Neck (water spirit)
 "The Rhine Maidens Warn Siegfried" (1912) by Arthur Rackham
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| Grouping | Legendary creature |
|---|---|
| Other name(s) | Nicor, Nixie or Nokken |
| Region | Europe |
The neck, nicor, nixie or nokken (German: ; Dutch: , ; Norwegian: ; Swedish: ; Finnish: ; Estonian: ) are shapeshifting water spirits in Germanic mythology and folklore who usually appeared in forms of other creatures.
Under a variety of names, they were common to the stories of all Germanic peoples, although they are perhaps best known from Scandinavian folklore. The related English knucker was generally depicted as a wyrm or dragon, although more recent versions depict the spirits in other forms. Their sex, bynames, and various transformations vary geographically. The German Nix and his Scandinavian counterparts were males. The German Nixe was a female river mermaid.
The names are held to derive from Common Germanic *nikwus or *nikwis(i), derived from PIE *neigw ("to wash"). They are related to Sanskrit nḗnēkti, Greek νίζω nízō and νίπτω níptō, and Irish nigh (all meaning to wash or be washed). The form neck appears in English and Swedish (näck or nek, meaning "nude"). The Swedish form is derived from Old Swedish neker, which corresponds to Old Icelandic nykr (gen. nykrs), and nykk in Norwegian Nynorsk. In Finnish, the word is näkki. In Old Danish, the form was nikke and in modern Danish and Norwegian Bokmål it is nøkk. The Icelandic nykur is a horselike creature. In Middle Low German, it was called necker and in Middle Dutch nicker (compare also Nickel or Nikkel plus Kobolt) . The Old High German form nihhus also meant "crocodile", while the Old English nicor could mean both a "water monster" like those encountered by Beowulf, and a "hippopotamus". The Norwegian Fossegrim and Swedish Strömkarlen are related figures sometimes seen as by-names for the same creature. The Scandinavian version can transform himself into a horse-like kelpie, and is called a Bäckahästen (the "brook horse"), whilst the Welsh version is called the Ceffyl Dŵr (the "water horse").
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Wikipedia