Rivers in Myth and Legend

[Inari Writer]

Hello everyone.

I'm new to SFF Chronicles and am hoping to throw around ideas and get advice on writing my first novel.

One of the themes in the novel is the mystical nature of rivers. They are pathways to adventure, they can form the barrier between life and death, people see gods and monsters in their depths, take a wrong turn down the right river and you might find yourself in a different world to the one you first set out on.

I'd like to know what rivers mean to you. What stories have you heard about the power of rivers, whether in fantasy, myth or real life? Or are there poems or songs about rivers which have resonated with you?

More generally, what do rivers represent to you? Freedom? Eternity? Life and death? A journey? Something else entirely?

And have you ever stood on a bridge, looked down into the rushing waters beneath and felt a touch of magic? Or is it just me?

 

[Inari Writer]

I should point out that I have already read and enjoyed Ben Aaronovitch's very fine novel titled Rivers of London and all its sequels. I'm not planning on copying his work, though I would love to write with such an engaging voice!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Welcome to the Chrons! Interesting question. I'm wondering if Tolkien pulled on river mythology.

In Ireland we have sidhe/fairies based in waterways and obviously glens and what not full of references to myth. (I actually start my next book at a waterfall in a glen and the river was important to the feel of the scene and some of the folklore - like rivulets we call fairy showers.) I'll muse further on any specific references.

 

[Inari Writer]

Welcome to the Chrons! Interesting question. I'm wondering if Tolkien pulled on river mythology.

In Ireland we have sidhe/fairies based in waterways and obviously glens and what not full of references to myth. (I actually start my next book at a waterfall in a glen and the river was important to the feel of the scene and some of the folklore - like rivulets we call fairy showers.) I'll muse further on any specific references.

Thanks for the reply and the welcome! It's good to know that there are Celtic river myths. I've heard of Kelpies before but will now look to see if I can dig up some more stories.

I remember some water magic on the LotR films but don't recall if it featured in the book. Looking forward to more musings on this subject.

And I'd be pleased to learn more about your book. I always loved watefalls so that's a good place to start!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thanks for the reply and the welcome! It's good to know that there are Celtic river myths. I've heard of Kelpies before but will now look to see if I can dig up some more stories.

I remember some water magic on the LotR films but don't recall if it featured in the book. Looking forward to more musings on this subject.

And I'd be pleased to learn more about your book. I always loved watefalls so that's a good place to start!

Oh, stick around and you'll hear about it, never fear But it'a not out until July

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Actually - a writing friend of mine brought out a book of modern Irish fairytales and she has one in it about a water spirit. The stories are very good

The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories: Amazon.co.uk: Jane Talbot: 9780856409554: Books

 

[Mirannan]

Thanks for the reply and the welcome! It's good to know that there are Celtic river myths. I've heard of Kelpies before but will now look to see if I can dig up some more stories.

I remember some water magic on the LotR films but don't recall if it featured in the book. Looking forward to more musings on this subject.

And I'd be pleased to learn more about your book. I always loved watefalls so that's a good place to start!

The LotR water magic - complete with horses in the foam - at the ford of Rivendell was in the book. So was the Mirror of Galadriel. I would like to add that Goldberry is a fairly obvious river spirit, and that in the Silmarillion there are one Valar and two Maiar specifically concerned with water.

 

[RX-79G]

Like most modern people, rivers don't have any mystical meaning to me. They are the source of flooding and have increased drowning hazard compared to lakes. They fill with and transport our pollution. They are a barrier when you are traveling and a one way transport if you are paddling in them.

I'm sure some of my ancestors had mystical feelings about rivers, but that would be cultural anthropology for me to talk about, rather than my feelings.

 

[Inari Writer]

Like most modern people, rivers don't have any mystical meaning to me. They are the source of flooding and have increased drowning hazard compared to lakes. They fill with and transport our pollution. They are a barrier when you are traveling and a one way transport if you are paddling in them.

I'm sure some of my ancestors had mystical feelings about rivers, but that would be cultural anthropology for me to talk about, rather than my feelings.

Fair enough. Pollution is something to bear in mind when talking about rivers and I might consider that, particularly when writing about the Thames, which was an open sewer for a lot of its history.

But leaving aside folklore and myth for a moment; what about songs or films? For Springsteen 'the River' was a place for lovers to meet. In 'O Brother Where Art Thou' it was a place of rebirth, trickery and transformation. For the Pretty Reckless it represents sex while for Delta Goodrem it is a place of, (possibly false), redemption.

Do any of these themes resonate with you?

 

[Phyrebrat]

I am constantly referring to the mystery and romance of water in my fiction and of course, it's such a hug trope in terms of themes, there are hundreds of stories you could find. From sweet fairy stories to darker horrors.

My blog on here has often been based entirely on ponds, lakes, rivers or the Sea.

pH

 

[Inari Writer]

The LotR water magic - complete with horses in the foam - at the ford of Rivendell was in the book. So was the Mirror of Galadriel. I would like to add that Goldberry is a fairly obvious river spirit, and that in the Silmarillion there are one Valar and two Maiar specifically concerned with water.

Thanks for the clarification. That's handy.

 

[RX-79G]

Fair enough. Pollution is something to bear in mind when talking about rivers and I might consider that, particularly when writing about the Thames, which was an open sewer for a lot of its history.

But leaving aside folklore and myth for a moment; what about songs or films? For Springsteen 'the River' was a place for lovers to meet. In 'O Brother Where Art Thou' it was a place of rebirth, trickery and transformation. For the Pretty Reckless it represents sex while for Delta Goodrem it is a place of, (possibly false), redemption.

Do any of these themes resonate with you?

Without being obnoxious about this, I don't know if modern people actually view bodies of water with the romanticism you are implying. O' Brother is a comedy about life 90 years ago, and Springsteen creates allusions that people love because they don't actually think that way themselves.

Admiring the way people used to think about nature is not the same as actually thinking that way yourself. Which is a big part of fantasy - pretending that you are one of those ancient people who truly believed they lived in a world of magic, and then crafting a story around that belief. But we don't actually have those beliefs ourselves - we just like hearing about them.

Modern people love nature, but they love it in an aesthetic and caretaker kind of way that has more to do with PBS or Thoreau than the kind of feelings that might make you wonder if there is a nymph in the river that makes it sparkle in the moon and play matchmaker. I suspect that most of the answers you get in that latter category won't be people's actual feelings but articulations of feelings they wish they had.

 

[HareBrain]

I don't know if modern people actually view bodies of water with the romanticism you are implying

Some do. I do. But I don't know how common the Romantic mindset is. I have a feeling it's been underground since about the seventies.

I would say it lies somewhere between aesthetics and belief -- it probably fits the sense of belief as love (from German belieben) rather than assertion of something as fact. Why some people have it and others don't is an interesting question.

 

[Phyrebrat]

You're on a fantasy writer's website: if you don't find romantic prompts you're probably in a minority!?!

pH

 

[RX-79G]

Some do. I do. But I don't know how common the Romantic mindset is. I have a feeling it's been underground since about the seventies.

I would say it lies somewhere between aesthetics and belief -- it probably fits the sense of belief as love (from German belieben) rather than assertion of something as fact. Why some people have it and others don't is an interesting question.

I do believe in that love. I just think that it is tainted with perspective, worry and scientific understanding that is like parenthood, instead of the awe of previous generations for the mysterious 'forces of nature'.

I have feelings like that - memories of sun from above and below, sandwiches that are dry in contrast to the water around us, wonder at the tributaries that feed the section I'm floating on and the contrast of all the warmth with the snow melt of its origin. Associations with a pretty girl, ideas about exploration and new places. Its all there, I just don't think that emotional content ever gels into an actual sense of mystical power or forces beyond understanding and control. We feel love, nostalgia and responsibility today. They are also good feelings.

 

[Abernovo]

Another Celt here, but from Scotland. Scottish and Irish folklore is very similar, so we have kelpies, and the bean nighe (the washer at the ford) who is an omen of death. What with the rivers and lochs, and the sea being ever-present, especially in the islands, water was a big feature. It's the source of life, without which we cannot live. It provides food, in the form of fish, ducks, fresh- and saltwater crustaceans (and on the coast, seaweed - makes good eating). They were full of life, and of stories passed down for generations.

I've drank from hill streams, bathed in the waterfall pools of the burn close to my childhood home, guddled fish, and enjoyed the still peace of a quiet loch as the sun set. I've also enjoyed a bit of rowing on rivers and lochs. Being too far away from the water doesn't seem natural or right to me.

When I lived in Bulgaria, the river (in which I swam in the summer) was the touchstone for the seasons. In winter, it would freeze over; in spring its banks would burst out in leaves on the trees proclaiming new life; summer would produce a reduction in the water level, with animals coming down to to drink when the higher sources dried up; and in the autumn, the leaves would change to bring vibrant colour as the lower sun shone through them and changed the whole valley's tone.

And, lest anyone think I'm indulging only in romantic whimsy, I worked on rivers as a biologist. But hard scientific facts never diminished the beauty.

On a final note, our civilisation (by necessity) grew from the banks of rivers: the Tigris-Euphrates triangle, and the Indus valley. It spread to other areas, but always depended upon rivers (and the sea) for water, for transport, for food. It can be no surprise that water features in so many of our tales and our traditions.

Welcome to the Chrons, @Inari Writer

 

[HareBrain]

I just don't think that emotional content ever gels into an actual sense of mystical power or forces beyond understanding and control.

Not for you, maybe, but people are different. For me, it feels like an instinctive sense of a numinous presence, and not always a benevolent one. What I then do with that feeling, intellectually, is up to me -- a hundred years ago I might easily have thought it God, whereas now I might just as easily think it's the imaginative result of some genetic predisposition -- but it's there, and genuine. (Not all the time, and not necessarily connected with great beauty.)

 

[RX-79G]

Not for you, maybe, but people are different. For me, it feels like an instinctive sense of a numinous presence, and not always a benevolent one. What I then do with that feeling, intellectually, is up to me -- a hundred years ago I might easily have thought it God, whereas now I might just as easily think it's the imaginative result of some genetic predisposition -- but it's there, and genuine. (Not all the time, and not necessarily connected with great beauty.)

Given that the OP is asking you to articulate those feelings, can you express that in a useful way to Inari?

I'm not saying that we don't have feelings, just that those feelings don't connect with language in a particularly evocative way.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Not sure how much more usefully it could have been phrased. Very evocative, Mr Harebrain.

I could not imagine being divorced from my surroundings when I tell a story. It is - for my Irish work which, for better or ill, seems my most highly-regarded work and what i'm becoming linked to - integral to every story I tell (inc Abendau - the city is so central to the feel of the trilogy)

In fact, it is why my publisher took Waters and the Wild, because of the integral link between the land and its people, the overlapping of the real and the mythical (and in Inish Carraig the grounding that links all the characters to the reality of what they fight for - this land of Ulster (I also set my Ulster stories in the southern counties), this ancient province that is in me as deep as my roots can be - sea and land, rivers and mountains, cities and wind-swept bog. *

So, yeah, no modern divorcing for me. The land is nature, it is the cities, the people, all intertwined.

Hopefully that will be of use. I think it's pretty much what the OP wanted to know.
* yeah, yeah, I know, ol' sf non-description me getting all poetic. Best get used to it, peeps

 

[The Big Peat]

For preference I walk by water. I prefer the sea, but in most places the river is the only option and a fine option it is. I would say that a love of water plays a part of my self-identity and to a certain extent, that is based on a romantic notion of my place as a product of my family and culture. I grew up sailing; a lot of family stories centre around boats; the British are a maritime people. Seeing a river just makes me happy in myself.

List of river name etymologies - Wikipedia - this article's quite interesting. I found it looking for rivers named after mythological drowning victims. Seems more of the time they're named after local deities or just called river.

That said, if we want a song about rivers that resonates with me, here's NoMeansNo's The River... okay, its river symbolism but still pretty bleak. Water destroys.

Here's a song that I guess fits in really heavily with the first paragraph - Pogues - Lullaby of London