Rhein Maidens

The Rhein Maidens[]

The Rhein Maidens are three sisters beautiful ladies endowed with magic and immortality their home is the river Rhein the maidens dedicate their lives to protect the precious metal called the Rheingold. Xena tricked the Rhein maidens into trusting her and leading her to where it was kept, Xena stole it and forged a ring from the rheingold.

36 years later a reformed Xena returned the Rheinegold to the rhein maidens, one of the maidens asking Xena what kind of magic made you change. Xena and Gabrielle exchanged looks. Xena explains, "It wasn’t magic."

Trivia[]

Were played by Marama Jackson, Lucy Thomas and Stephanie Bertram.

The rhein maidens are not mythological, but they are inventions of Richard Wagner for his opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, which was combined with the epic of the old English Beowulf to create Nordic history. In the story they were water nymphs. Wagner created his Rhinemaidens from other legends and myths, most notably the Nibelungenlied which contains stories involving water-sprites (nixies) or mermaids of the Danube.

In a fictional depiction, the Rhine Maidens are among the protagonists of composer Richard Wagner's four-part opera Der Ring des Nibelungen, loosely based on the nix of the Nibelungenlied. The Rhine maidens Wellgunde, Woglinde and Floßhilde belong to a group of characters who live in a part of nature free of human influence.

The German Nix and Nixe (and Nixie) are types of river merman and mermaid who may lure men into drowning, like the Scandinavian type, akin to the Celtic Melusine and similar to the Greek Siren.