About who the water king is, what he has in common with Neptune, and what is the difference, will be discussed in this article. Here, some tales will be examined, in which there is such an interesting character as a water character.
Information from Slavic mythology
In general, from ancient times people worshiped the water element. She was considered as necessary as dangerous. And this is so: ponds feed and water, but very often take the lives of careless people. Therefore, water - mythical creatures - was given great importance in antiquity. People endowed them with dual traits of character, attributed to them acts that were also opposite.
More often the owner of rivers and lakes was called simply - water. King - this title was assigned to him later by storytellers. This statement is proved by explanatory dictionaries, where such a name is considered, untitled. Among the people, the water people were assigned the most different names: Vodokrut, Vodopol, Pereplut. There were even special holidays in honor of him, name day. On such days, commoners appeased the owner of different waters with gifts, calling him affectionately grandfather.
Water and Neptune are the same thing?
In addition to Slavic mythology and Slavic tales, aquatic can not be found anywhere. Foreign authors preferred other characters, although similar in some respects to our aquatic.
For example, Hans Christian Andersen talks about the sea king in his famous Little Mermaid . He also lives underwater, controls all underwater creatures. But if mermaids are still subject to our waterman, then Andersen’s character is the father of these mythical creatures.
There are works in foreign literature in which the gods Neptune or Poseidon take part. But they should not be identified with our water - they are completely different characters both in appearance and in character.
Marya the Artisan, a film for children
The water king is one of the characters in many Russian fairy tales. That is why this image is often present in films for children.
This very interesting fairy tale about the water king was filmed in 1960 by director Alexander Arturovich Rowe. The plot of the film is based on the fact that a retired soldier in the forest meets Tsarevich Ivan, the son of Mary, the artisan. And from the boy he learns that his mother languishes at Vodokrut the Thirteenth. The water king captured the queen because she knew how painfully beautiful to embroider and sew.
The soldier helped the prince rescue his mother. But on the way, the water king builds barriers to the rescuers. Different characters help the soldier: Auntie Nepogodushka, who knows how to conjure, cunning Kwak, cunning pirates, Som Karpych, who has earned from simple frogs. The amazing underwater kingdom shows the audience a film-tale, where there was a waterman and a king-son, a soldier and Mary the artisan.
Maybe the soldier and Ivan didn’t succeed, but the granddaughter of Vodokrut the Thirteenth, Alyonushka, came to their aid.
It should be noted that the water king from the fairy tale Mary the Artisan is silly, absurd and ridiculous. He does not at all resemble the imperious and powerful mythical characters of other countries - sea kings and water gods.
Tale for children about water
Once upon a time there lived a mother and a son in the same village. They lived hard, poorly. My son began to grow up - he began to try to help his mother. Every day he went to the river to fish.
And once he suddenly saw that in his nets he was either confused by a large fish, or by an unprecedented animal with a fish tail. The captive begged, began to ask the young man to let him go into the river. And for that he promises a strange creature to fulfill any of his desires. The guy did not even realize that the water king himself was floundering in his nets. I thought that just an unfortunate animal accidentally got confused.
The young man smiled, unraveled the nets and let go of the tailed beast into the river. And he didn’t ask for anything in return. He returned home and told his mother a strange story.
- Good girl, my dear son! You can’t pay for good deeds, ”said his kind mother.
In less than two days, messengers from overseas came to the poor. They worshiped the poor people and said such a word:
- In a distant kingdom-state, a huge inheritance left by distant relatives awaits you. Will you go there yourself or will you bring great riches here?
They asked the mother and son that the overseas ambassadors themselves should bring everything that they owed - they did not want to leave their native land. And they themselves understood: the waterman paid them back for good. But actually it was a test. I didn’t get caught in the water by chance, but I was especially confused to make sure that the poor young man was kind and pure in soul.