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If you're ever by a stream with a lot of trout, keep your eyes open for the little souls of Victorian businessmen that swirl about in there. You see, they didn't have enough fun in life, so this is how they make up for it. Or so I'm told.
Witold Pruszkowski (1846–1896), “Naiads”
oil on canvas, , 1877–78
How to Work with Nature Spirits
Warning: Long Post under the Cut!!
Before getting into this, I want to preface that this is heavily based on my experiences and UPG. This is intended to be a helpful guide for anyone not sure on where to start but my Number 1 piece of advice will always be: Just go for it. Your experiences will be different from mine and that's a good thing! Be respectable and figure out what works best for you. With that in mind, let's get into it.
✨🧜🏽♀️Fairytale Friday🧜🏽♀️✨
Where Love Meets the Deep
This week, we're wading into Undine, written by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, translated by Edmund Gosse, and illustrated with woodcuts by Allen Lewis. Published in New York by The Limited Editions Club in 1930, this edition feels as carefully crafted as the story itself, delicate, precise, and a little haunting.
At its center is Undine, a water spirit who longs for a human soul. She finds love with a knight, and for a time, everything feels almost impossibly luminous, like sunlight catching on water, like something you know you can’t hold but reach for anyway. The story draws on older European folklore of elemental water spirits, beings said to inhabit rivers and streams, who could gain a soul through love, but never without conditions. And Undine never lets you forget that. This is Romantic-era love, intense, a little ominous, and very aware that nature does not always bend to human desires.
Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777-1843), a Prussian nobleman and one of the key figures of German Romanticism, saw nature as alive, expressive, and full of meaning. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars turned writer, Fouqué drew heavily on medieval chivalry, folklore, and elemental myth. Undine (first published around 1811) became his most enduring work, influencing later water-spirit lore, including, arguably, the stories that would eventually give us mermaids with much softer edges.
Known for his work in fine press books, Allen Lewis (1873-1957) was trained as both a painter and printmaker and helped revive wood engraving in early 20th-century America. His style is meticulous, shadowed, and restrained, perfect for a story where so much happens beneath the surface. His images don’t interrupt the text so much as linger within it, like reflections caught in moving water.
This is one of those fairy tales that doesn’t sparkle so much as shimmer…beautiful, a little unsettling, and impossible to hold onto for long.
--Melissa (who fully supports a dramatic, water-soaked love story when it looks this good), Distinctive Collections Library Assistant
-View previous Fairytale Friday posts
Hello! So I am curious, how have you venerated Rusalkas? Are there any intuitions you’ve experienced by doing so? If you are comfortable sharing.
I grew up with Rusalkas, now that I think about it.
It is well known these days that we take a lot of information for Slavic Paganism from folklore - but in a living culture "folklore" is not just old ethnographic monographies. So the belief in Rusalkas happens to be something I was actively raised with.
The Green Holidays and Rusaliyi were big in our home every year. Now that I am writing this, this is actually the period that begins right about now, so what a good timing with the question!
So, in the modern calendar this is a week celebrated after Pentecost (31st of May this year), or a few days before and after, usually Thursday to Thursday. This way it normally lands on late May or early June. There is a theory that the origins of this holiday can potentially be linked to the Roman holiday of Rosalia, which could have spread with their imperial reach.
Whether it is true or not, but there are a few key features of this celebration now. One is the belief that during this time Rusalkas venture into the land, play and joke -sometimes lethally, - with people, and are essentially celebrating the awakening of the earth and their own coming into full power.
Very simply, it's believed that the earth during this time is rightfully theirs, so they roam freely, and can take a young man of woman they likes with them, and tickle them to death. People take precautions, for example avoiding bodies of water or sometimes even bathing, because these maidens are absolutely in their right to take you under at this time. Lovage and wormwood are thought to be protective. When weaving in the home was more prevalent, women would also leave offerings of cloth hung from the trees for them.
Homes are generally decorated with tree branches and herbs. This custom is alive and well even in apartment buildings, where you will see herbs hung up even in hallways and staircases. The herbs chosen are often fragrant or medicinal.
People also remember their own dead, and youths gather for games.
The Thursday of this week is believed to be a so-called Rusalkas' Easter, or Easter of the Dead. This is their main celebration for the ancestors and Rusalkas, who essentially are also the dead. For example, we have stories of congregations of the dead holding a special celebratory service at local churches, lead by an equally dead priest. In any case, in rural areas it all usually culminated in saying farewell to all these visitors: the community held a festive procession out of the village, after which the domain over the earth returned to the living.
Now, what it seems to show to me - and stay with me here, please - is that in the Slavic worldview existing in the category of "spirit" and "matter" was mutually permeable. Now we tend to think as the physical matter or physical earth as the source of life, then you pass on, and you move on into spiritual existence. But what this interaction I described above demonstrates, really, is that the vital presence of what we see as "no longer with us" is continuous. Spirit circulates like water does. If it is no longer looking like a liquid, it does not mean it is not participating in life.
I will share one belief about water spirits I have held since very small that was not given to me by anyone, and which was definitely not encouraged. So, I grew up in this fairly small town surrounded on three sides by a bend of a river. Lots of water, you know. And I did spend my childhood on the banks of that river with a friend of mine. Even then, starting in elementary school, I had an intimate feeling that the Ruler of this river, the spirits that take care of it, do not have tolerance for being unappreciated. If humans take too much from their home, they see it as their right to take us with them, too. Which should have concerned me as someone who could not even swim, but I had figured water was everywhere anyway, and if they pick someone as their share, they can choke on a spoonful of water as well as drown in a lake.
So on that cheery note I am going to leave this answer, hah.
a few ritually collected items from my recent pilgrimage. this collected deer fur was left in tufts on the path, likely from a white-tailed deer rubbing itself on a tree nearby. the swamp water was ritually collected from the rich wetlands in this area.
in a nature preserve or other natural, non-urbanized location, i do not leave offerings like coins, foods, or anything non-degradable (e.g. plastics). in my practice and mindset, it is disrespectful to the spirits of the forest or natural area you are in to—intentionally or not,—introduce litter into their soils or waters.
i choose to show my respect primarily through veneration (praise, devotion, worship), spoken word (prayers for the land, psalm of arrival), and if i am giving a gift, i follow these practices. firstly, i give the gift at the edges of the natural area, closer to the entrance where the natural meets the urban. secondly, i will give a gift of a natural substance, ideally blessed water or a prepared veneration tea, or i will light an incense when available. if i do not have any supplies with me i will use spit or blood.
i have also shown these images here to describe another way i venerate these lands. i do believe i got this idea somewhere on tumblr – feel free to link the post to me if you remember it. i've collected a small jar of water, and returned it home, and it will be worshipped, enchanted, cleansed of toxins, and otherwise blessed before being returned then refilled upon the next visit. i will do this a few times, as well as divination and communion, before asking anything of the nature spirits of this land, such as for any kind of spellworking assistance.
the deer fur i really only included because it was collected on this same trip – however, i'm not really sure at all how i'll use it. if anyone has any ideas or suggestions feel free to reply or send an ask.
Digital drawings from my “Water Spirits” zine, 2022
A spell for release 🌊
This is a small ritual you can do to release anything unwanted like energy, actions, feelings, etc. I personally recommend doing this at a river, ocean or lake as the water will be used to carry away the ashes once you’re done.
Start by cleansing yourself and offering the incense smoke to the water spirits. I also brought Florida water and gave it as an additional offering. Take a moment to meditate and focus on what you’re trying to get rid of. Focus on aspects of your life you want change- what’s needed or holding you back from self growth, love and improvement.
Now begin writing “i release ___” statements. Write as many of them as you wish. If you’re getting rid of an action- write statements about the action but also feelings that lead to the action, each in their own I release statement spaced out. If you’re releasing a lack of self confidence- write statements about negative views of your body or negative self talk. Try to dive deep as much as you can to dig up the roots fully during this spell. It’s okay if this branches into other topics as well.
Now that you have everything written out, begin tearing each statement into their own individual slips of paper. Tear away from you, removing all man made edges. You should be left with a handful of slips each with their own “I release” statements. One by one take a slip, and light it on fire, placing into a fire safe dish to collect all the ashes. Focus on the energy, feeling or whatever you wrote leaving you, going into the paper and burning up. Once all the statements have been burned, take the fire safe dish to the water and give the ashes to the water spirits asking them to take them as far away from you as possible. Turn your back and walk away without looking back.
