Episode 53: Water Fae: Where Water and Death Collide

The folklore of where water and death collides.

Written and narrated by Ronel Janse van Vuuren. Copyright 2023 Ronel Janse van Vuuren — All rights reserved.

Get the transcript here.

Music: Secrets by David Fesliyan (FesliyanStudios.com) and Dramatic Heartbeat by FesliyanStudios.com

Transcript

You’re listening to the Faeries and Folklore podcast by Ronel.

I’m dark fantasy author Ronel Janse van Vuuren. With nearly a decade of digging around in dusty folklore books, researching creatures of imagination that ignited my curiosity, I’m here to share the folklore in a nutshell and how I reimagined it for my writing in an origin of the fae.

This is the Faeries and Folklore podcast.

Hi, I’m your host Ronel Janse van Vuuren. You can just call me Ronel. In today’s episode, we’re continuing our exploration of the fae realm.

This episode is brought to you by my Origin of the Fae book series. You’ve met them on the podcast, now see them in action. Go to ronelthemythmaker.com/originofthefaeseries for more.

You can now support my time in producing the podcast (researching, writing and everything else involved) by buying me a coffee. This can be a once-off thing, or you can buy me coffee again in the future at your discretion. Go to buymeacoffee.com/ronel to support me.

Where Water and Death Collide

For the most part, water is seen as life. From the amniotic fluids before birth to the nourishment in provides throughout life, water is essential to our existence. The human body is made up of around 60% water.

But water is both creative and destructive: a source of life and of death.

A lot of mythology speaks of death as crossing water. In Greek mythology, the river Styx has to be crossed to reach the underworld. In Celtic mythology, the otherworld is across the ocean or lakes on islands.

Throughout history, tales of creatures of the deep taking sailors to the ocean’s depths have brought solace to those left behind as something could be blamed for the treacherous nature of the ocean – and other water sources. Jenny Greenteeth and her ilk get blamed for fresh water deaths.

Water and death are clearly closely tied together. Certain water fae such as sirens, mermaids, nixies, kappas, kelpies, merrows, grindylows, river hags and more are workers of death – some merely through their actions, while others such as merrows keep drowned souls until they can be taken to the Otherworld.

Now that we’ve looked at water fae in previous episodes, we can move on to other workers of death.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this episode of the faeries and folklore podcast and that you’ve learned something new about faeries.

Remember that you can get a transcript of this episode in the description. If you’re new to the podcast, why not go and grab your free copy of Unseen, the second book in the Faery Tales series, on my website ronelthemythmaker.com? Loads of folklore, magic and danger await! Take care!

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You can now support my time in producing the podcast (researching, writing and everything else involved) by buying me a coffee. This can be a once-off thing, or you can buy me coffee again in the future at your discretion.