| Melusine: the Fairy Serpent Mermaid Jean d'Arras (fl. 1392-94) was a 14th-century Northern French writer employed by the Lusignans to write a history about them. John, duke of Berry requested the book be written between 1392 and 1394. The writing was a romance titled Chronique de Melusine which was part of The Noble History of the Lusignans. Jean d’Arras created the first literary tale of Melusine, a fairy cursed by her mother to become a serpent woman every Saturday. Now, having traced back some ancestry, we can see that Melusine has roots in Messalina, the wife of Emperor Claudius, but also through lineage, traced back to Baldwin II’s mother, Melisende of Monthléry. The following version of the story of Melusine is taken from The Fairy Mythology Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries by Thomas Keightley (1850). I have paraphrased it and included selected quotes: Elinas, King of Albania went out hunting one day as he used to do to get over the loss of his wife and he sat by a spring to take a drink and a beautiful fairy Pressina appeared. She agreed to give him her love provided he never see her while she is bathing. She has three daughters, Melusine, Melior, and Palatina. The king’s son by a former wife, Nathas, was delighted and ran to tell the King the news. The king was so excited he forgot the promise and ran in on her while she was bathing her children. Pressina scolded him for breaking the promise and departed with her three daughters. They retired to the Lost Island, so named because you had to be lost to find it. And from there every morning she would take them to a high mountain to look upon Albania and reminding them of their father’s breach of promise and reason for their confinement there. One morning when Melusine had turned fifteen she asked her mother what her father had done and she was told the truth and Melusine decided to gather her sisters to get revenge on the king and they flew there and “took him and his wealth and enclosed him in a high mountain, called Brandelois.” When Melusine’s mother heard this, she punished Melusine with a curse that she will be half serpent from the waist down, every Saturday until she finds a man who will marry her and promise not to look upon her on Saturdays. Melusine now had to go about roaming the forest until she found a man who would marry her and make this promise. There was a man named Raymond who “accidentally killed the count, his uncle, by the glancing aside of his boar-spear, and he was wandering by night in the forest of Colombiers. He arrived at a fountain that rose at the foot of a high rock. This fountain was called by the people the Fountain of Thirst, or the Fountain of the Fays, on account of the many marvelous things which had happened at it.” … “At the time, when Raymond arrived at the fountain, three ladies were diverting themselves there by the light of the moon, the principal of which was Melusine. Her beauty and her amiable manners quickly won his love. She soothed him, concealed the deed he had |
done, and married him, Raymond promising on his oath never to desire to see her on a Saturday. She assured him that a breach of his oath would forever deprive him of her whom he so much loved and be followed by the unhappiness of both for life. Out of her great wealth she built for him, in the neighborhood of the Fountain of Thirst, where he first saw her, the castle of Lusignan. She also built La Rochelle, Cloitre Malliers, Mersent, and other places.” Destiny, Raymond’s cousin was determined to keep Melusine single and they were born with a “deformed child that was enchanted.” Eventually Destiny convinced Raymond that Melusine could not be trusted because of her “affairs” on Saturday, so Raymond spied on her and saw the “lovely form of Melusine ended below in a snake, gray and sky-blue, mixed with white.” Raymond had felt more afraid to lose his wife than the fear from seeing this terrible and strange sight, so he decided to conceal it from her hoping she would never learn of it and leave him. One day though, Raymond became upset about something due to his son’s misfortune and could not contain the secret after some time and yelled at her ‘Out of my sight, thou pernicious snake and odious serpent! thou contaminator of my race!’ “She declared to him that she must now depart from him, and, in obedience to a decree of destiny, fleet about the earth in pain and suffering, as a specter, until the day of doom; and that only when one of her race was to die at Lusignan would she become visible.” (64) I’m not certain how much of the story was altered from its original version, but I tried to find the most legitimate version applicable to the history of the castle. The reasoning for Raymondin not being able to see Melusine while she is bathing is likely a throwback to olden times when men were not allowed to behold the feminine mysteries like menstruation or the birthing of children. Melusine is in the bath with her newly birthed children when Raymondin walks in on her and breaks the spell or enchantment. (65) It is the contention of the authors of the Hidden World that Cersuelle (Creswell) was the original owner of the castle and due to a lack of title, the Lusignan family arranged to have the story written to legitimize their ownership by claiming descent from fairies. (66) This was how all kings previously legitimized their descent, so it makes sense that these royal families would employ this tactic, though I am not sure it was for malicious ends between families or estates. (64) Thomas Keightley, London: H. G. Bohn, 1850), pp. 480-82; https://archive.org/details/fairymythologyilkeig/page/480 (65) Hidden World, p. 322 (66) ibid, 310-311 |