In
Slavic mythology,
vodyanoy (, literally "watery"),
vodyanoi, Belarusian
vadzianik , Ukrainian
vodianyk , Polish
wodnik, Czech and Slovak
vodník, Bulgarian and Macedonian
vodnik , Croatian
vodanoj, Slovene
povodni mož or Serbian
vodenjak (
Cyrillic: водењак), (
Chuvash: Вутăш, Vutăş, Vudaş), is a male water spirit. Vodník (or in Germanized form
hastrman) in Czech fairy tales is the same creature as the Wassermann or
nix of German fairy tales. In many such languages the word is also used to mean the
Aquarius zodiac sign.