Melusine

Melusine is a fairy of medieval French legend who becomes a serpent from the waist down every Saturday, founds the house of Lusignan, and flies away in the form of a great serpent when her husband betrays her secret.

The Story

Melusine is the daughter of the fairy Pressine and Elinas, a king of Albany (Scotland). When she and her sisters punish their father for breaking a promise to their mother, Pressine curses Melusine: every Saturday she will become a serpent from the waist down, and if the man she marries ever sees her that way, she will be bound to the form forever.

Raymondin, a young nobleman of Poitou, has just killed his uncle by accident during a boar hunt when he meets Melusine at a forest spring, the Fountain of Thirst. She promises to make him great if he marries her and swears never to look for her on a Saturday. He agrees. Melusine builds the castle of Lusignan and many other towns and fortresses, and they have ten sons, most marked by some strange feature, such as Geoffrey with his great tooth.

Goaded by his brother, Raymondin spies on her through a hole in the door and sees her in her bath with a huge serpent's tail. He keeps quiet at first, but later, in a rage over the crimes of one of their sons, he calls her a "false serpent" in front of the court. Melusine leaps from a window, turns into a great serpent fifteen feet long, and flies away. Ever after, she returns to cry over the castle whenever a lord of Lusignan is about to die.

Appearance and Powers

Melusine is a beautiful woman above and a serpent below, later shown with a long, scaly tail, sometimes two. At her departure she takes the full form of a flying serpent or dragon. Her powers are those of a fairy: wealth, building, and foresight. She is generous and devout, and the tragedy is her husband's failure to keep his word.

Origins and Sources

The full story was written in French prose by Jean d'Arras in 1393 for Jean, Duke of Berry, and retold in verse by Couldrette about 1401. Both used the tale to celebrate the Lusignan family, who had become kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Earlier writers, including Walter Map and Gervase of Tilbury around 1200, tell similar stories of a man who marries a supernatural wife and loses her when he breaks a taboo, but they do not name her Melusine.

Legacy

Several noble houses, including the Counts of Luxembourg, claimed Melusine as an ancestor. She became a popular figure in heraldry and art, and appears in later literature from Goethe to A. S. Byatt's Possession. See Western dragons.

Related

• Vouivre: The Vouivre is a flying serpent of French folklore, especially in Franche-Comté and the Jura, that carries a glowing gem as its eye and sets it aside when it bathes, tempting thieves.
• Drac of Beaucaire: The Drac of Beaucaire is a shape-shifting water dragon of Provençal legend that lived beneath the Rhône, lured people with floating treasures, and kidnapped a woman of Beaucaire to nurse its child.
• Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh: The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh is a dragon of Northumbrian legend: Princess Margaret of Bamburgh, turned into a loathsome worm by her jealous stepmother and restored when her brother Childe Wynde kisses it three times.
• Cuélebre: The cuélebre is a giant winged serpent of Asturian folklore in northern Spain that lives in caves, guards treasure and enchanted xanas, and grows weak only on Saint John's Eve.
• Western Dragons
• Dragon Legends

Sources and Further Reading

• Jean d'Arras, Melusine; or, The Noble History of Lusignan, trans. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012)
• Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns (Oxford Medieval Texts, Clarendon Press, 2002)

Cite this entry: “Melusine,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/melusine.