Fire and Water

The Mythology of the Elements

Water and fire seem to be irreconcilable opposites. However, in a number of ancient myths the two elements appear together and are closely connected. For example, the dragon-slaying myth, which is widespread across Eurasia, involves a hero killing a dragon-like monster which has the ability to use fire as a weapon and obstructs the flow of water. In the Rigveda, the thunder god Indra kills the serpentine Vrtra (literally ‘cover’ or ‘obstacle’) to release the fertile waters that become the foundation of abundance in the cosmos. Thus water is released through a fiery battle just as rain follows lightning.

In the Iliad, the hero Achilles, fights Skamander, the god of the river of Troy. Skamander rises against “the best of the Achaeans” and engulfs him with the sweeping force of his waves pressing on all sides. The brave hero cannot resist the onslaught of the divine river and attempts to run, gripped by fear. Helpless, he imagines himself dying an unheroic death by water (rather than a heroic one by combat) and implores Zeus for help. Poseidon and Athena come to the rescue and Hera, wife of Zeus, sends her son Hephaestus to attack the river with fire while she fans the flames with the winds. Hephaestus’ fire prevails over water as it burns the trees on the banks and boils the fish in the river. Skamander is forced to yield to the will of Zeus, which is the fall of his city, Troy. (more on this myth soon in another post)

Achilles fighting the river god Skamander

Here fire and water are pitted against each other and fire defeats water with the help of the gods. However, there are instances in which the two collaborate. Hephaestus himself was received by the nymphs of the ocean when he fell down from Olympus. It was said that Hera was disgusted by the deformed body of the baby and threw him out. The nymphs Thetis and Eurynome received him and nourished him instead. This motif has an Indo-European background, as Martin West argues in his Indo-European Poetry and Myth.

VEDIC AGNI, CHILD OF WATERS

In the Vedas, Agni, the fire god, is the principal deity of sacrifice and one of the most important gods of the Vedic pantheon. Among his many avatars is Apām Napāt (“Child of the Waters”), who hides deep in the water when the gods seek him out to make sacrifice. He is nurtured by the deities of the waters who act “like his mothers”. This may seem paradoxical: how could fire be hiding in water, which destroys it?