If you type the word русалка (rusalka, plural rusalki) into a translation program, it will spit back “mermaid.” That is how westerners think about these water maidens. However, although they have characteristics of mermaids, rusalki lack one essential feature—fish tails (although more modern descriptions, ours included, may portray them this way).
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. 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.
In ancient societies, people worshipped nature, especially water, and the spirits who lived there—but water spirits were also the most feared of those that roamed the community. Water spirits, who lived the farthest away from the homestead, were the most dangerous and cruelest among their brethren. They lured people into the water with the sole intent of causing them harm. The community never considered drownings to be accidents. Everyone who drowned was a victim of these spirits, who had dragged the unfortunate person beneath the surface.
Although some nature spirits with a connection to water caused death, others also brought life. Among these are the collective beregini fertility spirits and one-time Great Mother earth goddess called Berehynia, who embodied female empowerment. Some believe beregini are the ancestors of rusalki, since these spirits brought moisture to the land. Their name possibly comes from bereghy (“riverbanks” or “shore”).
In time, however, these spirits were vilified, and the rusalki were considered demons or the “unclean dead.”
They are women or girls who died during a liminal (that is, in between or transitional) phase of their life: before baptism, on the verge of marriage, or while giving birth. Those who died unclean did not receive proper Christian burial rites as the deceased were considered cursed. These bad deaths deprived the community of the female’s potential fertility, and as such went against society’s social order and moral code (to produce offspring). By dying, she failed in her societal role and therefore wasted her reproductive resources.
The rusalki are the spirits of young women. Not just any young women, but those who have passed from this world in a traumatic way. Specifically, rusalki are the spirits of those who have died in or near water or committed suicide by drowning, especially if it was a result of being spurned by a lover. A few sources claim that any women who don’t marry can become rusalki when they die, because they’re shirking their duty of being wives and mothers. Even married women who drown themselves because of unhappy marriages have the potential to become rusalki
Rusalki wander around the place where they died, moaning about their untimely fate, and they haunt deceitful lovers and seek revenge, unable to find peace until they are avenged. These water maidens love to sit on tree branches, especially willow and birch. From there, they call out men’s names, trying to entice the males to come closer. Those who dare find themselves surrounded by the rusalki who tickle the men to death. Swimming can be fatal to men as well. They become entangled in the rusalki’s long hair and the maidens drag the men to the depths with their iron grips.
In death, however, as rusalki, the women also have the opportunity to bestow their fertility upon the land. When they brush their thick green hair, water flows and nourishes the land. Also, their voices, when not used to seduce men, sing in eternal harmony and bestow life upon the land. Not only their voices, but rusalki’s mere touch brings nurturing power to growing crops. But they do more than touch. They frolic among the rye, corn, and wheat fields, hanging off the stalks, making them sway as if tossed about by a strong breeze. Even more than their touch, rusalki’s dancing stimulates the soil.
The spirits remain in this undead state, unable to move to the other side, until various conditions are met: 1) they live out what would have been their normal lifespan if they hadn’t had a violent death or committed suicide, 2) they are avenged of their jilted lover, 3) they become human again through the miracle of the cross and baptism, or 4) until Christ returns to the world (what’s commonly called “the second coming”).
If you’d like to learn more about rusalki, check out our book about them, A Study of Rusalki – Slavic Mermaids of Eastern Europe.