Mermaid

Mermaids, bathing girls, watercreepers, loskotekhs and others, in Slavic mythology, creatures, as a rule, are harmful, into which deceased girls, mainly drowned, unbaptized children, turn into. The merry week following the trinity, they come out of the water, run through the fields, sway in the trees, can tickle the oncoming people to death or carry them into the water. Therefore, in the Russian week it was impossible to swim, and when leaving the village, they took with them wormwood, which the mermaids were allegedly afraid of. At the mermaids' requests for clothes, women hung yarn, towels, threads on the trees, girls - wreaths.