Tradition: Russian Mythology
Alternative Names: Water Cow, Vodianaya Korova
Category: Cow
The Myth
The Vodyanaya Korova is a mythical water cow from the folklore of the Russian North. It is described as an enormous, heavy, well-fed and exceptionally large cow, usually brown in color, though black, mottled, red-and-white, and black-and-white cows are also found in different traditions. Its coat is smooth and glossy, and it is usually completely hornless. The cow is exceptionally fertile and always produces abundant milk, making it a creature strongly associated with life, fertility, and abundance.
The water cows live beneath the waters of rivers, lakes, and sometimes the sea. On warm summer nights they emerge from the depths and come ashore onto islands, riverbanks, or flooded meadows, where they graze. One tradition tells of a small, perfectly round and apparently bottomless lake with an island in its center. During the summer, four mysterious cows emerge from the water onto this island to graze. In other accounts, an entire herd appears.
Whenever a person approaches the grazing cows, however, the strange creatures immediately flee back into the water. The lake itself may suddenly become violently agitated, and a whistle or other sound can rise from its depths. At this signal the cows rush into the water and disappear beneath the surface. Sometimes a mysterious water spirit is said to drive the herd back into the lake, just as a farmer would drive ordinary cattle into a stable when danger approaches.
The waters from which the cows emerge are not ordinary bodies of water. They are sometimes described as bottomless, representing the primordial waters from which the world itself emerged. The island in the center of the lake represents the first piece of land rising from those waters. The water cow that steps onto it is therefore more than an enchanted animal: it is connected with the creation of the earth itself.
In these traditions, the cow’s grazing actually causes the land to develop. The first patches of earth are still unstable, sometimes imagined as small pieces of land floating upon the water. The cows walk across them, sinking into the soft earth almost up to their muzzles without drowning. As they graze, the land becomes covered with green vegetation. The cow therefore simultaneously represents the earth and the force that brings the earth into being.
The Vodyanaya Korova is also associated with extraordinary abundance. A person who succeeds in capturing one may discover that it never seems to diminish or disappear. Such a cow can become larger, fatter, and more productive than any ordinary animal, producing enormous quantities of milk. One tradition tells of cows giving two buckets of milk at a time. A peasant who acquired such a creature could become wealthy from its inexhaustible productivity.
The cow’s hide itself possesses supernatural power. Every hair of the magical animal is said to contain the potential to become an animal of its corresponding kind. In one story, after a peasant slaughtered a water cow, its mysterious hide disappeared. An unknown being associated with the round lake had taken it back into the depths, returning the magical hide to the waters from which the creature had originated.
Other traditions describe the herd being accompanied by a supernatural milkmaid. She appears whenever the cows come out of the water and disappears with them when they return to the depths. She possesses a golden milking vessel that does not sink in the water. Whenever a person attempts to seize it, however, the vessel immediately disappears beneath the surface. Whoever could obtain the magical vessel was believed to have a chance of capturing the water cows themselves.
The Vodyanaya Korova is therefore not simply a strange cow living in a lake. In the oldest layer of the tradition, it is connected with the primordial waters and the creation of the earth. Each time the mysterious herd emerges and grazes upon the land, the ancient act of creation is symbolically repeated. When a human approaches and the cows flee back beneath the water, the process ends and the world returns to its beginning, ready to be renewed again.
Sources
Krinichnaya, N. A. “Водяная корова в севернорусской мифологии” (The Water Cow in Northern Russian Mythology). Русская речь (Russian Speech), no. 5 (2014), pp. 101–109.