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Updated: June 4, 2025
By right of precedence, among the legends of the Rhine which possess folklore characteristics is the wonderful legend of the Lorelei, a word derived from the old High German lur, to lurk, and lai, a rock. The height from which the bewitching water-spirit sent her song floating over the waves of the Rhine is situated near St.
While this deep expectation pervaded the frigate, the piercing cry of the leadsman, as he called "By the mark seven," rose above the tempest, crossed over the decks, and appeared to pass away to leeward, borne on the blast like the warnings of some water-spirit. "'Tis well," returned the pilot, calmly; "try it again." The short pause was succeeded by another cry, "And a half-five!"
Pursuing his way cautiously and gently, by means of the webbed feet alone, the young sportsman moved about like a sly water-spirit among the reeds, sometimes addressing a few pleasant words, such as, "how d'ye do, old boy," or, "don't alarm yourself, my tulip," to a water-hen or a coot, or some such bird which crossed his path, but was unworthy of his shot; at other times stopping to gaze contemplatively through the reed stems, or to float and rest in placid enjoyment, while he tried to imagine himself in a forest of water-trees.
What a charming creature she is? Have you ever seen a woman like her? What a pity she is dumb!" "She, no doubt, has a male water-spirit for a lover. But all of them are dumb, since it is impossible to speak in the water. I wonder she is not deaf as well. I can't think why you didn't touch her. The softness of her skin is something wonderful velvet and satin are not to be compared to it!
She had two sons, whose father was a man, and the younger of whom became king of that land. But when the Saxon immigration took place the incomers cut down the wood; the lake dried up, and as it dried up, the lives of the water-spirit and her son gradually sank lower and lower, and at last were extinguished with the extinction of the lake.
"The reflection of clouds overhead," pronounced the Under-Secretary, dogmatically, glancing upward. "I'm sure it's nothing of the kind," asserted Miss Ormond. "Please go on looking, Mrs. Stewart, and perhaps you'll see a water-spirit." "Why do you want her to see a water-spirit?" asked Davison, ironically. "In all countries of the world they are reckoned spiteful, treacherous creatures.
"It is Kuhleborn, that evil water-spirit, who wishes to drown us!" exclaimed the knight. "Have you no charm of protection against him, friend?" "I have one," answered the waggoner; "but I cannot and must not make use of it before you know who I am." "Is this a time for riddles?" cried the knight. "The flood is every moment rising higher; and what does it concern ME to know who YOU are?"
In the older form of the superstition it is held that the rescuer will sooner or later be drowned himself; and thus we pass to the fetichistic interpretation of drowning as the seizing of the unfortunate person by the water-spirit or nixy, who is naturally angry at being deprived of his victim, and henceforth bears a special grudge against the bold mortal who has thus dared to frustrate him.
Now I will venture to say that this story is to be explained satisfactorily on no theory yet broached, unless it be the theory that we have in it a survival of the savage doctrine of Spirits. Least of all it is to be explained by any adaptation of what I may call the Ghost theory, namely, that the water-spirit and her son were already the spirits of dead human beings.
It is now well accepted that Thales cannot be regarded as propounding a materialistic theory when he declares that everything is derived from water; for with him, "water" stands not merely for the substance that we call chemically "H2O," but for the "spirit that is in water" as well the water-spirit is the Grundprincip. Max Müller, op. cit., 39, 47-48, 59-60.
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