This book brings together the various legends and traditions of the water horse that have arisen over the centuries, in mythology, folklore, literature and the visual arts. It is concerned with the meaning of such stories and with the identification and association of such phenomena with natural, supernatural and mythical presences. The many connected folk tales and legends of such water spirits share an ambiguous moral teaching, conjuring with the romance and mystery of water, as a sacred, cleansing and also untamed and disruptive natural and supernatural agent. Are such seeming incompatible manifestations linked? And what is their relationship with the human psyche and their place in the cosmological order of things?
