Thetis dipping Achilles into de river Styx - Thomas Banks - 1789
When Achilles was born, his mother, Thetis, tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. As she immersed him, she held him by one heel and forgot to dip him a second time so the heel she held could get wet too. Therefore, the place where she held him remained untouched by the magic water of the Styx and that part stayed mortal or vulnerable.
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Raymond and Melusina lived peacefully for a number of years. However, one Saturday night, during dinner, Raymond's father, Count de la Foret, and his brothers teased him about his wife's secretive behavior until he was unable to suppress his curiosity any longer. Raymond went upstairs to her chamber to find her, and there he heard the bath running. He quietly opened the door to the bath just enough to see an unbelievable sight: Melusina, from the waist up, was her beautiful self; yet, from the waist down, her body had been transformed into a giant serpent's tail.
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The Baptism of Christ - Piero della Francesca - 1440-1460 circa
Jesus, referring to his upcoming death, said:
“I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!”
(Luke 12:50)
There’s no evidence that Jesus got wet when he died.
Paul said of the Israelites:
“For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea …”
(1 Cor 10:1-2)
The Israelites were baptized, but they didn’t get wet. In fact, the Israelites’ dryness is a pretty significant feature of the story of the Exodus. 1 Peter 3:20-21 talks about another time when not getting wet was the key factor in salvation (i.e. the time of Noah and the flood), and links this episode to “baptism”.
So when we read the word βαπτίζω / βαπτισμός / βάπτισμα in the Bible, we shouldn’t rule out the possibility that it’s referring to a non-aqueous “immersion” into something or somebody. Of course, sometimes it’s obvious that the baptism actually involves water, and the baptisee gets wet (e.g. Luke 3:3, 16; and so therefore almost certainly Acts 2:38). But the literal use of water, as we have seen, is not always implied in the use of the word.
In other words, sometimes it’s better to actually translate the word-group βαπτι-* (as, e.g., “immersion”, which has a large semantic range in English) rather than merely transliterate it (as “baptism”, which has a much more specific and narrow semantic range).
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柳毅传书，也作柳毅奇缘，是中国四大民间传说之一.
The name of the mythology is “the princess's messenger”, which is one of the four folk mythologies.
这个浪漫的故事讲的是穷书生柳毅路遇一个悲伤的牧羊女，这个牧羊女其实是洞庭龙王之女，她离开水后能变成一个美丽女孩，带负责降雨降雪的羊群到江边放牧。当柳毅得知她为婚姻所累，义愤填膺，决定不惧她丈夫的生威，为她传书回家求救。龙女因此得到解救，在历经坎坷后，柳毅和龙女有情人终成眷属。
This is a romantic story that a poor scholar called Liu Yi one day met a woeful shepherdess, who actually is the daughter of Dongting Dragon King. When she is off the water, she becomes a girl. While Liu Yi knew the princess being tortured by her marriage, he decided to resist her husband and send a message to her parents. As a result, she was liberated. After suffering full of frustrations, Liu Yi and the princess got married.
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