Ripples of Emotion
Steep-sided lakes are often described by local inhabitants as 'bottomless' that is, they seem to be unfathomable. In Italy the Alban hills close to Rome, thrown up by primeval volcanic activity, include spectacular craters some of which have become filled with water over the centuries. One of these flooded craters is Lake Nemi, a three-mile stretch of water that in ancient times was called 'the Mirror of Diana'. The chief shrine of Diana not only a goddess of nature but the most universally popular of all ancient deities, and known under various names by people of all races, as one to whom they could turn when feeling oppressed or threatened was situated there amongst the trees, hard against the rocky hillside.
One of Diana's many supernatural guises was the moon and for many people a sight of the full moon majestic over the darkness of nature still brings her name to mind. At Lake Nemi her beauty on moonlit nights seemed reflected there in the dark water, her expression seeming to change with the moving clouds, a magical mirror framed by the steeply wooded slopes on all sides. From her shrine on such a night, looking down over the water, the supernatural presence of Diana would have seemed almost tangibly real to any emotionally receptive person. In their imagination, visitors at night could well have peopled the lake with naiads, the surrounding woods with draiads and fauns, all the playful aspects perhaps of Diana's own complex temperament, personification of the spirit of wild nature.
The Great World Dream
Chapter 3
chap 1 - chap 2 - chap 3 - chap 4 - chap 5 - chap 6 - chap 7 - chap 8 - chap 9 - chap 10 - chap 11 - chap 12
LAKE NEMI JOHN ROBERT COZENS 1777
Worshippers and family petitioners we are told used to make the pilgrimage from Rome on foot, bringing offerings of flowers and crescent moon-shaped cakes, and little lamps or home-made candles to light in her honour at the shrine. They would follow the Appian Way from the capital, turning off after a few miles along a tree-lined side road winding through the Alban hills among mature forests of oak, pine and chestnut. We can imagine their watchful eyes catching the first glint of Diana's lake through the trees, far below them in the steep-sided hollow. Perhaps Diana's worshippers would sit in quiet family groups on the lake shore, rising occasionally to dip their cupped hands in the water and make their supplication:
The lake is full; the moon is full; our hearts are full.
We light a lamp in your honour, O Diana.
This, indeed, is what water can mean to the human heart: the means whereby its own feelings, sentiments, emotions, are reflected back and redoubled. Water tends to have the effect of heightening whatever we are already feeling thus a stream, a lake, a fountain, a spring, or a waterfall, seen through emotional eyes, can represent in one, sorrow, in another great love, in yet another, despair; perhaps even hatred and a desire for revenge. Peace of mind is there too, and almost automatically the poetic heart is inspired by water and drawn towards its musical sound and reflected light. If we call upon the muse, or the cultural spirits of water, this is what we are doing: opening and enhancing or expanding our own feelings, whatever they may be.
The Water of Creation
Whether your viewpoint is sentimental or scientific, water is at the very heart and root of life. Traditionally it has been considered one of the four basic elements fire, earth, air and water without which there could be no living world, no nature, no plants, beasts or people. Water is constantly reacting with the other elements, soaking the earth and dissolving its salts, trapping with its movements the life-giving oxygen from the air. Water is constantly in circulation, drawn up by the heat of the sun to moisten the atmosphere, falling again in the form of rain, snow, mist or dew. Water seems somehow older, more primeval, more basic even than solid rock, and ancient creation myths often stress this point. To take the one most familiar to the western world, the biblical Book of Genesis relates how in the beginning:
The earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said ... Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And
God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from
the waters which are above the firmament.
The Babylonian creation myth personifies the elements that existed at the beginning, though the principle is the same. Salt water was made to gather beneath the firmament and fresh water above it which indeed is pretty much the situation to this day. The female principle of primeval chaos that existed before the division between heaven and earth, was visualised as a dragon called Tiamat. Together with Zu, the primeval storm demon, she ruled over the watery chaos. Then came the male principle of fresh water, the god Apsu, who united with Tiamat, and their union gave rise to the countless minor gods of heaven and earth recognised by the Babylonians, and all these beings worked to create order, each in their own specialised field. Tiamat became the supreme goddess of salt water on earth; Apsu became the supreme god of fresh water, and the ruling god of the sky. The storm demon Zu and his numerous assistants were driven off to become the constellations.
Among the children of Apsu and Tiamat were the thundering god of storms, Rimmon, and Enki, the god of fresh running water on earth. From Enki and his influence is said to have been derived the rituals of magicians 'whose incantations sound like the babbling of water' the unintelligible but melodic language of water flowing over stones in a mountain stream . (If you live in a land which is home to the dipper or water ouzel, take some quiet time out to watch and listen for this fairly inconspicuous little bird, which lives, feeds and breeds in and alongside fast-flowing streams. The dipper's song is learnt in the nest during its first few days of life, perhaps beneath a stone bridge a mere few inches above the water. Perhaps even before they hatch, the first sound the nestlings will hear is the babbling, rippling, tinkling noise of water over the stones, and this is the theme sound on which they model their song. We rarely hear the dipper praised as a ranker among the bird songsters of the world; but to me this is birdsong at its most evocative: the natural music of water taken up and repeated, and turned into a piece of music with form and rhythm, by Enki's own bird.)
Even at the sheerly practical, material level of understanding about water water which is there to drink, or water which makes you uncomfortably wet when it rains there is always a depth of feeling attached to it. Even on a strictly utilitarian basis involving canals, reservoirs, taps, faucets, hydrants, bowsers and sewage works, the life-sustaining properties of water ensure that the most unromantic-seeming appearance of water can hold wonder and beauty in the eyes of any person willing to see it. There is a place for water in the soul, somewhere between the instinctual human and material levels of being: a placewhere the imagination is inspired to produce all manner of completely non-scientific impressions, images and apparitions. For instance, this is what an old lady once told me:
"I was a passenger on a coach on the way back home from an outing, and we stopped for traffic lights, or something like that, and we were just opposite a sewage works. A whiff of it came through the open window and some of the other people on the coach were complaining and joking about it. The sun was very low in the sky as it was late afternoon, and it was shining on those round pond things they have, with water sprayers going slowly round and round, and I seemed to see these shimmering figures dancing over the water. I've never seen anything so beautiful. Above all those ugly pipes and concrete things there were these wonderful gossamer figures with wispy flowing dresses, all gracefully moving and dancing over the water. I've never told anyone about it before. They'd think I was mad!"
The others on the coach of course could see no more than the play of sunlight on moving jets of water. Because most people are firmly centred in the material level of emotional understanding, where a spade is rarely more than just a spade, very few are able to see mystical beauty transforming the workaday scene. This is the same level of creative story-telling from which in ages past sprang tales and legends of nymphs, mermaids, sea serpents and kelpies. It is the process of spiritual fragmentation being experienced by a human soul on the path of descent, at a time (in personal if not in general human history) when primal oneness had been lost, but the down-to-earth realism of solid materiality had not yet been fully gained. At this level of the psyche, symbols become a way of analysing the varied perceptions of the mind.
Purely natural phenomena can also give rise to supernatural imaginings. For instance, I was
walking over a Scottish hill on one occasion and was passing a little reservoir pond when there was a 'plop', and the water within a small area began bubbling and stirring as though on the boil. Gurgling like a pulled bath plug the water began to swirl, rising a foot or two up from the surface. I thought for a moment that there must be a pipe outlet which had suddenly opened, but no; the miniature whirling column moved swaying over the surface of the pond growing steadily taller and taller, seeming to take on a living form. As it reached the edge of the pond it disappeared, leaving only ripples behind.
I wondered how it might have looked by moonlight surely a ghostly sight. A kelpie playing in the water perhaps, a water demon, a malicious sprite said to take the form of a horse rearing from the water and liable to strike down any passer-by who ventures recklessly close For as the Scottish lyrical poet wrote: 'Every lake has its kelpie, often seen ...dancing along the surface of the deep, or browsing upon the pasture on its verge'. For me, however, the mystery was solved as the column of energy continued across land in the form of a small whirlwind, sending dead grass and thistledown spinning high in the air. I had witnessed the birth albeit short-lived of a potential water spout.
Full sized water spouts or twisters at sea give an idea of the force for destruction that water can become: a truly awesome spectacle, threatening when you find yourself in a vulnerable situation, perhaps in a small boat, even a large ship, or even on dry land at the edge of the sea. As the equivalent of a tornado on land, a wholly unstoppable force has been unleashed. If a reasonable-sized tornado had indeed passed across that pond, the water and everything in it would instantly have been sucked up into the sky, no doubt to fall elsewhere as rain: hence perhaps the mysterious reports of it raining fish or frogs, that we hear about from time to time.
The sea of course holds massive emotional appeal, and possibly a healing influence for stressed-out minds. Why else would normally land-locked people make a long journey in order to sit for hours on end staring out to sea, or listening with closed eyes to the soothing murmur of waves stirring the shingle, whispering on the sand? It can only be because these are sights and sounds which soothe the anxious heart and really seem to replenish the soul in some way. Somehow, the sea seems to offer the answer, even though the question itself is unformulated and unclear.
It is this sense of potency, besides the obvious material power that the sea is capable of exerting, that have helped to give rise to the innumerable myths and fables and fairy stories based on this theme. Grimms' tales have the one about the fisherman who lived with his wife in a hovel near the sea. He caught an enchanted fish, and then released it when it spoke to him, but his greedy wife made him go back and ask the fish to give them a nice cottage to live in a reasonable enough request. This was granted, but not content with that she sent her husband back again and again to demand a series of favours, each more outrageous than the last: to be king, to be emperor, to be pope. All these were within the fish's power and thence within the power of the sea to grant, for they were but the material boons of the world. But when she demanded to be made lord and ruler of the sun and moon, the fish withdrew all the favours that had been granted and returned them to their original poverty. The heart with its desires is limited to earth, to materiality, to this earthly life. The supernatural power she wanted for herself had broken the spell and brought her back to the
reality of earth.
By way of human imagination inspired by the sea, and the 'wild white horses' of breaker and
spume, creatures of the deep have inevitably been ascribed mystical powers, in the spirit of
Shakespeare's 'sea change into something rich and strange'. But there is more to it than this Once such a being has been established in the heart, it can inspire religious certainty and a reverential sense of awe. Grimms' household tales are full of such semi-solid beings, the bit-part players of ancient religions.
To the Babylonians, for instance, Oannes was a perfectly solid god who lived in the sea, with a man's body and a fish's head, visualised as clever and influential, a patron of arts and science. Conversely Triton, to the ancient Greeks, was a sea god with a fish's body and a man's head, and it was he who created the roaring of the waves by blowing on a conch shell. Another sea god, Glaucous, 'the blue-grey one', was depicted as a wild old man with a fish's tail and scales of the greyish blue-green that gave him his name. He had long hair and a beard like seaweed flowing in the water, and his body too was decorated with seaweed and shells. He was usually accompanied by a retinue of nereid sea-nymphs. He was indeed very similar in concept to Nereus, 'the old man of the sea', the supposed father of the nereids, and he too was visualised with flowing seaweed hair. Another 'old man of the sea' was the god Proteus, able at will to assume any shape he chose, or indeed to become shapeless, rather like the sea from which he rose. He was credited with being the protector of seals, and any other mammals able to hide in the sea.
The clssical Greek god of the sea, and all other watery places, was Poseidon, the father of Triton, and ultimately the same character as the Roman Neptune. Like Neptune he bore a trident and was closely associated with horses which were considered sacred to his name. Neptune's chariot was depicted being drawn through the waves by a monstrous sea horse the hippocampus, with a horse's head, mane and forelegs, and the powerful hindquarters and tail of a gigantic fish. In stormy weather Poseidon is symbolised by a black bull, snorting and charging, signifying his fiercely dark moods. In fair weather his symbol is the dolphin, friendly and playful.
Then there is Palaemon or Melicertes, and Portunus, Melkart, Sozon, and Oceanus who to the greeks was depicted as an old man with bull's horns. Amongst all the races of mankind, there have probably been hundreds of sea gods, which modern minds would dismiss as mere products of the superstitious imagination of sea-faring folk. But they are products of the heart of the deepest feelings. In dreams and visions the heart can be seen personified, playing the role that best befits the emotions of the hour. They are more than mere imagination: they have reality because they belong to the fundamental nature of their beholder's heart.
NEPTUNE CALMING THE TEMPEST: PETER PAUL RUBENS 1635
Pacifying the waves
People who make a precarious living at sea, or who follow a trade at the water's edge, know only too well how changeable the sea can be: its moods like the human heart itself can alter rapidly from peaceful to furious and back again. The more furious the sea, inevitably, the more masculine its associations. The more peaceful it seems, the more feminine its personification. The beautiful goddess Venus or Aphrodite, or Anadyomene who rose from the sea, under the masculine name of Aphroditos or Hermaphroditos, has even been depicted in art and sculpture wearing a beard, as though to indicate her unpredictable inconsistency, her rapid changes from the feminine to the masculine
mode of expression. The principle of intercession, calling hopefully upon a kind goddess to plead with a furious sea god for the merciful abatement of a storm, is an irresistible one; a hermaphrodite intermediary takes the principle a stage further.
Goddesses of the sea too are numerous, and as often as not of a national or even of a local
nature. Local sea goddesses may well have had their origin in the story of some local heroine: one such is Leucothea, the 'white goddess' of the Mediterranean. Her ancient story tells how, as a human mother, she leapt into the sea with her child to escape the attentions of a madman. She and the baby were rescued and brought to a safe part of the shore by friendly dolphins, and ever after she was revered by sailors and fishermen as a goddess. Her son, growing up, became Portunus, the harbour god perhaps the least masculine and least furious of all the sea gods whose self-imposed duty it was to see ships safely into port, to act himself as the friendly dolphin who shepherds human lives inshore.
There can be few sights more peacefully beautiful than that of dolphins playing in the calm sea, and these creatures have won a place in the hearts of countless generations of men except perhaps in those hard-edged lands where these seemingly noble creatures are periodically rounded up by fishernen and slaughtered. The nature of sentimentality has a markedly racial variability. But in the Mediterranean area in classical times (where the sun, personified as Apollo, was the prime mover in the abatement of winter storms) seaside communities recognised the Delphinia ceremonies spring festivals praising the spirit of the dolphin and given in honour of Apollo, offering thanks for the calming of the seas after winter's storms, enabling sailors and fishermen to venture out more freely in their frail boats
But of course, with or without a place for dolphins, heartfelt ceremonies with thousand-fold
variations have been held on a thousand coast lines during the ages. The symbolism, the manner of projection of each community's shared feelings will differ, but the need is the same. Alongside the Aegean Sea, the goddess of fishing and navigation was Brizo, the guardian deity of sailors honoured especially by the seamen's wives, who would intercede on their behalf when Poseidon was in one of his dark moods. Brizo's worshippers would prepare portions of food which they consecrated to the goddess by setting them afloat on the sea in miniature boats made of sticks and leaves.
The contents of such festivals and the hopes of the people who take part in them are perhaps little different from those who sometimes gather close to the harbour wall to sing:
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.
In the hearts of those who repeat their prayers and sing their songs with sincerity, there is no real difference between the various names and powers called upon to represent the elements. The sentiment is the same: the wish to evoke the possibility of a boon, a grace, an act of mercy.
In many parts of the ancient world the 'people's favourite goddess', Diana, usually under her alias of Artemis, was thought to rise from her favourite forests and range over the sea by way of the moon. Certainly she was called upon routinely by seafarers of the Aegean and Mediterranean to grant them safe and prosperous sea voyages. She too was associated with the dolphins of fair weather, and given the title Delphinia, assuming her to be the consort of Delphinius, the Greek god of estuaries and inshore seas, and thence of the dolphins themselves, as many sailors will have it even today (if only tongue-in-cheek) the reincarnations of drowned sailors.
But the truly sea-born goddess, fabled to have risen out of the sea near the Cypriot shore, was of course Aphrodite, also known as Venus Anadyomene, and whom we have already noted could at will take on the enigmatic guise of Hermaphroditos. Everywhere seashells were arranged as decorative symbols of Aphrodite in little shrines among the rocks of the seashore. She had many names and many guises, many personalities, and a separate title to cover every function she was called upon to perform. When sought by mariners to protect them from rough seas, she was Galenia, or 'fair weather'. To merchant seamen setting out on a venture she was Euploia, 'prosperous voyages'. And when disaster struck and ships foundered, she was Muchia, 'goddess of the depths'. and Melainis, 'the dark one', wearing a widow's veil to signify her connection with death and burial, and loved ones lost at sea.
Sailors and fishermen of Scandinavia and the northern lands have even more cause to be wary of the sea and its moods than had their southern counterparts. Their supreme sea goddess was Niordhir, who reached out of the mist and concealed her form with sea-fog. In northern lands, inevitably, frost has always been personified among the gods and goddesses thought able to influence the weather. The Scandinavian frost god, or supernatural frost-giant carrying a club of ice, is Gymir Jack Frost sounds more familiar in English and he was married to the fertility goddess Freyr. Their beautiful but cold daughter was the nymph-like frost goddess Gerda: the fair skin of Gerda's naked arms and her pure white dress together shone so brightly that both sea and air were illuminated with a brilliant white glow, enough to dazzle sailors many miles off shore. This dazzle is a real phenomenon, by the way, one which warns seamen of dangerous ice ahead, and known to them as 'ice-blink'.
The Weather for Romance
Hera, the queen of heaven, may not still be invoked in the mountains when rain is urgently
needed, but she is still official keeper of the clouds; they are her special responsibility. As fleeting clouds range across the open sky or scud across the face of the moon (whence they are chased by the 'cloud huntress' Cynthia), it is the great Hera herself who decides whether or not rain will fall that night. The seven nymphs of the rain, the Hyades, can do nothing but watch and wait hopefully from their home in the constellation Taurus.
Thor is outmoded. But Hadad, also known as Rimmon, Ramman, or Adduramman, the eastern storm god, prince of cloudbursts and thundersotrms, is ageless, unlimited by time or space. The dry back seat of your car may seem an ideal spot for courting in the rain, but beware: someone up there takes perverse delight in bogging down your carriage setting your wheels spinning, and summoning various demons of the night to gloat over your plight.
The bogeyman is a fairly universal frightener for naughty children who will not settle down for the night. The Babylonians went a step further: from their pantheon, or pandemonium, they produced Lilith, a fearful vampire demon of the night who makes her appearance mainly in stormy weather. As she roams looking for victims, children wandering on their own were thought to be in particular danger from her attentions. She or her sisters may still be around socialising perhaps with the frightful skeletal kergrims and other undead friends. Watch out for the flapping of her black robes, and listen for her blood-chilling wail, the next time you walk through a graveyard on a stormy night.
Storms cannot simply happen. They are brought by the wind, and the winds which bring storms may well have been conjured up by Enlil, lord of the fierce winds. But the gentler winds that later disperse the storm leaving only freshness in its wake, are sent by the mother of winds none other than the beautiful Aurora, goddess of dawn, bringing 'the innocent brightness of a newborn day'. It depends upon where you live, of course: prevailing winds and changes of wind direction are associated with specific seasons and different local expectations. In northern Europe the east wind can be bitter and cruel; but further south the east wind personified as Euros by the ancient Greeks, closely connected with the rising sun and thence with the goddess of dawn, was the harbinger of fair weather. Zephyrus, as the mild moist west wind, was messenger of spring, promoting the healthy growth of plants; tellingly, he was also known as Favonius, 'the favourable one', fertiliser of spring flowers, fabled lover of Flora, the goddess of spring. Notus, the south wind, can be hot and dry; Boreas, the north wind, can herald the cold touch of autumn almost anywhere in the northern hemisphere.
All these fanciful names from long ago seem somehow people-friendly: they sprang from the
feelings then, and our present-day feelings can be equally open to them. A kind of elemental communication, a natural rapport, can build itself up between the weather and anyone who is constantly aware of it. The direction of the wind can become instinctively known to you, particularly if your livelihood depends on it in some way. A suburban householder can hear which side of the house, which door and which windows are being rattled and pelted with rain during the night, and he can say: "Ah, it's from the north tonight", and sleep easy. He will have become akin to the legendary North American tribesman who is said to have welcomed the icy north wind to his bosom as a living friend.
In Middle Eastern and Mediterranean lands there is rarely a shortage of light. In Scandinavia and all other northern lands, however, light can seem a commodity in short supply, even during the season of the midnight sun, and valued correspondingly highly. The Scandinavian god of light, Heimdall, was said to guard the rainbow bridge to heaven. Certainly, there can be no rainbow without light, and no rainbow without rain or at least plentiful moisture in the atmosphere. According to the Book of Genesis, the first ever rainbow was set in the clouds as a covenant between God and Noah after the great flood, and according to the Book of Revelations, there is a rainbow round about the throne of God. Certainly, there is no more beautiful phenomenon of the weather. In Hindu sacred writing the rainbow is related to the concept of ultimate oneness, and an expression of faith:
Through grace, the mystery of vision transforms the radiance of pure white light into the
colours of the rainbow. As all colours originate in pure white light, and to pure white light
they surely return, so all God's creatures originate in God, and to God they shall surely
return.
According to European classical mythology, the nymph or goddess of the rainbow is Iris. She was considered the virgin messenger of all other gods and goddesses, borne aloft with golden wings, and carrying the staff of Hermes, her unique position expressed by the arc of the rainbow which, spanning the skies, unites heaven and earth. We should never tire of such natural beauty while we live; the rainbow simply invites a poetic sentiment, and as Wordsworth put it:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old.
Or let me die!
From Flood to Fountain
In comparatively dry parts of the world, agricultural fertility for millennia has depended upon an annual flood, usually following torrential rain (or sometimes spring snow-melt) in far-off mountains: along the banks of the lower Nile, for instance, where the goddess Isis, as 'lady of the flood', was and perhaps still is thought responsible for controlling the annual flow of water and the consequent wellbeing of her people. Without their annual floods the Mesopotamians too ancient Babylonians and Assyrians would probably have starved, and they gave the title 'lord of the flood' to Tammuz, their god of dormant vegetation relating to the ongoing cycle of nature.
But there is a world of difference between a life-giving flood which irrigates your fields, and a devastating flood which washes away your painstakingly nurtured topsoil and precludes any kind of cultivation. It can mean the loss of home and possessions, followed by certain famine. The immense difference between the two has often been expressed in myths and fables as in the story of Achelous, the god of rivers and flood plains (and the name of a river in Greece) who was said to appear in various guises: sometimes as a snake, or a bull, or more commonly as a bull-faced man. In this last guise he had the misfortune to break off one of his horns during a fight with Heracles over a woman, thus losing half of his potency. But in place of the missing horn he was given a cornucopia a horn of plenty by the kindly nymph-goddess Amalthea. Amalthea was the goddess of milk and milkmaids who, along with her sister Melissa, the goddess of honey, bees and beekeepers, presided over the proverbial 'land flowing with milk and honey'. And so Achelous, god of the river flood, was left with two distinct sides to his personality: the one reflects the blind ferocious onslaughts of a bull, the other signifies the benign supply of plentiful food, corn, vegetables and fruit from his constantly self-replenishing cornucopia. The image of Achelous very neatly sums up the hopes and fears of the peasant farmer struggling to make ends meet on the river plain.
ACHELOUS WITH THE HORN OF PLENTY ROMAN MOSAIC
The pre-English British Celts, during their long and ongoing history, have seldom been short of rain to water their fields, but they too have always enjoyed an almost supernatural relationship with their rivers, and with the nymph-goddesses said to live in them and help regulate their flow. Sabrina was the Roman name for the Celtic river-nymph Sabre or Hafren of the River Severn, but it was the river god Lud who presided over the water meadows and flood plains of the lower Severn, and provided the best grazing for cattle and horses.
The Celts love horses, and these noble animals are firmly connected with running water in the Celtic mind. Rhiannon is a Celtic goddess of horses, and the domestication of animals in general. Incidentally she is also the patroness of marriage relationships, happy families, and peaceful homely pursuits. She it is who sprinkles dew to moisten the pasturelands on clear mornings, but above all she is a river deity, especially potent at the point where the river runs into its estuary and thence into the sea. Her association with the wild white horses of waves breaking on the shore in a gale, is compelling.
The same could be said of the goddess Epona, though as a river goddess she is more closely connected with the source with springs and waterfalls than is Rhiannon. She shares the same intimate love of horses however, and in Celtic art she has sometimes been depicted cast in bronze in the form of a horse, or sometimes as a helmeted maiden riding bareback, as a decoration for amulets, shields or brooches.
The kelpie of course is often visualised in the form of a horse, but unlike the gentle Epona and Rhiannon, this Celtic water sprite has been thought of as a malicious creature, one who delights in drowning mortals, sometimes by luring them onto its back before galloping into deep water, and perhaps endangering their flesh and blood horses too.
When the Romans took charge of Celtic river estuaries and sailed their boats upstream to supply their bases, they built shrines to their own gods and goddesses, and in rivers they could see a connection with Janus, their god of doorways the one who could look both ways at once patron of all who entered or departed. In the case of Sabrina's river it certainly flowed out, but flowed in again with the impressive Severn bore, with its regular backwash carried many miles upstream. The Roman name Janus is the same as Dianus, which in turn is the masculine form of Diana, our familiar 'people's favourite' goddess.
One of the numerous titles bestowed on Diana was Limnaia 'the lady of the lake', and she was considered chief goddess of the band of nymphs and water sprites which have for many centuries been associated with almost any sheet of water you care to name, especially perhaps if it is surrounded by forest. Not only will the trees make Diana, as the primal supernatural huntress, feel at home; the forest verge is the natural haunt of lustful satyrs who love to gaze on the nymphs as they bathe and dance at the water's edge. Wanton they may be, and passion-ridden, but they are all cheerful, unlike the mournful spirits said to haunt those lakes which are completely in the open. Trees act as natural cloaks, amoral, but soul-warming and spirit-raising.
The mud of the estuary has never been a likely haunt of nymphs, though other supernatural
creatures may well have roamed these wastes. Salt marshes, like other coastal sites, more sea than land, are practical places for practical people who look out to sea for their livelihoods. But freshwater marshes, wild and uninhabited by men, have always been thought a favourite playground of the 'wild wanderer' Diana. Indeed, yet another of her titles is Heleia, 'lady of the marsh'. Marshlands have often been thought to be haunted, sometimes by spectral hounds, sometimes by the ghosts of lost travellers; and of course they are still the undisputed home ground of Will o' the Wisp, also known as Jack o' Lanter, or Ignis Fatuus the light of a somewhat mysterious nature, spectral or gaseous, reputed to lure unwary travellers to their doom. Whether methane, spontaneously combusted, or phosphorescence resulting from decaying flesh beneath the surface, in years gone by this strange phenomenon has been seen in churchyards too: a great source of superstitious imaginings.
A Celebration of Nymphs
The time is ripe to recall fondly the friendly spirits of unpolluted water, guardian goddesses of nature: the dryads and hamadryads of the forest, the oreads of the mountains, the oceanids and nereids of salt water, the naiads of fresh water. Some of their stories may have meaning for us today. Others again may have been purely sentimental like that of the river nymph Dido who (so it was said by the Romans) put in an appearance, shimmering beneath the surface, only when her sister the moon was to be seen in the sky above. But most are green stories, based on ecological observation, environmental concern. The nymph Syrinx, for instance, was pursued lustfully by Pan and hid in the river. When the gods saw her hiding, in order to save her modesty they changed her into the reeds from which Pan later made his pipes. Castalia too, a nymph who dwelt in a spring on Mount Parnassus, was pursued too avidly by the sun god Apollo, and leapt into the water to escape his overpowering passion. In her case the gods changed her into a water lily. It is streamside vegetation, lush greenery, that helps keep water from excessive evaporation, and their oxygenating properties which purify it and allow the animals represented by Pan to use it safely.
Then there is the nymph Daphne, who was pursued so persistently by Apollo that, to protect her virginity, the other gods changed her into the bay laurel a plant ever after held sacred to the name of Apollo, a true plant of the sun. It has been said that a few bay leaves placed under your pillow as you sleep will lend you the gift of prophecy.
The sight and sound of water gushing from the ground in spring or fountain is associated in our minds, perhaps unconsciously, with new understandings, inspiration and prophecy; with blessings, marriage and fulfilment; with new life, successful childbirth. Is it any wonder that folk-lore has peopled such places with semi-divine beings able to help those who invoke them and drink their water with a sense of reverence? The least we can do is to take care not to pollute their home.
There can be few natural springs that have not at some time been associated with a supernatural presence: a nymph, a sprite, a goddess, a god, a muse, or a human saint following some miraculous enterprise. Holy wells abound, and in such places it has been considered a serious offence to pollute the water. To modern sophisticated minds all sources of fresh water are now particularly to be shielded from harm. We know only too well from our own experience, the ills and misfortunes that can result from pollution, whether careless or malicious.
The Romans, to be on the safe side perhaps, tended to ascribe an individual god or goddess to whatever subject or theme seemed of special importance at the time. A Roman housewife knitting or weaving a garment might conceivably have prayed: 'O Wool, please see that my husband's new tunic is a good fit!' It was an acknowledgement of the spiritual foundation beneath all things, while at the same time focusing the concentration. Following this principle, Fontus was the official Roman god of fountains, springs and wells. Festivals called Fontinalia were held in his honour at the end of summer, when garlands were ceremoniously cast into the city fountains or set to float on village wells. If the well was too deep, flowers would be arranged around the top. From these beginnings we can trace the origins of the well-decorating ceremonies which are still held in rural communities around the world today, usually with a local fable to augment the custom.
NYMPHS JOHN WILLIAM WATERHOUSE 1890
Springs and fountains everywhere have been associated with inspired thoughts especially poetic inspiration and with hopes for new beginnings, for a happy forthcoming marriage, with safe childbirth to follow. Nymphs of spring and fountain were routinely called upon to assist young mothers during childbirth. And when the birth went badly and the child died, the sorrowful mother would return to the spring to mourn, her tears mingling with the water. The fabled Niobe, as the personification of maternal sorrows, the mythical mother eternally weeping for her slain children, has frequently been represented by a stone set in a fountain, permanently wet with tears.
In the classical European world, nymph-goddesses were as numerous as the springs, streams, wells and fountains which they inhabited, and one of the best-known was Egeria, goddess of 'issuing forth' from the source, whether referring to the water of springs or fountains, or the new life of childbirth. The famous vestal virgins used to journey from the city of Rome to carry water for their temple ceremonies from Egeria's spring close to Diana's shrine at Lake Nemi. Egeria, who reputedly was able to offer wise counsel to all worthies who requested it, even gave advice on occasion to the emperor himself. A pretty little brown and gold butterfly of sunlit woodland glades has been named after Egeria.
Two or three butterflies have been named after Niobe, for their dark and tear-stained appearance and waterside habitats, and a delicate white butterfly has been named after Aganippe; she was a water nymph who dwelt in a spring held sacred to the muses, and through this association was considered the guardian nymph of poetic inspiration not to usurp the position of the muse of poetry herself, but as the inspiration supplied by the sound of gently running water.
The actual muse of poetry, herself guardian goddess of a sacred spring and the noblest of the muses, was Calliope, 'she of the fair voice', and in her honour yet another butterfly has been named: this time a beautiful crimson one. The muses represented culture in the ancient world, and culture inevitably has been associated with water and the sound of water They were conceived by human soul out of memory, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Besides Calliope there is Euterpe, 'she that gladdens', a nymph-goddess set to guard a sacred spring from whence men drew inspiration, and the muse of music and song the favourite muse of Apollo, incidentally, to whom music was especially dear.
Then there was Erato, 'the lovely one' again originally a nymph of the fountain, who became a goddess of inspiration and the muse of erotic poetry of love poems. Then of course there are Clio, the muse of history; Thalia, the muse of dramatic comedy; Melpomene, the muse of dramatic tragedy; Terpsichore, the muse of dancing; Polyhymnia, the muse of harmony; and Urania, the muse of astrology, and the inspiration to be gained perhaps by watching stars sparkle in the water.
All these things are from the heart, and for the heart: the seat of sincerity, the seat of desire, the seat of deception, of arrogance and fanaticism. All the nicenesses and all the nastinesses of human society, all are from the heart. The fervour of men's hearts, taken to extremes, can turn even the noblest of religions into something vile. As the prophet Jeremiah pointed out in his own uncompromising way: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked". But no matter how wicked, no matter how sincere and noble, no matter how sure, all this will change. One thing is certain: the heart cannot carry the soul into the realms of spirit.The heart lives in the world of nature.