The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon

This image is also more likely the further back you go in the mythology. In Czechoslovakia, a rusalka would have been viewed as a gentle wight delivering water from a much-loved river into fields and woodlands. This would be why Rusalka is listed as a Czech name for a wood sprite. This depiction is more prevalent in areas where water plays a loving role, such as the Danube River. They are seen as lovely, enchanting, and pleasant water-bound nymphs that roam through the tall grass of the woods. A rusalka was a friendly wight who provided the water necessary for crops to grow. It’s a very pagan viewpoint, colored by the desires of farmers for a bountiful harvest. In some tales, the rusalki are viewed as land spirits. I will go over the polarity of rusalki at length.

See my blog on The Alkonost and the Sirin. They have dual sides, which you may remember is a theme I’ve found in Slavic mythology in the past. They almost always appear to be young women. They can also be unkempt and terrifying, like that chick from The Ring. They can be agonizingly beautiful with enchanting voices. Their skin may have a pallid, corpse-like appearance. Depending on which rusalka tale you hear, they often end up the same way as Anderson’s Little Mermaid, as well. They also have a mission to entice men while on land, sometimes for the fun of it and sometimes for the evil of it. They climb trees and dance and run around the woods, but they are water-bound spirits all the same. Rusalki don’t have fins, they have legs which they use a lot. Notice I didn’t say they were like Ariel or mermaids in general. Rusalki are a lot like Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid. That is a very complicated question with many different answers, but let’s start with the most popular descriptions. “Rusalki” by Iwan Nikolajewitsch Kramskoj, 1871

The Writer's Digest Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon