Representations of Numina Aquae in Literature, Folklore and Modern Popular Culture

1 Water Genies and their Personifications

1Two great thinkers, Bachelard (1942) and Foucault (1967), have contributed to a holistic understanding of the culture of water, (which includes manifestations of all kinds, from literary to water management and many more). The first highlighted the poetic and symbolic elements of water, which we will see below, and the second created the concept of “heterotopia.” That is, of an alternative “other-place,” which is what many places of enchanted waters really are, such as gardens, fountains or ponds with stories of nymphs or undines, which are expressed in what Martos Núñez and Martos García (2013) have called “eco-fictions.”

2Nevertheless, there are certain specific ecotypes throughout the cultural area of the Mediterranean that show common elements between different cultures, as well as disparities between beliefs and cults, which are manifested in ethnotexts (panorama outlined by Christian, 1976), although obviously water culture has blurred ostensibly nowadays (González Alcantud, Malpica Cuello and Afkir, 1995), losing a multitude of referents.

3The term water genies refers to an almost infinite number of creatures that inhabit the waters and protect them, in any part of the world. The terminology used to refer to them does not only include the great variety of generic deities known in the European tradition, such as mermaids, tritons, nymphs, undines, lamias, anjanas…, or with their own name, such as Poseidon, Medusa or Frau Hölle, but also a multitude of topical divinities or genii loci of the different mythologies (with their own names or local names, such as the Chilean Pincoya), etc.

4A noteworthy aspect of some stories, such as Grimm’s Frau Hölle, or the myth of Medusa, is their relationship to the prosopography of the monstrous: thus, the undines, Nix or lamias who live by fountains or wells often have grotesque features, as do the Iberian “enchanted” women who live in caves or on riverbanks. This monstrous appearance is an attempt to demonize the appearance of the female nature of the ancestral luminaries: it is something already known in the collision of the “new” Olympian gods with the ancestral Mother Goddess (cf. Gimbutas), as seen in Herakles and the Hydra, Medusa and Perseus, and other myths.

5For the same reason, the nymphs or xanas who comb their golden hair by the fountain, G. A. Bécquer’s “green-eyed” undine who fascinates the knight with her gaze (just like Medusa), or the Grimm brothers’ Spring Woman, who changes her skin, are genies who guard the ponds and wells denoting an intimate “daimonic” nature, which in turn reveals the profound water-woman connection. Water is the threshold between life and the afterworld, the realm where death and regeneration follow one another, as depicted in myths such as the Triple Goddess. Moreover, this symbol brings together the dialectical and contradictory aspects of the Mother Goddess. From her aspect as a bride to that of an old woman (cf. Gimbutas), which would explain that co-presence or coincidentia oppositorum (cf. Eliade) between the kinder or luminous aspects of these numina aquae and their counterpart; in other words, the sinister and dark manifestations, such as the lamias.

6In any case, the diversity of water genies is explained by the diversity of water cultures around the world, and by the reception and transformation of myths, giving rise to overlapping intangibles. This is the principle of coherent remodeling (cf. Brelich), which tells us that a legend tries to integrate or “embrace” elements from different earlier traditions and different social strata. Thus, the good fairies behave like kindly ladies from the fountains and use the stereotype of Frau Hölle; that is to say, they dispense gifts and/or punishments according to the performance of the person who “visits” them, based on the interaction or tests performed. In the Christianizing semiosis of these myths, the Virgin appears in fountains and wells with equivalent behavior, as in the legend of the Virgen de la Fuensanta in Villanueva del Arzobispo (Jaén), where the oracular motif and the motif of healing by water appear. According to the legend, a Moorish king had his wife’s eyes gouged out and her hands cut off, accusing her of helping the Christians, and left her abandoned in a place called La Moratilla. There, the woman heard the waters running and, at the same time, a voice encouraging her to wash her wounds in the fountain. Instantly she recovered her hands and eyes, with which she could see the image of the Virgin before her. Virgins related to these water nymphs share the majesty, attire or mystery of these figures (cf. Otto), and act as true water ladies in all their classical functions: healing, giving oracles and consecration of the place.

7What has been referred to so far is part of a very broad tradition that goes beyond the framework of any culture or place, although it is true that these narratives have a greater emphasis in some communities; among the Aztecs and throughout Mesoamerica (the cenotes) and in Europe with the Celts. Indeed, there are numerous sacred wells in Ireland, for example. Such wells, fountains or cisterns were places of purification and contact with the numen (cf. Otto), to whom offerings and sacrifices were made, and to whom oracles and favors were asked, related to diverse areas: cures, “cursing” someone, love magic…, so that the duality fertility-health vs. destruction-death, characteristic of these topical divinities linked to water, already appears here.

8Consequently, looking into the well, the chasm, the shore is always an act of stepping over the threshold, the edge between two worlds. Since the well is related to the myths of childbirth, it is not in vain that the Medusas and other beings of the depths were first thrown into these “dens” by the will of the gods. The initiatory ritual death or the sacrificial myth comes out clearly: the body thrown, sometimes the decapitated head, the blood, are the offerings par excellence that ensure fertility. Sacrifice is the seed for creation and regeneration, that is the most plausible explanation for the Medusa who, transformed into a monster, in the dark, radiates her power, dazzling the living. The two dominant epiphanies are the visual and the auditory: the Medusa shines, blinds, petrifies and, on the other hand, the Medusa is also like a disembodied voice, a silhouette that stalks.

2 Shapeshifting Water Deities and Metamorphic Genies

9In mythology, folklore and literary and media fiction, the shapeshifting of metamorphic characters or shapeshifters is understood as the ability to transform physically due to a superhuman quality or the intervention of a numen or god, by sorcery or witchcraft, or by having inherited that ability. It appears linked to the most primitive forms of religion, such as shamanism, as well as in literature and in the most ancient epic poems in existence, such as the Homeric poems; remember the case of Ulysses’ companions transformed into pigs.

10The common denominator of this phenomenon is the lability or variability of appearance, whatever the origin of this gift or its voluntary or involuntary character, and therefore the attribution of a multiple physiognomy or identity to a character, as in the case of the sea gods Nereus and Proteus. The concept has become a leitmotif in modern literature, albeit with more psychologistic overtones, and in fantasy fiction, for example, superhero sagas and fictions, where the very essence of the superhero is associated with his or her power to change appearance and adopt another personality.

11In short, the so-called changelings or shapeshifters are a well-known motif of folklore and literature, with stories that are full of princes transformed into frogs, gods turned into animals, etc. In fact, it is a cross-cultural archetype closely connected to other correlated motifs, and has thus generated a great diversity of corpora that must first be treated separately and then in their interconnections:

1. The motif of the monster, born in this way or the result of an enchantment.
2. The motif of deception, connected to the idea of disguise, trickery, cunning, etc. (e.g., Ulysses disguised as a beggar). In relation to this motif, we would have the Trickster, trickster gods or mythological beings.
3. Post-human shapeshifters: this is understood as robots and cyborgs, as well as Artificial Intelligences (AI, which can dress up in various guises and by extension the extraterrestrial).
4. changeling-specific abilities, access to various powers through different magical or technological means. Among the magical means, spells and incantations. Among the non-magical means, advanced technology, genetic engineering, etc.
5. Artefacts: Magical (in)visibility in epiphanies, such as the invisible cloak, the ring of power, and other shifter gadgets.
6. Transformation or hybridization with animal traits: therianthropy, shamanism, werewolf…

13In addition to their presence in folklore and literature, these characters have a notable presence in comics, and there is a very large list of multimedia shapeshifters, where the very concept of superhero is often associated, as we have already alluded to, with their capacity to adopt an alter ego or double of themselves. Precisely the heterogeneity of these figures, which populate comics and the audiovisual industry, makes a critical analysis necessary, as the random co-presence of these characters in different fictions, as in The Avengers, generates a kind of pastiche story, which leads to a superficial and banal reading of these myths.

14Although in this profusion of beings and categories we see the “magmatic capacity of imaginaries” (cf. Castoriadis), we cannot simply mix them up, but must separate them and, in accordance with the perspective of analogical hermeneutics, move towards a more subtle reading, which is basically a critical and multicultural reading.

15A god is not the same as a mutant, and that is why we must resort to structured, non-random multimedia thematic itineraries, and precisely the SDG open up the possibility of a holistic analysis of these fables if we connect them precisely with the place, habitat or environment in which they are generated. For example, Spider-Man uses the city as his ecological niche, and this differentiates him from any classical or folkloric myth; the primordial gods Nereus or Proteus are called “old men of the sea,” and their “protean” capacity cannot be disassociated precisely from the primordial and changing nature of the ocean as the bed of the origin of life. Similarly, the enchantresses of legends are anchored to a place or landscape, usually a watercourse, and thus reveal their nature as heterotopia (cf. Foucault), as marking a singular place or a threshold between worlds and a site where exchanges, oracles, etc. take place.

16Therefore, all the paraphernalia, the environment or the vicissitudes that seem to surround these stories of changelings are not random details or eccentricities, but fabulous ways of expressing, for example, certain eco-symbolisms. Just as the Hydra of Lerna that Hercules kills does not grow back its heads once they have been cut off, but metaphorically expresses the power of the springs or fountains in the karst landscapes.

17In addition, there are other singular transformations that are not voluntary or that do not form part of the character’s attributes but are involuntary or are produced by natural phenomena or cycles. We are referring to the case of curses or incantations that are “cast” against someone by sorcery (the evil eye), or also the belief in the reincarnation of souls, typical of animism: this is what appears in Grimm’s version of Cinderella, when the heroine’s deceased mother is successively reincarnated in a tree or in little birds at the foot of her tomb.

18Famous in folklore is what Bettelheim calls the animal-boyfriend or animal-girlfriend cycle, which we can exemplify in tales such as Beauty and the Beast, or in stories where the king (The Frog King by Grimm) or a princess (The Frog Princess by Viktor Vasnetsov) metamorphoses into a frog. These appearances of “wild beasts” always take place in a garden, outside the “civilized,” controlled space, in the “óros,” the wild or savage space of the Greeks. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals, plants, stars, etc., which has generated a multitude of etiological myths, such as those relating to flowers like Narcissus, the constellations, etc.

19Therianthropy deserves special consideration because it reveals the proximity or lability of forms between human and animal, hence myths such as lycanthropy, or others such as the Navajo skinwalker or the Viking berserker. The deep affinity between the new form and the original one is seen in these myths of warriors or hunters. In fact, the myth of the wild hunt is based on stories such as that of Artemis, who transformed Actaeon into a deer to spy on her while she was bathing and was later devoured by her own hunting dogs.

20In another similar case, Athena transmuted Arachne into a spider, presumably for defying her as a weaver. However, the spider is one of the forms or avatars of the Mother Goddess in ancient European culture, and therefore only obtusely could it be thought that Arachne as a maiden, and the craft of spinning and spiders have nothing to do with each other. Special mention should be made of the case of Medusa, where the transformation seems to be punitive, as she is turned into a monster for having sexual intercourse (raped, in Ovid’s version) with Poseidon in the temple of Athena. However, the hybrid nature of many of these feminine figures, such as the sirens, is well known, and this serpent-woman form is one of the oldest archetypes and connects to a constellation of myths where myths such as water or moisture, the moon, woman (menstruation), healing or medicines, etc. are involved. So, it is not clear that this is a curse, but rather the manifestation or epiphany of the powers of the woman, as is later evidenced by the power of her head or gorgoneion as an amulet of maximum worship among the Greeks.

21In the case of the metamorfo as a defensive strategy, we have the fable of Daphne and Apollo, permanently metamorphosed into laurel in the face of the gods’ harassment.

3 Multiple Identities

22Rohde and Lecouteux with their studies on souls, doubles or shamanism, give us the key to understanding these visions of shapeshifters, which are not only visual but also synesthetic in nature (i.e. they present not only a single face, head, body, sound, touch or smell, but potentially several). According to Lecouteux’s (1988) theory of the double, the multiplicity of aspects or physiognomies of the enchanted (witch, anima, monster…) fits perfectly into this shamanic imaginary, where, thanks to trance and the flight of the soul, it is possible to achieve these powers of transmutation, and water is a perfect catalyst for these multiple identities to emerge.

23Thus, when the Romans saw the great rivers in the alternative form of a man, a bull or a snake, they reflected the roar of the current, its strength or its intensity. And in its human form, the river held the instincts of hunger or lust, and this is precisely what zoomorphs like Zeus do when they disguise themselves to satiate their desires with nymphs or women. In this sense, the key to analyzing the changeling is this hybrid aspect, that is, the therioanthropy that Zeus manifests in myths such as that of Europa and in other similar cases.

24In particular, we are interested in shapeshifters linked to the imaginaries of water, myths of Poseidon, sea monsters and water ladies (such as the lavandières de nuit and La Llorona), as well as their respective receptions in modern literature (R. Riordan, H. Lovecraft, George Sand and Marcela Serrano, among others).

25Lecouteux (1998) relies on the idea that all changeling figurations are based on the archetype of the Double, and it is a theory similar to that of C. Cabal. This underlies the belief in ancestors, all the diversity of forms being avatars of the deceased or manes: a parallelism/duality between the visible self and an invisible self that could take different forms and move out of the body to appear at certain moments such as sleep or in a state of trance. This would be a shamanic vision shared by the Greco-Latin, Celtic and Germanic traditions, among others.

26In this context, the Galician La Santa Compaña would be a clear example of this visionary literature, as in Castilla y León’s La huéspeda de Ánimas or in Las Palmas’ Antorchas del Time. As V. Propp has already observed, the dead in fairy tales have two basic drives: hunger and lust, i.e., the same as the living. The legends of enchantment would be not only wonderful tales, but stories that interweave space and time to help shape and preserve a sense of space and identity to that community, interweaving toponymic, narrative and experiential features.

4 Mechanisms of Hybridization and Exchange of Prosopographies

27The cultural syncretism that has affected various numina aquae in the contact between cultures explains how European patterns were contextualized in America, and also adapted to Afro-American beliefs. This is the case of the goddess Yemayá, queen of the sea according to these beliefs, whose appearance and attributions are largely comparable to those of the Virgen del Carmen, for example.

28Professor V. García de Diego called transpersonification the mechanism of legends that allows prosopographies and characters to be exchanged. A recurring case of transpersonifications are the cults of female deities and their hybridisation processes, with their interchangeable prosopographies (cf. Martos y Martos, “Los Imaginarios del agua…”). Thus, if in America we speak of “Andean mermaids” (Revilla; Millones), it is precisely because there is a recognition of European characters in the pre-Columbian fish-women of the Andean lakes, such as Quesintuu and Umantuu, in this case, linked to the importance of music for catechization.

29Similarly, the legends of Damas Blancas, Matres or Dea Matrona allude to a single triadic deity. The different elements of the sacred places (waters, caves, etc.) where the Lady appears, constitute transcultural images and make this syncretism possible, as they refer to the medium, seer, prophetess or magician (sibyl) who lived near springs or caves, possessed by the spirit of divination.

30Extending the phenomenology of apparition to the Greek concept of “agalma” (cf. Martos, “Lecturas del agua…”), the “treasure” or revelation is not in itself in the image—in the “idol” or “eikon” as such—but in the whole of the place, considered in all its components. This is what Calasso describes in setting out the paradigm of the Delphi sanctuary and oracle, and what is applicable to the Virgin of Tepeyac or the Virgin of Aparecida in Brazil (cf. Martín), whose thaumaturgic manifestation must not only be linked to the image in its respective supports (the ayate or terracota) but to the very epiphany of the sacred place, the hill of Tepeyac or the Paraiba River.

31The (trans)national cults are nourished by diverse symbolisms and ethnotexts, due to the fusion of mythological and religious archetypes that has led to the creation of new national symbols: this is the case of Guadalupe/Tonantzin and the Aparecida/Yemanjá (cf. Oleszkiewicz).

32It is in this way that the association of the legends with water shows us how the evolution of this European archetype of the aquatic goddess, connected with the agrarian, the underworld or healing (cf. Gimbutas), is impregnated with values proper to the new context, and the nature of these “adherences” mark the success or oblivion of the devotion. For example, the insertion of these legends into festivals or rituals which form an identity and a cultural memory, thus creating a chronotope (cf. Bakhtin), in other words, a significant crossroad between time and space. This is the case of the Virgin of the Sea in Almería, who appeared on the beach in Torre García in 1502.

5 In Search of Patterns: the Serpent and the Abduction of the Maiden. Ecofeminist isotopies

33There is an extensive bibliography on the figure of the dragon and the serpent. We are going to focus here on prototypes such as Medusa, the dragon slayers, or the abduction of the maiden.

34To do this, we must pay attention to the magic of the body and eyes and the magic of the word: the idea of the magic eye or Horus who has clairvoyance and occult powers, which are activated by Medusa or the Basilisk. In general, the dragon and all these beings “seduce,” manipulate or paralyze through the gaze, that is, they fascinate, or bewitch. This focus on the mask-like appearance and blood to explain the thaumaturgies associated with Medusa or Frau Hölle is what makes us think that we are dealing with a singular numen aquae, an infernal avatar of the Great Goddess.

35All this is consistent with Fontenrose’s (1980) interpretation that behind the dragon lies the representation of the spring and its changing epiphanies, i.e. as energy that gushes and flows in a serpentine manner and takes on different aspects, from the “living waters” to which we referred earlier, to the torrents or rivers of lava.

36And if the dragon hides the echo-symbolism of the spring according to Fontenrose, the pattern of the abduction of the maiden would in fact be a psychodrama, as in the myth of Persephone, to explain through a fable of abduction the cycles of Nature. Water, which, like the river Guadiana, sinks and reappears, light and darkness, the subsoil (the chthonic) and the sky. This same transformism already appeared in cave paintings, the shaman disguised as a bear or a wolf, disguised ritual officiants who represent the telluric forces, the eternal struggle between chaos and cosmos.

37The dragon slayers (women) do not shed blood but tame the beast, subdue it by means of a cord or chain, like Santa Marta, making more diaphanous the eco-symbolism. Liberating does not mean necessarily shedding blood, but this does reveal how the ancient ritual became opaque or at least obscured to the point of turning the guardian of the spring into something evil.

38The synthesis or series of correlated myths (dragon-woman-spring-cave) trace a series of ecofeminist isotopies, of recurrences that contradict the passive and submissive role that seems to be assigned to the maiden. The relationship between deities such as Frau Hölle and climatology, such as snow or storm (making it snow, regulating the rain) is equivalent to guarding watercourses, which is what the undines do.

39The apparent triangle between raptor, maiden victim and aggressor is actually subsumed in an “undulating” duality, the pole of water or the vital (snake-woman, dragon and maiden fused together) and the pole of the opposite, the solar.

40And it is worth highlighting the place as an important prosopographical feature: the spring is the trait of the dragon-woman, as its opposite, the dry or arid, is the trait of the gentleman of the patriarchal culture. Interaction always takes place at these edges: the entrance to the cave, the riverbank, the undergrowth, the shore… Medusa embodies this ambivalence: she can dry up, petrify, create chaos, or she can be subdued by Perseus to establish order and kill what could be considered an expansion of herself, the dragon.

41The duality of water, its creative and destructive power, is the same as that projected in emblematic mytholandscape, such as the cave or cavern, womb and tomb at the same time. And is reflected symmetrically in the plurality and attributes of the numina aquae, who manifest themselves as both gods of life and gods of death. Thus, the underworld is a hotbed of gods and genii, and, conversely, in life there are always dark forces orbiting, which the imagery of death describes in a theriomorphic way, as presences, which are sometimes beneficent, and others more sullen or disturbing (souls in pain, deceased bride, etc.). Until they come to form the category of ghosts, which are dedicated precisely to instilling terror.

42Propp had already warned that the habitat should not be considered in stories in isolation but as an attribute or part of the prosopography of the characters, so that lady-in-the-tree is like the noun-adjective pair, an attribute that modifies the nucleus. And, as analogical hermeneutics postulates, it has to be seen in syntagmatic/paradigmatic relations, as the tree for example associates or implies water.

43To sum up: the most usual form of representation is a figure + a landscape, and, in an oblique reading, of a landscape personified in a figure, which is like the soul of that landscape (genius loci). That landscape is a place of power, syncretic (for example, fountain-tree-hermitage-numen association) and constitutes an example of animated ecologies, to be deciphered by means of analogical hermeneutics and other methods. This interweaving with the human is what makes the imaginaries of water to be constructed precisely by “welding,” in a singular way in each case, two basic pieces, the landscapes and the figures.

44These figures are precisely the numina aquae, which might appear to be eccentricities typical of childish thinking, if we were to apply the most radical viewpoint of the Enlightenment to them, but which rather manifest the holistic character of the culture of water. Thus, the duality of water manifests itself in epiphanies or thaumaturgies of positive or negative sign; some are developed around the isotopy: lights + chant, i.e., light + sonority (oracles), for example, clear water (presence of gold) + message of the numen. Note that costume and other attributes are not important and are emphasized in the more literaturized versions or in the aquatic superheroes, such as Aquagirl or Aquaman.

6 Final Considerations

45As for the functionality of the shapeshifter/metamorfo, due to its socio-cultural and historical explanation, beyond the temptation to attribute it to a wild imagination or eccentricity, it can be concluded that it is not homogeneous for all the variants we are alluding to. For example, in popular culture, for superheroes, the costume, the gadget, the powers that transform a simple individual into a singular being, such as Spider-Man, are explained by the need to increase powers and to visualize those powers through some unusual aspect or ability. In the case of water culture, we have many examples: this is the case of Nix or nixe, the most usual term used by the Brothers Grimm to refer to the undines in their tales and legends, who are described as a shapeshifting entity. For it is precisely this undifferentiated or zoomorphic form that underlies the most ancestral representations, for example the water dragons in Sussex (English knucker, related to Old English nicor, water monster).

46The discourse of postmodernity could be summed up in the title of Harari’s book: from animals to gods. Posthumanism and fantasy fiction coincide in depicting an evolved human being with extraordinary powers, be it Iron Man or anyone else. It is a finalist or exoteric vision of the shapeshifter, who changes “on the outside” but without questioning the normal identity; they are, shall we say, juxtaposed identities. Classic literature offers examples where these identities do conflict, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde or The Portrait of Dorian Grey. The key here is psychological enquiry.

47By contrast, we already know that fairy tales are averse to any psychologism, the heroes are so not because of what they think or believe about themselves or others, because of their inner conflicts, but because of their behavior, and even their deepest nature is always revealed by external marks (“Little star on the forehead”).

48In the same way, the metamorphs associated with the figures of Nature (nymphs, lamias, old men of the sea, mermaids…) represent the changing vision of Nature, in its more benevolent and/or sinister aspects. Both aspects are often mixed, for example, the white ladies are resplendent sparkles that appear in rivers, bridges or castles, apparitions, reflecting the cult of the souls (Cabal) and the survival of the ancestors. Not in vain are many of these figures anchored to lineages or specific places. Even before Christianity or feudalism, pagan cults filled the forests with changing-looking figures that could not be tamed, just as Melusina, the Fish Man, the Werewolf and other doubles could not be tamed. This is the key to Polydemonism (Adolphe Lods).

49At other times, as we have alluded to, shapeshifters use their appearance as part of “dissimulation,” that is, as a disguise or “cover,” and in this they enter into the dynamic of the trickster gods, and can be seen as a defensive or offensive strategy. Therefore, like the famous Mortadelo in the comics, the transformation of the character into others through disguise is an adaptation of the aforementioned defensive or offensive strategies. In any case, it is linked to the vision of the trickster and the use of cunning intelligence.

50The main difference between the more conventional models, and the one we advocate, is the concept of animated ecologies (Harmanşah), which presupposes two important notions: considering nature as a subject and not as an object, and therefore placing the beings of Creation on an equivalent plane. In other words, moving from an anthropocentric to a biocentric approach. Considering Nature as an active and sensitive agent, i.e. one that “suffers” our aggressions, can be dressed up in different beliefs, from ancestral animism to a more or less mystical or secular ecologism. Not being a mere storehouse of raw materials, Nature has its own voice (falas da Terra), which must be listened to, although the beings of industrial civilization have often lost this capacity for attentive listening.

51We must approach from a multidisciplinary perspective, and therefore from the comparison between different approaches and cultures, and the possible links between the mythical or classical Imaginaries and today’s ecoculture. In this direction, an emblematic author such as A. David has helped to illuminate new disciplines and categories to highlight what he calls the “ecology of magic.” This involves not only valuing biocentrism but also rethinking Western categories that Cartesianly separate the material and the spiritual, the human and the animal, the mind and the earth. Thus, from sources as different as modern cognitivism or Balinese shamanism, David highlights the animist worldview that conceives natural elements such as light, wind, etc. as spirits. When we talk about the Water Geniuses and say that the most archaic forms are these animist or zoomorphic representations, always grotesque—such as the sea monsters—what we make visible are these eco-symbolisms.

52For example, the Ocean as an old man who is always changing his appearance (Proteus, Nereus) or the current of the stream as a nymph who personifies fertility, the generation of life, hence ecofeminism. Similarly, the cavern or grotto, both womb and tomb, or the meadow which for Indo-European mythology represented the afterworld, or, in particular, the Homeric meadow of asphodels frequented by the souls of the departed. A place where souls are shadows wandering in swarms (cf. Rhode et al.), in other words, their epiphany is that of a humming, something that presents the body; something reintegrated into the Earth, “recycled” into living nature.

53The conclusion is that the plurality of worlds of these ancestral cosmovisions is matched by a plurality of genii or personifications, which is often disconcerting, as seen in the prosopographical patterns, ranging from the most formless or theriomorphic (water spirits, monstrous serpents, snake-women, dragons…) to the Apollonian nymphs of Renaissance or Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

54The Imaginaries of Water are unique repositories of this complexity and duality (cf. Otto); they too, like the cave, are eco-symbolisms of womb and tomb. These eco-symbolisms concerning the nature of water gather legends and myths referring to different states: living water, turbid water, clear water… as “sentient” or “living” forms of water, which harbor their genii loci. Or, if formulated the other way round, according to ecocriticism, it is as if the landscape is expressed through these water beings, which are thus the emblem or soul of the landscape, hence their importance for cultural memory and local identity.

55In short, the Water Imaginaries emphasize the numina aquae that personify the forces of Nature in their interaction with human beings, and thus represent the so-called animated Ecologies, by proposing Nature not as an object but as a subject. Such approaches are closely related to trends such as ecofeminism, as Nature and Women have often been treated as “subaltern subjects” and thus made invisible and silenced by the same tradition.

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