-1822) — with libretto by Fouque himself — is the decisive canon of German Romantic opera. The ballet Undine of the German composer Hans Werner Henze (1926-2012), premiered at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London on 27 October 1958 (choreographed by Frederick Ashton, with Margot Fonteyn as Undine) is the decisive canon of 20th-century ballet.