Fern Flower
Published on March 22, 2024

The Water Horse

  • Vetehishevonen
  • River Horse
  • Aggiski
  • Kelp

Regions of expansion

Russia 1 Finland 1
Finland
Russian Federation

Description

A mythical water horse from Finnish folklore.

This is a beautiful horse that stands in a stream or gallops along the shore. The animal behaves very calmly and allows an unsuspecting person to ride, but then disappears into the riverbed under thunderclaps, and the man with him. 

The Scottish equivalent is kelp, the Irish is aggiski, the Swedes also know this creature.

Stories about her date back to ancient times and may be remnants of Celtic worship of the gods of rivers and weather.

Water horses that transform into animals and attract people to their backs. 

In one of the stories, a large black dog approached the children playing on the beach. After playing with the children of his time, the dog asked for the children on his back. The children climbed onto the dog's back. However, the child sitting in the back could not fit properly, so he reported that there was as little space as possible in the tail. Upon hearing his name, the nymph, who turned into a dog, got scared, threw the children off her back and disappeared into the water. 

Usually you can hear howling before a thunderstorm, and they can flood in the water if they want to.

The Water Horse in popular culture