The Xana is a character found in Asturian mythology. Always female, she is a fairy nymph of extraordinary beauty believed to live in fountains, rivers, waterfalls or forested regions with pure water. She is usually described as small or slender with long blonde or light brown hair (most often curly), which she tends to with gold or silver combs woven from sun or moonbeams. A xana is a beneficial spirit, offering love water to travelers and rewards of gold or silver to those found worthy through some undefined judgment. Their hypnotic voices can be heard during spring and summer nights. Those who have a pure soul and hear the song will be filled with a sense of peace and love. Those whose souls are not pure will feel they are being suffocated and may be driven insane. Xanas have children, which are called xaninos, but because they cannot take care of them, they usually take a human baby from his cradle, and put their own fairy child in instead (see changelings): The human mother realizes this change when the baby grows up in just a few months. One must do this ritual in order to unmask the xanín: some pots and egg shells are to be put near the fire, and, if the baby is a changeling, he will exclaim "I was born one hundred years ago, and since then I have not seen so many egg shells near the fire!". The origin of the asturian word xana is unclear, though some scholars see it as a derivation from the latin name for the goddess Diana. References to where the mythological xanas lived are still common in Asturian toponyms.
