water-mother

Updated: July 26, 2025

An Esthonian tale represents a mermaid, the daughter of the Water-Mother, as falling in love with a loutish boy, the youngest son of a peasant, and taking him down to dwell with her as her husband in her palace beneath the waves.

Edwin Sidney Hartland - The Science of Fairy Tales: An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology

I was much amused at the accounts she gave of the place. Her solitary life and the gloom of the woods seemed to have filled her with superstitious fancies. She said gold was contained in the bed of the brook, and that the murmur of the water over the little cascades was the voice of the "water-mother" revealing the hidden treasure.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons