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Atlas NoctisA nocturnal atlas of folklore
A — documented

Anguane

the Veneto · Trentino-South Tyrol · Friuli-Venezia Giulia · The Alpine arc
Venetian and Trentino Prealps, from Val Camonica to the Slovenian border

Anguane — two coexisting forms: young women with long hair who wash clothes in the torrents and spin, or old women with goat's feet who change into snake and otter.

A young washerwoman with long hair kneeling in a Prealpine torrent by moonlight; the reflection reveals her other form, old and with a goat's foot.
Variants and dialect names
Anguane, Aquane, Agane, Aguane, Vivane, Guane, Gane, Aganis, Zeligen Baiblen, Krivopete
What is told
Two coexisting forms: young women with long hair who wash clothes in the torrents and spin, or old women with goat's feet who change into snake and otter. They inhabit springs, caves and lakes. They marry men on condition of a taboo whose violation makes them disappear.
What it was forthe author’s reading
Three converging functions: hydraulic interdiction (keeping women and children away from whirlpools and mills), the codification of women's night work at the filò, and the sanctioning of marital secrecy.
Where it is attested
Giacomo Camuri, La «Via» delle Aquane, in Preistoria Alpina 46, 2012 (MUSE). Collections by Borzaga, Ulrike Kindl, Karl Felix Wolff, Franz von Mailly. The place name Naquane in Val Camonica derives from «Contrada Aquane».
Caution
The reading of the anguane as Celtic water deities demonised by Christianity is a widespread hypothesis but is not demonstrated.

The grade says how well the entry is documented, not how interesting it is. How the grades are assigned.

In the same area

ABadaliscLombardy — Andrista di Cevo, upper Val Camonica (province of Brescia)AOm salvàrechTrentino-South Tyrol, Lombardy, Piedmont, the Aosta Valley — The whole Alpine arc, greatest density in Trentino and ValtellinaBRegno dei FanesTrentino-South Tyrol — Alpe di Fanes, Marebbe (province of Bolzano), and the Ladin DolomitesAVecia Redosegathe Veneto — Valbelluna, Cadore, Agordino; German-speaking Alpine areaCGigiàtLombardy — Val Masino (province of Sondrio), with extensions into Valchiavenna and BregagliaABenandantiFriuli-Venezia Giulia — Central and eastern Friuli: Cividale del Friuli, Iassico and Brazzano near Cormòns, Udine, Aquileia, Monfalcone, Latisana

Related by theme

Entries that share the motif, the phenomenon behind it or the history of their collection — not the geography.

CI bozzi delle fateTuscany — Fiacciano, comune of Fivizzano (province of Massa-Carrara); pools on the canale dell’Albereda, a tributary of the Rosaro stream, near Pognana, in the LunigianaBJanasSardinia — The whole of Sardinia, with density in the centre-north: Logudoro, Goceano, BarbagiaANøkk e fossegrimNorway — Inland Norway and Sweden: waterfalls, mills, mill-races and lakes; Telemark and Setesdal, home of the hardingfeleBFrau Holle e Frau PerchtaGermany — Hesse and Thuringia for Holle, the East Upper German area — Bavaria, Austria, Tyrol — for Perchta

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