Nix is a water spirit in European folklore. Female water spirits are often called nixies. Nixes and nixies are said to live in rivers, lakes, and wells. Nixies often charm people with their music, songs, or dancing. Nixes and nixies often try to lure people, especially children, into the water. They keep the children until they drown or the spirit is tricked into releasing them. Nixes and nixies usually appear human, but they can also change shapes. They often take the form of a horse. Anyone who tries to ride the nix will be taken into the water and drowned. Other tales tell of nixies with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish or snake.
Many Germanic fairy tales and legends feature nixies. Nixies can tell the future in the German epic poem Nibelungenlied, written around A.D. 1200. The German composer Richard Wagner was inspired by this poem to create the Rhinemaidens in his opera The Ring of the Nibelung, finished in the 1870’s. The Water-Nix and The Nix of the Mill Pond are two tales about nixes collected by the Brothers Grimm, the famous German collectors of fairy tales, in the early 1800’s. The German poet Heinrich Heine wrote a poem about a beautiful nixie called Lorelei who enchants men with her song and causes shipwrecks. It was published in 1827.
Nixes and nixies are sometimes helpful to humans. In some stories, they help with the harvest, watch children, and do housework. They may marry and have children with humans. But they always eventually return to their water home.
