Legends and traditions do not arise from scratch. They reflect the centuries-old folk experience. Therefore, the water one must have a real prototype. If there is a belief about goblin and devils that they were thrown from the sky, then the water one did not "fall down" from anywhere.
There is no information at all about its origin in the legends. It seems that he has always been here. No wonder he is also called the grandfather.
But the descriptions of the appearance of this mysterious creature, co6ran before the revolution by the researcher S. V. Maximov, diverge. In the Olonets Territory, the Arkhangelsk and Vladimir provinces, the merman appears as an old man with a long gray or green beard. In the Oryol region he is also an old man, but his long green hair and beard at the end of the moon turn white as a harrier. Moreover, he never shows up from the water more than waist-deep.
In Poshekhonye, on the other hand, the water one, on the other hand, allegedly loves to walk along the shore, and even in a red shirt. In the Smolensk province, his appearance is terrible: on his head there are two very long horns, you also give long toes with membranes, and his eyes burn like red-hot coals, they do not go out even in water.
In the Vologda region, he is very tall, overgrown with moss and ooze, also with red glowing eyes in a palm the size and a nose the size of boots. In the Novgorod province, this is already a naked woman, who, sitting on the shore, combing her hair, and from under the ridge water flows in a stream.
If we analyze these legends, then two facts are revealed that are very important for our hypothesis about the real prototype of the fabulous creature. Firstly, if we discard insignificant details such as horns and hair color, then the aquatic in all descriptions looks like, let's say carefully, a humanoid creature. He can be called a humanoid with long hair.
The face of the waterman leaves the impression of old age on observers. Although in fact this may not indicate age at all, but simply the result of the peculiarities of the "skin" cover. For example, his wrinkles. But this happens only in cases where different people describe the same real object.
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In fairy tale folklore, human fantasy endows fictional characters with much greater external differences.
The second thing that attracts attention is the places where people most often saw the merman. Its primordial "patrimony" is the north-west of Russia, especially the Olonets region, abounding in lakes. For example, he lived at ease throughout Lake Ladoga, with the exception of the holy islands - Valaam and Konevitsky. He also felt quite well in the vast swamps of Polesye and Vyatka province.
But in the Vladimir region and the Oryol region, the water was found less often and not in every reservoir, but only in dark and muddy waters. If we were talking about a river, then it must be the one that slowly flowed through low-lying places through thickets of spruce and windbreaks, where sunlight does not penetrate.
Thus, the aquatic had a well-defined range. But this again applies only to real living objects. Devil, goblin, brownie, such geographic restrictions are not peculiar.
But that's not all. The waterman was especially fond of deep pools and depressions under mill dams, where falling water muddies and washes out pits. New at the beginning of the XX century. their area began to decline largely due to the destruction of mills and the subsequent drainage of swamps. In addition, at the end of the 19th century, another attack fell on the "master of the waters" - it became fashionable to consecrate lakes. Why their unclean inhabitants had to look for salvation in "filthy" reservoirs, the number of which was rapidly decreasing.
As for the behavior of the "master of the waters", all legends unanimously claim that this is the most disgusting creature. If the devil has a sense of justice, and the brownie is sometimes not averse to helping the owner in household chores, you can expect only all sorts of troubles from the waterman. For example, when he arranges feasts under water, on the lake in calm weather, such waves suddenly rise that the boats are drowned.
Or he will put on a cap of marsh grass on his head, gird himself with mud, sit on a snag and begin to rush through his possessions, instilling fear in the whole district. It is also believed that the merman is a passionate gambler. And if a fish suddenly disappeared in the lake, it means that the water goblin lost it. The most unpleasant thing is that he spoils mill wheels and dams and drags cattle under the water: it happens, even a bull or a horse.
Unfortunately, we have to admit that behavioral moments do nothing to characterize our hypothetical prototype of the “master of waters”. Is that sudden storms on lakes, for which there is no natural reason. Therefore, as a conclusion, we can only say that the aquatic is a kind of amphibious humanoid that lives under water, but can be on land for some time. And here the main question arises: is such a double-breathing highly organized creature even possible from the point of view of physiology?
To answer it, let us ask a contradictory question: can a person stay under water for a long time without any technical devices? We have already partially received the answer to it above. Here is some other information.
“We need to create homo sapiens aquaticus - a person who lives in water,” said Jacques Cousteau. - An amphibian man should get artificial gills from science. There is no doubt that scientists and designers will be able to solve this problem already in the XX century."
The well-known researcher was slightly mistaken regarding the dates of birth of the ichthyander. As for the gills, the problem comes down to how to endow a person with the ability to extract oxygen from the water, the reserves of which are unlimited.
Back in 1976, the American biochemists, the Bonaventure wife, took up the solution to this problem. They chose hemoglobin as a starting point, which carries oxygen from the lungs and gills to the cells of the body. Initially, the researchers took blood from their own veins, mixed it with polyurethane and immersed it in water, where these clots actively absorbed oxygen dissolved in it.
Then Bonaventure found a blood substitute. They impregnated the finely porous material, the composition of which is kept secret, with an activator of hemoglobin, increasing its accumulation. This is how a device appeared that operates on the principle of fish gills: assimilating oxygen from sea water, it allows a diver to theoretically stay under water for an infinitely long time. According to preliminary calculations, such hemopubular gills 3 m long and 1 m wide are capable of providing oxygen to 150 people.
And Walter Robb came up with a transparent film that can extract air from water. It is believed that it can be used to build underwater shelters, providing air and water to those who are inside.
However, these are all technical devices. We are talking about a change in human physiology.
Statistics say: the vast majority of people drown not because their lungs are filled with water, but because the body's defensive reaction is triggered - the so-called lock. It is enough for one drop of water to get on the sensitive cells of the bronchi, as the annular muscle squeezes the throat, spasms occur, and then suffocation. Therefore, in order for a person to breathe in the water, the lock must be "turned off"
Meanwhile, as practice shows, a newborn does not have such a reflex. And it's not just human babies that adapt well to water. Kittens and rabbits raised by nutria, chickens, whose adoptive mother from birth was a duck, felt like fish in the water, and when they grew up, they continued to remain waterfowl.
But there are other difficulties as well. At normal atmospheric pressure, too little oxygen is dissolved in water, which is necessary for breathing, that is, to supply it with millions of cells in our body. In addition, ordinary water, if it manages to overcome the lock and enter the delicate alveoli of the lungs, will cause fatal edema. And yet the situation is not at all hopeless.
Under high pressure, water can be saturated with oxygen to the same concentration as air. Or, instead, use a special saline solution, the composition of salts in which will be the same as in blood plasma. Moreover, if you make it twice as dense as water, then it will not be absorbed by the lungs, and the threat of their edema will disappear. It will be quite possible to breathe such a liquid.
So, it has been proven that, in principle, a person is able to breathe under water! Therefore, a double-breathing water-humanoid is also quite real. Where it came from is another question. Perhaps these are mutants of the once living people who survived in a relatively small geographical area. Or earthlings from a parallel world. But this is already a topic for another conversation.