[adrian_b]

For many ancient people, water and fire were associated as opposites that nonetheless had some shared properties, and they were usually both objects of respect, with various associated deities.

An interesting example is how in the Ancient Rome the most severe punishment except death, was named the "interdiction of water and fire", which meant banishment, because one could not live in a place without having access to water and fire.

[amonon]

Some death poems from Zen tradition mention 'water from fire'.

  Three and seventy years
  I've drawn pure water from the fire--
  Now I become a tiny bug
  With a touch of my body
  I shatter all worlds

By Ingo, died 1281

  A drop of water freezes instantly--
  My seven years and seventy.
  All changes at a blow
  Springs of water welling from fire

By Kaso Sodon, died 1428.

From "Japanese Death Poems" by Yoel Hoffman. I recommend this book as a good memento mori.

[yencabulator]

Western world thought such things, too.

> Flames were considered to be a mix of phlogiston and water

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

[mbonnet]

You see the same thing in early Jewish culture. The oldest book in the Bible, Job, discusses YHWH slaying Leviathan - embodiment of the sea and chaos. God often appears in the form of fire (the burning bush, the pillar of flames) while "defeating" water - setting ablaze the drenched bull, changing the Nile.