Research into Melusine

I did a lot of research into the legend of Melusine. Melusine is a figure of European legends and folklore who is feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers. She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down (much like a mermaid).

There are many tales of the serpant woman Melusine from the celtic west of Europe to Germany & the Nordic countries. Even the native Americans have their own version of the story. Melusine's tale has inspired many great storytellers; for example The Brothers Grimm's The Little Mermaid, Hans Christan's The Little Mermaid which then leads to Disney's version of The Little Mermaid (1989). Melusine also inspired Irish director, Neil Jordan to create Ondine (2010).

This is a video clip of Melusine's story. It is in french though.

I found the legend that Phillipa Gregory told in The White Queen fascinated me and made me hunger for more.

One evening in the forest of Coulombiers, at the end of a long day’s hunting, Aimeric Counto Poitiers and his nephew Raimondin set off in pursuit of a wild boar. They far out-distanced their attendants and arrived at the outskirts of La Font de Ce, quite near Lusignan. There, during the excitement of the kill, Raimondin accidentally dealt his uncle a fatal blow. Overcome by deep sorrow, aghast and contrite at this action the young man was on his way back to confess what he had done when, at a bend in the road he caught sight of three maidens dancing in a glade by the light of the moon.

One of them smiled and spoke to him. Her name was Mélusine. She was a fairy, daughter of Elinas King of Albania and the fairy Pressine. A terrible curse lay on her. Pressine had punished her for her bad behaviour towards her father by condemning her to a sad immortality unless she married a loving knight who was not inquisitive and who agreed never to see her on Saturdays because on that day she had to bathe and watch her beautiful long legs turn into a horrid scaly tail, and if her husband saw her like this, she would never again take on human form.

Raimondin was attracted by the young girl's intelligence and beauty and asked her to marry him. He swore he would never try to see her on a Saturday. Mélusine was delighted to find a husband and accepted. She suggested that he should provide the lands and the castle. But Raimondin, who was not wealthy, wondered what lands and what castle?Once back at court, Raimondin who was very happy but very sad also tried to solve his problem by blaming the boar for the death of the Count. Then, during the ceremony of homage to the new Count of Poitou on Melisine's advice he asked for as much land as would fit into a deerskin. "How stupid" said the assembled lords. However, to everybody's consternation, the deerskin was cut into narrow strips and laid end to end and marked out an enormous area. "Never mind" said the lords, "he still hasn't got a castle". Their complacency was short-lived for in one night, right in the middle of the territory with an apron-full of stones and a mouthful of water Mélusine built the splendid castle of Luisignan. Moreover, so that her husband might be the most powerful lord in the region, she amused herself on certain nights by studding the surrounding hills with mighty fortresses.

However, so much good fortune gave rise to unkind comments and covetousness. Where did Mélusine's fairly-like beauty come from? Why was it that each of the ten children of Raimondin and Mélusine, all boys had some strange physical characteristics? One had only one eye and that was in the middle of his forehead. another had a lion's claw on his cheek; another one enormous ear; and yet another Geoffroy, Mélusine's favourite and it was said the most wicked had a huge tooth protruding from his mouth. And why did Mélusine shut herself away every Saturday?

Raimondin followed the advice of a jealous brother, to try to solve this secret of his wife's. He surprised Mélusine in her bath, combing her long fair hair and swishing her horrible fish tail. Hardly had he taken this fatal step than the fairy screamed and with a great noise like the flapping of wings she flew out of the window voicing a terrible curse on the castles she had built. But she came back to suckle her last child, and some say that on certain nights she still comes to haunt the ruins of her castles.

Age of Chivalry

It was time of high adventure and romance. Knight would seek out adventure, hoping to test skills, mettle and prowess as a warrior.

A knight would also try to win the love of lady or damsel, either by rescuing her from adversary or demonstrating his skills in a jousting tournament.
Courtly manner was considered to be almost as important with the ladies, as well as the knight's use of the sword and lance.
The time of King Arthur represents the Golden Age of Chivalry.

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In Timeless Myths, the Age of Chivalry deals with retelling a collection of popular tales of King Arthur.

The collection of tales and romances about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table became known to the French as "La Matiere de Bretagne" or the "Matter of Britain" (as oppose to the legend of Charlemagne in the "Matter of France").
The earliest sources of the legend come from Celtic storytellers in Wales and Brittany, between 7th and 10th century BC. However, it wasn't until the early 12th century, when Geoffrey of Monmouth who gave us the first full account of Arthur that made this legendary king into a household name. Writers after Geoffrey come from Wales, England, France and Germany, between 12th and 16th century; the writers from these countries became the major contributors of Arthurian legend. Legend of Arthur can even be found in Italy, Spain and the Scandinavia.
Since there were many accounts on the life of King Arthur, I have divided this into two main parts: those of the Early Tradition and the Alternative Accounts. The Early Tradition relied on three sources from Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Layamon.
While the Alternative Accounts relied on various sources from Vulgate Cycle and Post-Vulgate Cycle, and from the writers, such as Chretien de Troyes, Robert de Boron, and Sir Thomas Malory. Since the alternative version is larger and varied greatly, I had to divide this into several pages. I had named the early life of Arthur on this alternative version, Legend of Excalibur. The Alternative Tradition also includes the Vulgate Cycle — Lancelot, Queste del Saint Graal, and Mort le roi Artu. (See Vulgate Cycle.)

The Vulgate Cycle or Lancelot-Graal prose cycle introduced a new change to the legends, that of love of Lancelot for Queen Guinevere and a new version of the Grail quest. These two events would ultimately bring about the downfall of Arthur's kingdom.
While another page also deal with the quest for the Holy Grail. There are many versions of the Grail quest. There are two different traditions about the Grail. Those stories that have Perceval as the hero, and the other, more later tradition that has Galahad as the new Grail hero. I will deal with both traditions in separate pages.
The Knights' Tales retell several other stories where Arthur takes a less active role. These stories deal with the adventure of individual knight. It included the stories of the "Knight of the Lion", "Erec and Enide", "Gawain and the Green Knights", and the most popular medieval romance of them all — "Tristan and Isolde".

Extracts from The White Queen

In the darkness of the forest the young knight could hear the splashing of the fountain long before he could see the glimmer of moonlight reflected on the still surface. He was about to step forward, longing to dip his head, drink in the coolness, when he caught his breath at the sight of something dark, moving deep in the water. There was a greenish shadow in the sunken bowl of the fountain, something like a great fish, something like a drowned body. Then it moved and stood upright and he saw, frighteningly naked: a bathing woman. Her skin as she rose up, water coursing down her flanks, was even paler than the white marble bowl, her wet hair dark as a shadow.

She is Melusina, the water goddess, and she is found in hidden springs and waterfalls in any forest in Christendom, even in those as far away as Greece. She bathes in the Moorish fountains too. They know her by another name in the northern countries, where the lakes are glazed with ice and it crackles when she rises. A man may love her if he keeps her secret and lets her alone when she wants to bathe, and she may love him in return until he breaks his word, as men always do, and she sweeps him into the deeps, with her fishy tail, and turns his faithless blood to water.

The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand.

In the dark ness of the forest he saw her, and whispered her name, Melusina, and at that summoning she rose out of the water and he saw she was a woman of cool and complete beauty to the waist, and below that she was scaled, like a fish.

She promised him that she would come to him and be his wife, she promised him that she would make him happy as any mortal woman can, she promised him that she would curb her wild side, her tidal nature, that she would be an ordinary wife to him, a wife that he could be proud of; if in return would let her have a time when she could be herself again, when she could return to her element of water, when she could wash away the drudgery of a woman’s lot and be, for just a little while, a water goddess once more.

She knew that being a mortal woman is hard on the heart, hard on the feet. She knew she would need to be alone in the water, under the water, the ripples reflected on her scaly tail now and then.

He promised that he would give her everything, everything she wanted, as men in love always do. And she trusted him despite herself, as women in love always do.

Melusina’s mortal husband loved her, but she puzzled him. He did not understand her nature and he was not content to live with a woman who was a mystery to him.

He allowed a guest to persuade him to spy on her. He hid behind the hangings in her bath house and saw her swim beneath the water of her bath, saw – horrified – the gleam of ripples on scales, learnt her secret: that although she loved him, truly loved him, she was half woman and half fish. He could not bear what she was, and could not help what she was. So he left her, because in her heart he feared that she was a woman with a divided nature – and he did not realise that all woman are creatures of divided nature. He could not stand to think of her secrecy, that she had a life hidden from him. He could not, in fact, tolerate the truth that Melusina was a woman who knew the unknown depths, who swam in them.

Poor Melusina, who tried so hard to be a good wife, had to leave the man who loved her and go back to the water, finding the earth too hard. Like many woman, she was unable to fit exactly with her husband’s view. Her feet hurt: she could not walk the path of her husband’s choosing. She tried to dance to please him, but she could not deny the pain. She is the ancestress of the royal house of Burgundy, and we, her descendants, still try to walk in the paths of men, and sometimes we too find the way unbearably hard.   

When he saw her, the water lapping on her scales, head down in the bath he had built especially for her, thinking that she would like to wash – not to revert to fish – he had that instant revulsion that some men feel when they understand, perhaps  for the first time, that a woman is truly ‘other’.

She is not a boy though she is weak like a boy, nor a fool though he has seen her tremble with feeling like a fool. She is not a villain in her capacity to hold a grudge, nor a saint in her flashes of generosity. She is not any of these male qualities. She is a woman. A thing quite different to a man. When he saw she was half-fish, but what frightened him to his soul was the being that was a woman.

Witchcraft

Melusina was considered by the people as a witch. They knew nothing about her, or why she was never seen on a saturday. She was a complete mystery to them. So did some research into witchcraft. Most of the information I found is not not relevant to the time, but was interesting to know for helping me writting my screenplay.

In French the word for a witch is sorcière, which gave us the English “sorcerer” and “sorceress”. Enchantress is also a French word, the female form of “enchanteur” which means magician. The French word comes from the latin “incantantre” (to sing), and implies the use of songs or chants for magic. Bordeaux is well known for its infamous judge Pierre de Lancre who conducted a massive witch hunt in Labourd in 1609. He turned Labourd upside down and in less than a year some 70 people were burnt at the stake. De Lancre wasn’t satisfied: he estimated that some 3,000 witches were still at large (10% of the population of Labourd in that time). However he was eventually dismissed him from office – much to the relief of the French countryside. France has had its fair share of witch hunts and in 1643-1645, the largest witch hunts in French history occurred. During those two years there were at least 650 arrests in Languedoc alone.

Around Halloween you will find various Festivals of the Witch in France (La Fête de la Sorcière) which hark back to the pagan festivals. Bonnu in Indre (Berry) holds a Fête de la Sorcière at the end of October and witchcraft is still practiced in Berry in the form of healing and Tarot reading. La Fête de la Sorcière in Chalindrey has been held for for nearly a century in remembrance of a 16th century witch hunt there.

Vestiges of witchcraft still hold on in the rural south of France where black cats are referred to as matagots, “magician cats” that bring good luck to owners who feed them well and treat them with the respect they deserve. The earliest known image of a witch flying on a broomstick comes from France and is in a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Martin Le Franc’s Le Champion de Dames dates to 1440, and shows two witches, one on a white stick (apparently a common mode of transport for French witches), and the other on the familiar broomstick.

One notorious witch trial in France implicated none other than the Madame de Montespan, one of the most celebrated mistresses of Louis XIV. She had 7 children with the King and is an ancestress of several royal houses in Europe such as Spain, Italy, Bulgaria and Portugal.

When Louis’s affections showed signs of cooling, Madame de Montespan is alleged to have resorted to Black Magic in order to get him back. The incident is known as the Affaire des Poisons and Madame de Montespan was accused of using poison and witchcraft to dispose of her rivals. She visited the so-called witch Catherine Monvoisin, known as La Voisin, in 1665. Initially, La Voisin reportedly just gave Madame de Montespan love potions concocted of repulsive ingredients for Louis XIV to take but in 1666, Madame de Montespan supposedly went so far as to allow a priest, Etienne Guibourg, to perform a black mass in a blood-soaked ceremony. La Voisin was executed and Madame de Montespan ended her days in a convent.

There is also a legend of a French Enchantress named Melusine and in legends from Brittany several notable families claim that Melusine is their ancestor. She is credited with the building of castles and monuments in Brittany that still exist today. Melusine is also credited as being an ancestor of the Luxembourg royal family, as she married Prince Siegfroid in 963 A.D. One story says that Melusine married Raymond of Lusignan in Poitou. Melusine’s father, Elynas, was a King of Scotland and he had broken his word to her fairy mother. When Melusine learned this story, she and her sisters locked their father up in a mountain. Her mother was so furious upon learning this that she cursed the girls. Melusine’s curse was that once a week, she would transform into a monster. The only way to ease the agony of this transformation was to spend the entire day in a bathtub, keeping wet. Worse, if ever she married, and if ever her husband saw her in her monster form, she would be cursed to remain that way forever.

In the Poitou version of the story Melusine told Raymond that they could be married on one condition: he must leave her alone in her tower every Saturday night, and never, never spy on her. Raymond was so enchanted by this beautiful woman that he willingly agreed and she built the Chateau Lusignan in a single night for him. Inevitably Raymond broke his promise and spied on his wife on the forbidden Saturday. When he saw the creature she became, he made a sound of horror, giving himself away. With an unearthly scream, Melusine flew out the tower window, cursed to remain in her monstrous form forever more.

Legend has it that ever after that moment, whenever a Lord of Lusignan was going to die, Melusine would fly in circles around the tower, wailing her unearthly scream in grief. Supposedly the banshee-like cries of Melusine only stopped after the Chateau was torn down. The famous medieval painting from the Duc de Berry’s Book of Hours (Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry), from the entry for March, shows the Chateau Lusignan in the background. If you look closely, you can see what looks like a dragon flying over the tower on the right – this is supposedly Melusine.