The Water-Nix

Tale of the Brothers Grimm translated by M. Hunt [1884] (slightly changed by us)
Interpretation by Undine & Jens in green [2025]

We continue with the water element, and in this short fairy tale we find the first female “personification” of the water element as a “nix,” whose nature we will now get to know a little better:

A little brother and sister were once playing by a well, and while they were thus playing, they both fell in. A water-nix lived down below, who said, “Now I have got you, now you shall work hard for me!” and carried them off with her. She gave the girl dirty tangled flax to spin, and she had to fetch water into a leaky barrel, and the boy had to hew down a tree with a blunt axe, and they got nothing to eat but dumplings as hard as stones. Then at last the children became so impatient, that they waited until one Sunday, when the nix was at church, and ran away.

The fairy tale begins with a brother and sister, in whom we can essentially see the male spirit and the female nature, as they exist as polarities in every developing human being, yet still have a special relationship, for brother and sister should not marry and unite physically. Humanity has ancient experience that such “inbreeding” can have terrible consequences. For the diversity of nature is threatened when unity is sought on a physical level. Then we seek the happiness of the world in a certain external form, in a “uni-form” or “mono-culture,” so to speak, just as some religions or worldviews believed that the world would be happy and peaceful if everyone shared the same beliefs. At least, we have learned in practice that the opposite happens...

But back to the fairy tale: Brother and sister were still attached to external knowledge, certainly recognized their biological parents as their source, and knew that they were their children. Thus, they were not yet “simpletons” in the sense of the last fairy tale, and because of their knowledge, they must now first separate themselves in the world, from their parents and also from each other, in order to find that which makes them whole and complete again. Like a river that flows from its source and must leave it to become a river, but can never completely separate itself from the source because it would then dry up. Yet our siblings do not flow into the world, but “fell into the well while playing.” Perhaps this is the first play in the awakening of puberty, a new form of physical love, something they wish to conceal from the outside. Thus, they fall back into the maternal source, into the inner essence of physicality, into the nature of the subconscious, which they are now meant to serve. Here one could also think of a mother who does not want to let go of her children, who has given physical birth to them and now regards them as her property and says: “Now I have you, and now you should serve me well.”

But the fairy tale clearly states that the children were not yet capable of this, for as long as one believes in the external world and is not yet a “simpleton” in this regard, one cannot smooth the confused and overwhelming experiences into fine soul threads, one cannot fill the leaky barrel of hunger and thirst of every kind, nor can one cut down the tree of knowledge of opposites. For their nourishment is still physical or material, like “dumplings as hard as stones,” and not spiritual in the sense of a formless consciousness that can take any form to serve the diversity of nature as desired. Thus, they must ultimately flee from this watery kingdom of the “underworld,” even though we read that the water being is not fundamentally evil at all, but goes to the holy church and worships God. And it is precisely this veneration of wholeness that makes the escape possible, so that they can return to the earthly realm of the “upper world” and follow their path there. For alongside Mother Nature, Father Spirit also reigns and guides his children.

But when church was over, the nix saw that the birds were flown, and followed them with great strides. The children saw her from afar, and the girl threw a brush behind her which formed an immense hill of bristles, with thousands and thousands of spikes, over which the nix was forced to scramble with great difficulty; at last, however, she got over. When the children saw this, the boy threw behind him a comb which made a great hill of combs with a thousand times a thousand teeth, but the nix managed to keep herself steady on them, and at last crossed over that. Then the girl threw behind her a looking-glass which formed a hill of mirrors, and was so slippery that it was impossible for the nix to cross it. Then she thought, “I will go home quickly and fetch my axe, and cut the hill of glass in half.” Long before she returned, however, and had hewn through the glass, the children had escaped to a great distance, and the water-nix was obliged to betake herself to her well again.

Thus, the children become a river, leaving the source in the well and flowing over the earth, yet unable to completely separate themselves from their source. Their physical watery nature continues to pursue them, but with certain means, they can gain time and space, just as every river flows through time and space. The three symbols of brush, comb, and mirror are evocative, and practically everyone can identify with them to a greater or lesser extent. The girl’s brush reminds us of the external cleansing of the body; the boy’s comb reminds us of the spiritual cleansing and ordering of worldly thoughts, often symbolized as hair on the head; and the girl’s mirror reminds us of external beauty. And for both, the mirror would also be a symbol of self-reflection in the world, of finding their own personality. Thus, the two become a river through the “upper world” and must surely separate if they wish to become two rivers, just as brother and sister should distance themselves more and more during puberty and go their separate ways, even if they come from the same source.

Thus, they practically flee from their own source and attempt to separate themselves from it by building strange mountains of “bristles, spikes, and mirror glass” behind them as they flow through time and space, only to flow along their slopes through the world. These are then our physical inclinations, the likes and dislikes in the mountainous “upper world.” And yet the fairy tale already suggests that it is only a matter of time before the “underworld” catches up with us again, for we always carry our source in our subconscious, even if we are usually not aware of it. And that is where the “water nix” also retreats, “betakes herself to her well,” as the fairy tale says. For she knows full well that every river must eventually flow from the upper world back into the sea of the underworld, into the famous “sea of causes,” which is then the source of everything, a pure sea of consciousness or information, as we learned in the last fairy tale about “The Simpleton.”

In this regard, one can also consider the name “nix” as a term for the consciousness that comes as if from nix or nothing and returns as if to nix or nothing, and yet is everything. For only a holistic and formless consciousness can take on any form, can spin any soul thread because it itself is every soul and every thread, can fill any vessel because it itself is every vessel and every filling, and can also cut down any tree of opposites because it itself is every tree and every opposite, as well as dismantle all mountains of “bristles, spikes, and mirror glass” because it itself is every accumulation and every inclination. But until we reach this all-consciousness, we always feel a lack of separation within us and must flow through the wide world, searching for that which makes us content, whole, and complete again.

Thus, brother and sister will eventually find each other again and unite, when they no longer seek their source in the worldly knowledge of physical parents and a superficial external world, but in the inner depths of this sea, where they are pure and free consciousness, a holistic consciousness that can unite nature and spirit in the mystical marriage, mother and father, sister and brother, children and parents, river and source, upper and underworld, superconscious and subconscious, formal and formless consciousness, and inner and outer, without in any way limiting the natural diversity of the upper world. On the contrary, only now can natural diversity fully blossom.

Gratefully to blessed fate
Grow, in re-creation!
Be our souls, as they have been,
Dedicate to Thee!
Virgin Holy, Mother, Queen,
Goddess, gracious be!

All things transitory
But as symbols are sent:
Earth’s insufficiency
Here grows to Event
The Indescribable,
Here it is done:
The Woman-Soul leadeth us
Upward and on.
(Goethe, End of Faust II)

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A Hydrogen Atom tells a story

Hi, you’ve probably heard of me, but you probably don’t know me personally. I am “H,” a small atom, tiny yet important, or at least weighty. I am already ancient, as old as the entire universe. What I was before my birth, I don’t know. I can still remember a huge celebration of joy, perhaps that was also my birthday party, like a galactic fireworks. At least a grand dance among many who were similar to me. But who they were dancing with remains a mystery to me to this day. As soon as I looked at them more closely, there was a “blob,” and they disappeared in a flash of light. And yet they were there, and all around me an eternal dance of lights raged in perfect harmony. Only I didn’t find a dance partner, perhaps I didn’t want one, perhaps I was afraid of disappearing like them in the dance of joy. Anyway, I held on to my form, and since then I’ve been waiting and searching, somehow always feeling like I’m missing something. With that, I fell into time and space. As time prolonged, space also grew, and the wonderful dance in the light disappeared far, far away. Yes, in this way I became an atom, a hydrogen atom in the mist, like a drop or a tiny ripple of water in time and space, the substance from which water was made. The ancient Romans called me “hydrogenium,” and thus I received the symbol “H,” for hint or help.

I soon realized that there were many others like me who hadn’t found a dance partner back then and were now dancing with themselves. Some danced so closely together that they fused at the core and became helium and many other atoms in giant suns, acquiring a new shape and different properties. I had never been able to dance that closely with anyone before. When I came here to Earth, I did find many friends with whom I dared to dance, but they were only short-lived friendships. So, I danced with a sister and a fat oxygen atom and, as H2O, became the water from which I got my name. But at my core, I always remained true to myself, and so far, no one has been able to dissuade me from that, even though I’ve experienced a lot:

Just recently, I danced with a carbon atom. Admittedly, that sounds a bit dark, and it was, because only occasionally did I see a bit of light. And yet it was a special experience, because for a brief moment, I found myself in a strange being, in the head of a biped who called himself a “physicist.” He told me that I am almost 14 billion years old, and that I spent over 4 billion of those years on this Earth, living in his head as well, even though I have almost no substance. Compared to an Olympic soccer ball, my positive nucleus, which contains 99.9% of my mass and which he called a “proton,” would be only as small as a grain of rice at the kickoff point, and my negative shell, which he called an “electron,” would be as large as the outermost tier of spectators, and sometimes even much larger, although I don’t feel all that negative, because outwardly, I am relatively neutral. He also explained to me that the fireworks at my birthday party are called the “Big Bang,” and that the many particles at that time danced with “antiparticles,” so that they immediately disappeared again, leaving only light photons behind, which can still be measured today as cosmic background radiation. Just recently, I danced with a carbon atom. Admittedly, that sounds a bit dark, and it was, because only occasionally did I see a bit of light. And yet it was a special experience, because for a brief moment, I found myself in a strange being, in the head of a biped who called himself a “physicist.” He told me that I am almost 14 billion years old, and that I spent over 4 billion of those years on this Earth, living in his head as well, even though I have almost no substance. Compared to an Olympic soccer ball, my positive nucleus, which contains 99.9% of my mass and which he called a “proton,” would be only as small as a grain of rice at the kickoff point, and my negative shell, which he called an “electron,” would be as large as the outermost tier of spectators, and sometimes even much larger, although I don’t feel all that negative, because outwardly, I am relatively neutral. He also explained to me that the fireworks at my birthday party are called the “Big Bang,” and that the many particles at that time danced with “antiparticles,” so that they immediately disappeared again, leaving only light photons behind, which can still be measured today as cosmic background radiation.

Just recently, I danced with a carbon atom. Admittedly, that sounds a bit dark, and it also was, because only occasionally I did see a bit of light. And yet it was a special experience, because for a brief moment, I found myself in a strange being, in the head of a biped who called himself a “physicist.” He told me that I am almost 14 billion years old, and that I spent over 4 billion of those years on this Earth, living in his head as well, even though I have almost no substance. Compared to an Olympic soccer stadium, my positive nucleus, which contains 99.9% of my mass and which he called a “proton,” would be only as small as a grain of rice at the kick-off point, and my negative shell, which he called an “electron”, would be as large as the outermost tier of spectators, and sometimes even much larger, although I don’t feel all that negative, because outwardly, I am relatively neutral. He also explained to me that the fireworks at my birthday party are called the “Big Bang,” and that the many particles at that time danced with “antiparticles,” so that they immediately disappeared again, leaving only light photons behind, which can still be measured today as cosmic background radiation. But he said that out of five billion dancing couples, there’s always one left that didn’t find an antiparticle, as had apparently happened to me. From this, all the matter in the universe emerged. But why I remained, who I am, what these “antiparticles” were, and where we all came from, he couldn’t explain. It became even more puzzling when he told me that I was something dead, and that he himself was alive in space and time. Indeed, practically the entire universe consisted almost entirely of dead matter, and life that arises from this dead matter was only an “extremely rare, marginal phenomenon”. I seriously doubted his sanity, because this physical physicist appeared for such a tiny moment in my long life that I would have to speak more of a flash of light than of a life, even though he believed he had lived a long time and, to be honest, was also an astonishing structure. His body was a dance of over 10^27 atoms in over 10^14 cells, primarily oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and calcium, all briefly gathered together, and I was right in the middle of it all. Wow! Can we imagine a one with 27 zeros? That’s over 10 million times more atoms than there are stars in the entire universe!

A gigantic structure, but also very shaky, as it constantly needed repairs—a lifelong construction site, so to speak. New building materials were constantly being brought in and old ones pushed out, until finally, everything collapsed again. Which is understandable, because our dance wasn’t particularly close. Compared to rice grains, our atomic nuclei in the so-called molecules were often several hundred meters apart. So, almost entirely empty space, a gigantic space, and thus more a mental construct than a physical structure. The entire global annual production of over 500 million tons of rice grains would not be nearly enough atoms for this structure of a single human body. You would still need more than 10 billion such annual productions in one pile, and the rice grains would only be connected to each other by long, thin rubber cords spaced over a hundred meters apart. These rubber cords, or “relationships,” appeared as spiritual information, like fine brushstrokes for the image of a person. From this perspective, one should speak more of a large cloud of connected information than of a solid body. This cloud would then extend, in comparison to the size of grains of rice as atomic nuclei, over 100 million kilometers all the way to the sun. Yes, such numbers can make you dizzy, but this structure that calls itself “human” is that gigantic and equally shaky. On top of that, it is quite dark inside. Despite the many empty spaces, only a little sunlight is let in from outside. Instead, here and there one sees a few flashes of light busily rushing back and forth through the spaces like will-o’-the-wisps to exchange messages of some kind, even though the whole thing is practically made of light and can also be recognized as a structure full of light.

Why such a structure could tell me such strange things about myself, I still don’t understand. Perhaps that was the very purpose of this construction site, and all the other atoms were just as eager to find an answer to their questions about the origin and meaning of their lives. But in the end, they doubted like me, increasingly lost hope, and abandoned this construction site. So, for millions of years on this Earth, we have been building the strangest forms, in which I have often been a particle. Sometimes the answer to my big question seems within reach: why I couldn’t find my “antiparticle” and now remain bound in this “atomic body.”

I felt similarly in the head of a quantum physicist who was more concerned with the small world than the large one. He saw me less as a particle and more as a play of waves of energy, and suggested that I was essentially just “clotted energy” or even “frozen light.” Indeed, since I’ve been falling ever deeper into time and space for so long, it’s also getting colder. And the glowing light from my nursery has already cooled to below 3 Kelvin in this vast space, which sounds bitterly cold. I’m already that far removed from my origin, and yet I’m still in the middle of it, and can never fall out of this light because I am it myself. So, I’m not a separate particle that lives only on its own, but a play of waves on a sea of light or energy. He called it “entanglement,” meaning that everything is directly connected, and from this perspective, there are no separate particles at all. This sea of light or energy can also be called mind or consciousness. Actually, pure information, more software than hardware. So now I ask myself: Am I perhaps only an atom because I consist of the knowledge that I can be an atom? At least I now also know that I consist primarily of quarks. This reminds me of the old saying when some parents tell their children: “Back then, you were still a quark in a shop window!” Perhaps they mean “quarks in the light of consciousness”? It remains unclear, and so the quantum physicist also spoke of an “uncertainty principle,” albeit very theoretically, and I have basically understood that: The more you concentrate on one aspect of reality, the more everything else blurs. Sounds logical, we all know it from our own eyes!

Similarly, I once found myself in the mind of a church scholar who told me about God, eternal life, spiritual light, and living water, which, as a “hydrogen,” naturally touched me particularly. He also knew a story about the creation of the world, that “in the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the water”. Was I this “water” without the “fabric” of my physical garment? And just as the physicist spoke of particle-antiparticle pairs, he spoke of Adam, who was separated by God into a pair of humans because he could not recognize himself in creation. Although he was created in the image of God, he needed help, which was given to him in the form of Eve, who, like our antiparticles, was of an opposite sex and stood opposite him, so that he could recognize her as his equal. But when he recognized her, they did not transform into pure light, but rather produced children of their own kind, an endless host of humans. And in contrast to the physicist’s story of the Big Bang, here among the people it was perhaps only one of many millions who could truly recognize himself and transform himself into pure light. For they continued to eat the fruits of the tree of good and evil, which at first taste good but then become difficult to digest. In doing so, they encountered a painful “anti-body,” which, on the Way of the Cross, represented the next opportunity for resurrection, for salvation in the pure light of eternal life. That’s why Christ could say: “I am the light of the world.” Oh, if only I had been in his head! The church scholar also told me the story of a strange Tower of Babel that people built for themselves to reach God in heaven, but which ended in great confusion and never reached its goal. This reminded me very much of the gigantic atomic construction site of a human body, which, while capable of constructing outstanding mental concepts about the world, then collapses again as mind and body and ends in confusion...

Later, I served an alchemist who, thank God, saw in me a living being and was deeply fascinated and inspired by the diverse ways I, as water, can change my form and dissolve and recreate other substances. So, he experimented for a long time with evaporation, condensation, dissolution, coagulation, and purification, seeking to find, in the dance of spirit and nature, or rather, soul and body, the gold of truth and the imperishable philosopher’s stone upon which everything is founded. Sometimes he even referred to it as the “philosopher’s water stone,” which I was particularly honoured to hear. Wonderful, and I helped him as much as I could...

Soon afterward, I came into the hands of a homeopath who recognized my excellent memory. He used it to create various remedies for illnesses and was very successful with them. Many “scientists” still can’t explain this to this day and firmly believe that you need a brain with nerve cells to learn and remember something. Well, I smile, because a brain is also mostly made up of hydrogen atoms, and of course all the others help too…

In contrast, many people use me in the alcoholic, intoxicating dance of C2H5OH to forget, especially their worries and fears. But when they overdid it, they forgot almost everything except their alcohol, which then became a harmful addiction. Here, too, I could only help partially, and that didn’t make me happy. Why do people have to exaggerate everything?!

At some point, some “scientists” also discovered my tremendous power, but they apparently completely forgot the meaning of life and lost their reason, for they built terrible hydrogen bombs out of me to kill people and destroy lives. What madness!!!

A philosopher then told me that the only reason I’ve lived so long, can’t forget anything, and possess so much energy is because I tirelessly cling to this form as an atom and refuse to recognize myself in what appears to me. Thus, I fall ever further in time and distance myself from the pure light into which I was born. As long as there is a contrast between me and others, there is also a space between observer and observed, which grows ever larger over time and is now many billions of light-years across. Although I am the light itself, and this light appears briefly again and again when I am stimulated to do so, I fall back into darkness because I want to hold on to this light as a form. I also asked him what the dance of particles and antiparticles meant at my birth, which created so much light. He said that back then, the particles recognized themselves and transformed into pure light. This light is still there because it exists in eternity and did not fall into time and space. Thus, this light also sees no space, and sees me beyond time and space in the same light as I could see them when I was born. For the light, I, too, have already found my “antiparticle” and have become one with it, which seems to me like such a long time in such a vast space. For in eternity, everything happens simultaneously, and light itself is in eternity. And if I were to recognize myself in this light, I would immediately be back in eternity beyond time and space. Sounds promising!

There are two perspectives on this, which he called reason and understanding. Reason looks at the holistic and freely-moving towards eternity and omnipresence, and understanding looks at the divisive and form-bound towards time and space. For light, there is only light, in which all possible forms can “appear” simultaneously, such as particles and antiparticles, atoms, stars and planets, right up to the life forms we see here on Earth. And for particles, there is space and time, as long as they cling to their form. This is how earthly life came into being, in the hope that the form or appearance of light would once again recognize itself as light. And when I speak of light, I could just as well speak of consciousness, pure information that interacts with one another.

From this perspective, this Earth appears like a giant stroller, which the sun, like a loving mother, pushes around itself, nourishing, nurturing, and caring for with the light and warmth of its body. And billions of stars watch and rejoice immensely as the heavier and more tangible atoms they have “hatched” take on such astonishing forms of life. This reveals the inexhaustible diversity that light, or rather consciousness, can assume, allowing its wonderful qualities to be recognized, because the shapeless becomes visible in the shaped, the formless in the formal, the constant in the changing, the eternal in the transient, and unity in diversity.

Now you know, he continued, to me and simultaneously to himself, the meaning of clinging to one form of life for a while: Recognize the transience of all forms and yourself as the imperishable light of formless consciousness, the eternal source of everything, and return from time and space to the eternal here and now! For this, this Earth is only a kindergarten, and much higher life forms are still waiting for us in this universe to walk this path of knowledge. Your body is like a tool, and you yourself are the witness to the work. When the two become one again, then the work in time and space is complete, and the pure light or consciousness remains, which has always been there and always will be, the “truth,” so to speak, before anything came into being...

Thus upraised, I finally entered the body of a yogi, which miraculously became ever brighter and more luminous. Where previously only a few flashes of light had flitted about in the darkness, everything shone in the loving light of a harmonious dance, which reminded me strongly of my birth. Nowhere were there any dark spots left that wanted to hide from the pure light of love. He didn’t tell me much, for there were few thoughts in him. One day, when I was boasting about my advanced age and smiling at his short lifespan, he smiled even more radiantly and said: “I, too, came into this world to cling to a form like you. So, I also tried to cling to you, because you were already so old and seemed so permanent. But with your help, I recognized the nature of transience and rediscovered the imperishable. Now I know that I am much older than any form and was already here before you were born. For I am the eternal light itself, in which every form appears.” And when his whole body wanted to become pure light, I asked him to take me with him to find the same fulfilment he had found. He said, “Yes, I will, but first you have to fulfil a task in this world. Tell your wonderful story, how you were born and everything you’ve experienced. Then you too will find your fulfilment and return to the eternal light, which you have never lost and can never lose. For me, you are already in the light, the same light as myself.”

For that is the great search,
Where in the end one finds nothing,
But the seeker disappears.

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• ... Table of contents of all fairy tale interpretations ...
• King Thrushbeard - (topic: holy and healthy marriage)
• Saint Solicitous - (topic: beard and violin)
• The old witch - (topic: true Love and Reason)
• The Jew among Thorns - (topic: Reason and Mind)
• The Princess and the blind Blacksmith - (topic: Christmas)
• The Hare and the Hedgehog - (topic: I’m already here)
• Hans my Hedgehog - (topic: Reason and Nature)
• The Simpleton - (topic: Nature of the sea)
• The Water-Nix (topic: Source and River)
• The Nix of the Mill-Pond - (topic: Water-being)
• The Little Mermaid Undine - (topic: Wave dance)

[1884] Grimm's Household Tales. Translated from the German and edited by Margaret Hunt. With an introduction by Andrew Lang, 1884, Vol. 1/2, London: George Bell and Sons [2025] Text and Pictures by Undine & Jens / www.pushpak.de