Talk:Undine/@comment-10312571-20140925114802

Rusalka is basically the Slavic version of an Undine, Sea Nymph or mermaids. Like Undine, Rusalki were mostly spirits of young girls with broken hearts. Here's a Wikipedia paragraph.

In nineteenth century versions, the rusalka is an unquiet being who is no longer alive, associated with the  unclean spirit and dangerous. According to  Dmitrii Zelenin, [3]  people who die violently and before their time, such as young women who commit suicide because they have been jilted by their lovers, or unmarried women who are pregnant, must live out their designated time on earth as a spirit. In Slavic lore especially, rusalka are "the spirits of girls who died 'before their time' and returned to live as spirit being in our world, near where they had once lived and died". [4]