Who are the Water Spirits?

In anthropology, Water Spirits are spirits supposed to reside in lakes, rivers, and the sea. Water spirits were believed to be the active agents in all cases of drowning and shipwreck and to avenge the rescue of drowning persons on their rescuers. Hence arose the widespread superstition that it was unlucky to save a shipwrecked person or one who had fallen into the water. The belief in water spirits was almost universal at an early stage of culture and still lingers in a poetic form on the banks of the Rhine.

Nereids