Undine (alchemy)

Undine ( Undine also, Latin unda = wave) (or French Ondine = mermaid ) is a female, virgin water spirit. It belongs to the semi-divine elemental spirits called.

Description

According to Paracelsus is an elemental, which the mythological genus belongs nymph and embodies the element of water. According to him, it can be discovered in forest lakes or waterfalls usual.

Undine and similar beings that are referred to Slavic Rusalka Rusalka or, or water nymphs in general, have, such as the bird actually multiform sirens, charming voices, which can occasionally be heard over the water. The water combines singing Undine but also with such magical creatures such as the Lorelei, or singing at night on the sea with bells daughter of the king of the sunken city of Ys in the sea. Like it can also be found in the events to the magical city of Vineta, which also like Ys sank out of pride in the sea.

Most occur undines but as nymphs serving as companions of gods in appearance. Sea nymphs drown her lover ( eg water nymphs Heracles ' favorite Hylas ). But you pull yourself constantly back into the water when they are angry in a boat on any waters, which then also can not return on their own to the land. The same effect is also achieved when you throw a Undine into the water.

Some aspects of the Undine go back but also on mental images of Greek mythology, which are designed in this context, inter alia, of the Amphitrite or the Nereids. But some mermaids beauty evokes the image of the rising from the sea foam- born Aphrodite Uranus daughter - but can not be reached a similar completion of this divinity of Undine, but probably here combine the proximity to the water and the beauty.

The Undine gets only a soul, if she marries a man.

An unfaithful husband brings the Undine death. ( In the play by Jean Giraudoux let the water spirits who know her, her husband Hans die, and she can not later remember him. )