These feminine figures, connected with springs and streams, who possess some human-like traits and some others at times supernatural, if not even semi-divine, are widespread at least all through the Italian North-east and eastern Lombardy. They are probably linked with the Greek and Latin nymphs and maybe also with the Balkan samodive or samovile. They are known under several different names (aquane, gane, vivane, langane etc.), that appear together as simple local variants (e.g. vivana or vivena in the Fassa valley, but gana or pantegana in the Badia valley, langana in the Cadore...) all of them derived from aquana, i.e. substantially "woman of the water". The alternative hypothesis that they may derive their name from anguis, i.e. "snake" cannot hold and should be, therefore, the result of an accidental homophony.
The anguane (or equivalent names) can be found in Wolff's and de Rossi's collections very frequently . I have reported here a table which indicates that Dolomitic traditions assign them many different, well-detailed, often contradictory features (in brackets I indicated the collection the information comes from and its relevant chapter; KFW= K.F.Wolff, HDR = H. de Rossi; see Bibliography).

1. They are positively benevolent creatures for humans, whom they try helping as much as they can (HdR La vivana scacciata [The vivana driven away]; HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]; KFW Le due madri [Two mothers];
2. they can bestow with the gift of fertility (HdR La vivana della fertilità [The vivana of fertility]; HdR La vivana scacciata [The vivana driven away]; HdR Un ricco raccolto [A rich harvest]);
3. if mistreated, they can cast a curse (KFW La val de la Salyeres [The valley of the Salyeres]; HdR La vivana scacciata [The vivana driven away]);
4. they can foretell the future (KFW La moglie dell'Arimanno [The Arimanno's wife]; KFW Bedoyela; KFW Le due madri [Two mothers]; HdR Il maso "Vivan" a Mazzin [The "Vivan" hut at Mazzin])
5. they give good advices (KFW Le due madri [Two mothers]; HdR Un ricco raccolto [A rich harvest]);
6. they induce to forewarning dreams (KFW Le due madri [Two mothers]);
7. they profess no religion (HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
8. they are cliffs and woods goddesses (HdR La vivana scacciata [The vivana driven away]);
9. they can fly in the air (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]; HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
10. they can cause a stream to gush out (KFW La val de la Salyeres [The valley of the Salyeres]);
11. they understand the owls' language (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
12. they reveal the witches' secrets (KFW La pittrice del monte Faloria [The paintress of mount Faloria]);
13. they know the right time for every farming operation (HdR Il maso "Vivan" a Mazzin [The "Vivan" hut at Mazzin]; HdR Un ricco raccolto [A rich harvest]);
14. they sing wonderfully (KFW Man de Fier [Iron-Hand]; KFW Il lago dell'Arcobaleno [The lake of the Rainbow]);
15. they will live on as long as the world will last (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
16. they walk out of the water under human shape (KFW Le nozze di Merisana [Merisana's wedding]);
17. they wear long green dresses ((KFW La sorgente dell'oblio [The spring of oblivion]); "according to fashion" (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
18. they are beautiful and their body is "almost transparent" (HdR Le vivane e la figliastra [The vivane and the stepdaughter]);
19. however, when they are in front of one of them, neither a man nor a dog can tell her from a normal woman or even from a fearsome bregostena (HdR La vivana scacciata [The vivana driven away]);
20. according to some people, they live in the woods, sometimes close to streams (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
21. according to others, they live inside the water, even on the bottom of rivers (HdR Le vivane e la figliastra [The vivane and the stepdaughter]) or of lakes (KFW Il lago dell'Arcobaleno [The lake of the Rainbow]);
22. or they live in rock caves (KFW La val de la Salyeres [The valley of the Salyeres], HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane], KFW Le due madri [Two mothers]) or in caves dug in the ground and lined with peeled logs (HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
23. they wash their laundry snow-white and spread it out to dry on the highest cliffs (HdR Cian Bolpin; HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
24. they use a wide flat stone as a hearth (HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
25. they either eat turnip leaves, twice-cooked and fermented (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
26. or herbs, wildberries and woodberries (HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
27. however, sometimes they are hungry and ask men for food (HdR La vivana scacciata [The vivana driven away]; HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
28. people don't allow them in their homes (HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
29. they can't live together with people (HdR Anc. qualcosa a prop. d. vivane [Something more about the vivane]);
30. however, at times they take service with farmers and stay there a few years (HdR Taràta e Taraton [Taràta and Taraton]);
31. they know how to take care of livestock (KFW La val de la Salyeres [The valley of the Salyeres]);
32. they are really clever at raising children (KFW Bedoyela);
33. sometimes they enter an inn and dance with young men (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
34. they once helped the people of Fassa in a war (HdR La battaglia tra i Trevisani e le vivane [The battle between the Trevisani and the vivane]);
35. during celebrations for their victory upon the Trevisani they gave free course to an allright orgy (HdR La battaglia tra i Trevisani e le vivane [The battle between the Trevisani and the vivane]);
36. it may happen that one of them joins with a man, but later she disappears, never again to come back:
- at times she is recalled into the woods (HdR Taràta e Taraton [Taràta and Taraton]);
- or she is compelled to go away weeping, if one pronounces their name, in evident violation of a taboo, that could or could not have explicitly been mentioned in advance (KFW Man de Fier [Iron-Hand]; KFW La salvaria [The wildwoman]; KFW La capanna delle miosotidi [The hut of the forget-me-not]);
37. of the "vivano" [i.e. the male counterpart of the anguana] little or nothing is known (HdR A proposito delle vivane [About the vivane]);
38. the anguane of La Val spoke a bad Ladinian (U.Kindl).

In the Fanes' cycle the anguane explicitly appear in just three occasions:

1. When Ey-de-Net seeks and meets one of them after the battle of Fiammes (see "Ey-de-Net"). This anguana is not well defined, but appears as being a wise and benign seer who lives close to the Costeana stream;
2. In connection with Lidsanel, who is linked with the pretended "resurgence" of the Fanes and lives in the Fassa valley. Here the anguana (=vivana), who meets the hero in the woods, only has the function of an out-of-view speaker, or better of an anonymous Fate, or of a voice of conscience, who announces the tormented hero's destiny as it unravels and is finally fulfilled.
3. In the myth of the "Croda Rossa", where on the contrary we learn very significant details:
- the anguane normally live alone, or in small groups, within caves situated close to one or more small lakes;
- during summertime, wonderful melodies can be heard rising from the shores of these lakes at dusk;
- Moltina's anguana is in connection both with the water and with the Sun: she greets sunrise every morning, surrounded by marmots who crowd around her, and she also spends many hours of her day in contemplating it.

While both first remarks propose already known features, the third can't be found in any other legend and can only be easily interpreted if we admit that Moltina's anguana is not just a Sun's worshipper, but also a minister of that cult.

On the purpose to proceed further with the analysis, we must realize that the anguana's figure has been very often, if not always, considered by the folklore experts as a static image, as if the popular collective imaginary had conceived it overnight exactly as we can see it today. It is very probable, on the contrary, that the figure of the anguana (like that of the silvano, of the bregostena and of other creatures who populate our legends) was subjected to several modifications as it crossed the different cultural backgrounds that came over the centuries. It can be quite useful, therefore, trying to understand what the primeval image might have been, and how did it evolve while being handed down to us.

It is absolutely plausible, e.g., that mythical figures that originally were wholly apart, but were alike for some features, over time may have been confused and gradually assimilated to the anguane, therefore "importing" into them other details they originally lacked completely.
As a matter of fact, in Wolff's collection we can find "mjanines" and "jarines", both probably being two variants of the same name. They are a collectivity of ethereal, semi-liquid figures of feminine aspect who live inside streams and lakes, out of which they don't venture unless exceptionally. Even when they do, they always lack both individuality and bodily consistence, and hardly can be mistaken for "human" women, as the anguane usually are; in Albolina's story they explicitly describe themselves as "water spirits", a concept of transparent animistic origin. A number of attributions that in the above list were assigned to the anguane (in detail, at points 16, 18 and 21) might easily derive from the overlapping with these figures, both being connected with water. If we strip the figure of the anguana of these borrowed features, her characterization gets free from several ambiguities that we formerly had noticed.

What remains still is an intricate entanglement; we can try extracting a few threads of common attributions:

- their link with water (10, 15, 20, 21, maybe also 17, 18, 23);
- their link with principles of natural mystics (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, maybe 31, and specially the cult of the Sun);
- their goodwill towards people (1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 31, 32);
- their wish to interact with the human community, from which they remain however unescapably isolated, often of their will, at times because of a mysterious taboo that sooner or later is violated every time (27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36).

We must remark, by the way, that the anguane are well known for their sweet-sounding songs: these women connected with water and singing remind the concept of a siren; may the sirens, creatures of the sea, be related with the mountain-lakes anguane? Remember that, in the original myth of sirens, they were no fish-women at all, but bird-women, displaying attributes that can well remind those of a vulture. Those men who let themselves be charmed by a siren's song, disappeared never to come back: a mythization of the anguana-bregostena of old, minister of the cult of the dead?

Before pushing futher, it is convenient to analyze similarities and differences with the other great mythical character of the Dolomites (and not limited to them), i.e. the silvano, along with his female counterpart, the Salvaria.