Comte Arnau

If you ever happen to be walking at night across the wild forests of the Pyrenees, under a full moon or a starry sky, and you hear femenine laughters coming from nearby lakes or rivers, do not dare go there. Or attend the party, at your own risk.

In the Catalan myths, the Dones d'Aigua ('Water Women'), also called aloges, are women of oneiric beauty, who live in places where there is fresh water: lakes, streams, waterfalls, forest springs and humid caves. While their hair can be straight and raven black, it is more usually of a reddish gold color, uncombed, with their locks cascading down to their feet. Their eyes are either deep blue or emerald green. They appear as small but slender innocent women, with a high self-esteem and proud of their beauty. They are usually naked or wear either transparent tulles or fine tunics, white or pale golden, with a star in their foreheads. They look similar to human women, but their nature is lighter, less corporeal, and can appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. These ladies are not immortal, but they can live for thousands of years and retain their youthful appearance.



They can turn into woodland blackbirds, specially during the day. But these women appear at night. They enjoy watching their reflections in lakes on full-moon nights. Many are said to carry magic wands carved from hazel, the only wood capable of casting spells. A few of them are said to have beautiful wings of various colors.

Their beauty casts a spell on every human who sees them. Only in Saint John's night, the summer solstice, humans can see them without being caught in that spell. The lakes where the dones d'aigua bathe can boil in anger if any stranger dares enter them. At some places, they may take all the children that pass near them with their hook. They have the power to drown people but also to heal illnesses. Unless irritated, they are good and try to bring wealth and happiness to the areas they live in. These water women are said to symbolize fertility and the life-giving virtues of water.



While it is true that they avoid contacts with humans, rumour has it that there have been marriages between water women and humans. For this to happen, the man must agree to the water woman's conditions. One of them is that the husband can never reveal that his wife is a waterwoman. If one day the husband breaks one of the conditions, she automatically leaves him forever and disappears with his fortune, although it is said that she will still comb her children's hair every morning, and will always watch over them, teaching them to have a hero's will. But the husband will never see her again.

They are related to the Occitan daunas d'ayga, to the pale black-haired moras of the Aragonese Pyrenees, to the Basque lamiak and the Asturian xanas. Cryptozoologists also relate them, more distantly, to the Roman and Greek nymphs.