Category Archives: Week 5: Medieval Melusine (14th Century, France)

The legend of Melusina the reflection of Raymond

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In the passage of the legend of Melusiana where love is something to be earned is the running theme of this passage. it critiques to many relationships people have today. “Raymond’s cousin had excited him to jealousy and to secret concealment, by malicious suggestions of the purport of the countess”. The interpretation from this quote is that love is something that people get all the time but others try to take that love away from them and take advantage of it. In the passage Raymond received love from Melusina and got married. I see this type of things happen in real life whenever it’s at school home or just any where in fact. being single and seeing relationships in. person and online seem either pleasant on the outside but possible hideous on the inside. People chase after things that they don’t have and pursue it even if it’s the wrong thing to do. “Melusina former anxiety was now verified, and the evil that lain so long in ambush and now fearfully sprung on him and her”. It seems that evil caught up with both of them and had a horrible fate which resulted in their death. Having too much of one thing can lead to most losses. It shows in our lives money can solve lots of problems but has a flaw in itself and when other human moral values are needed most it rises in situations that tend to be when inequality is seen in the public eye and causing problems.

The Male Narrative of Femininity: Week 5

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After doing this weeks reading something I wanted to take a deep dive into was from chapter 14, “Betrayal”. Specifically where the story states, “He climbed quickly in his eagerness to strike, his heart pumping…there where he had never been before. Neither he, no anyone, except her—and—who else? He believed there must be someone, but without entirely believing it” (Lebey 121). What I thought was interesting was the fact that Raymondin’s first thought about his wife asking to not be bothered in this one day alone, was that she was cheating on him. The dramatics of this scene also show the emotional drama Raymondin is experiencing, which highlights his fear of what Melusine might be doing in that room. The fear and passion that might typically be expressed when a man is met with a woman who is resisting containment. Melusine asking for a moment of solitude, a moment where Raymondin can not control her or have contact with her. Even though her reasoning is because of her snake like form, it still highlights the ruin of femininity from a man/husband figure.

Melusine’s mermaid form embodies lust and danger, the feminism aspect of both life and death. This quote highlights the how women are forced to live within a narrative created by make doubts. How Raymondin only thought she was hiding another lover in the room shows just that. The use of saying that Raymondin believed she was cheating “without entirely believing it” shows the internal battle he is facing. One idea of women through the narrative that has been created by men for many decades and the other being his personal connection and portrayal of Melusine as his wife and lover. Her secret and her identity are being invaded by the failure to live in a narrative built against her in the first place.

I also like the idea that both Raymondin and Melusine were betrayed in this chapter. Melusine in the way that Raymondin broke his promise to her, amd Raymondin in the way that Melusine “lied” to him about her true identity. Seeing how in this quote Raymondin felt betrayed by Melusine, showing the male created narrative women are forced to live in. I liked this quote because of how it highlights how society is out to take away Melusine’s femininity and identity because she doesn’t fit the narrative. Raymondin’s emotions in this quote show how he feels all of his troubles are because of Melusine.

Song of the Week- Bellhart by Christopher Larkin (I liked the drama this song added to the story!)

“Siren! … or woman? What does it matter?”

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I enjoyed our reading last week so much that I spend 13.45 US Dollars on shipping to buy a copy of Knight’s translation directly from the publisher. My post last week was a reading of LeBey’s character through his writing; before I start this week, I want to pay more respect to the beautiful translation by Gareth Knight. Did you know that Gareth Knight (who passed in 2022) was a blogger? Or that he was a practicing occultist? After only a brief foray into his personal and academic history, I am forced to credit a significant portion of my enjoyment of this translation to the translator.
Knight was a scholar of Christian mysticism, Arthurian Legend, Celtic Myth, and Tolkein. His work on Melusine is some of his later work. His research into the topic began in 20011, and he wrote two other books on the topic– Melusine of Lusignan and the Cult of the Faery Woman, and The Book of Melusine of Lusignan in History, Legend and Romance (including translations of two other French versions!) as well as the translation we’re reading now (published in 2010). Information about him and his writings proved difficult to detangle– in my mind, signs of a mad genius at work.
Also, a brief aside; I discovered in my reading that although the famous d’Arras text, one of the earliest transcriptions of Melusine, was published in 1393, Lebey wrote this retelling exactly 100 years ago– in 1925! I’m sure there is more to extract from the knowledge that this story came both on the heels of the industrial revolution and World War I. I don’t know enough about the sociocultural climate of France in this era to draw conclusions!

Abstract
This week I’m exploring the assertion made by the quote I used as my title. What really is the difference between a woman and a siren? My theory is that the existence of mermaids in Western mythology is a reflection of the fact that men refuse to see women as members of their own species. A man looks at a woman and sees something so indecipherable, so foreign to himself that she might as well be a fish. At the end I’d like to touch on the other side of this coin. Men see women as mermaids because they’re alien and foreign; why are women– and especially girls– drawn to mermaids? What do we see of ourselves in them?2

I’m sure many of us were drawn to the first use of the word “siren” in the text we read.

“And so she accepts, just like a woman, that which is but should never be! … Ah Siren! … or woman? What does it matter? Women do not know, know nothing of what we call Honour!” (Lebey, trans. Knight, 138)


What a damning line… for Raymondin! I want to dissect my interpretations of this passage.
Context: Melusine has attempted to comfort her husband after one of their sons has killed another. Raymondin, already poised in suspicion and jealousy, poisoned by his brother’s intimations, can receive no comfort from her, as he has positioned her in his mind as someone who’s already betrayed him.
Melusine’s attempts to comfort backfire– Raymondin can see only the worst in her now– her acceptance of their son’s death is another betrayal to him.
CRITICALLY, in the same breath as rejecting her offered reassurance, he attributes her faults to her femininity. There is hardly a single word that allows us to transition from his perception of Melusine as a person and confidant, to a perception of her as a woman. And Raymondin reveals, when he attributes her (ascribed) worst qualities to her womanhood, how little he thinks of women. This makes me think– has Melusine ever been a person to him? When he loved her, was it in spite of her being a woman? Is this what love is, in this time, in this place– infatuation with something you don’t respect and don’t trust? Doesn’t that sound familiar? Women have an irresistible draw– but conceal myriad dangers? Isn’t this man’s relationship to the ocean (as we have read it so far)?
The next part of the line sets itself up. Siren… or woman. What does it matter? To Raymondin, they are the same. In fact, to Men, they are the same. As has been reinforced by the Christian church by the very use of mermaids, women are beautiful but dangerous, and most importantly, they are other, they are alien.
I want to inspect the last part of this quote for one, specific, tiny word that reinforces the point of women being alien– “Women… …know nothing of what we call Honour”.
We. They… and we. “We”, here, to Raymondin, is humanity. Honor is a human trait. It is one of those shining godly qualities that separates humans from the supernatural, the animal, the forest, the sea3. And humans… does not include women. Women are they, women are supernatural, women are animals, women are the forest, women are the sea.
Conclusion
Even today, as far as feminism has come in the last hundred years, I see this attitude towards women everywhere– I see it in male friends, in self described feminists, in men who make significant effort to treat women respectfully but seem unable to accept that men and women are part of the same species. In fact, humanity, in the Western world, has almost speciated by gender, and Maleness is still the dominant cultural group, which means that even if we have progressed beyond treating women as property, or children, they are still not “human”, because “human” is man.
Where this leads me– how do women see themselves? And critically for our Class— how do women see mermaids? It’s the topic of a longer work, but I want to note in case I haven’t already that after the first two chapters of Scribner’s Mermaids: A Human History, he presents imaginative narratives from the perspectives of men in different historical settings encountering mermaids. Certainly, the male gaze and the male perception of femininity through mermaids is important, and we have a lot to learn from it– but the next step of this inquiry for me is to examine the female perception of mermaids

  1. Interview on Knight’s blog from July 4 2011, in which he mentions that he’s been researching Melusine for ten years. ↩︎
  2. I appreciate your grace letting me fluidly interpolate my life experience as a woman with my current existence as a man. I think of myself as a girl who grew up into a man, and I still see my inner child as a girl 🙂 ↩︎
  3. I know this claim could use further support! ↩︎

Week 5 reading

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Religion has played a huge part in the myth of mermaids, as we already know. In this story, “The Romance of the Faery Melusine” by Gareth Knight and Andre Lebey, showcases how Christianity is deeply rooted in the portrayal of Melusine and Raymondin throughout the text. Christianity still on a mission to ruin femininity and use Melusine as their example for readers. For example; portraying her as meek and forgiving as her main personality is quite sexist and having Raymondin convinced that Melusine is connected to the devil and he must save her. “Women do not know, know nothing of what we call Honor”(Knight, 138). There goes Raymondin bashing on Melusine and women in general because of her because of her revealed secret that he shouldn’t have been snooping around for! The strange and unnatural image of Melusine horrified Raymondin and instantly turned his inquisitiveness turn into pure hatred. Perhaps its became she isn’t fully a human but a hybrid and therefore has power that he won’t be able to posses within his humanly power? Could this have been avoided if Raymondin and his curious nature had minded their own business? Or, since Raymondin is fully human and humans have the endless desire for power and knowledge that there was no other way for this story to have gone?

Legend of Melusina

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When I think of French fairy tales, I often associate them with having some sort of moral at the end of the story, as well as with witty women, since many of them originated from literary salons hosted by them. When reading this week’s “Legend of Melusina” in “The Penguin Book of Mermaids” I really struggled with imagining what the moral could be for this tale or if a single one existed. I began to think about our in-class discussion last Thursday on Odysseus and the Sirens. In both, a curious man attempts to cross a boundary in attempts to do something that has not been done before. In both, it’s clear that the men lack boundaries and I found this to be extremely amusing because their anxiety, disguised as curiosity, is rooted in this need to know more about the woman (Odysseus having to tie himself to the post to hear the forbidden sirens song & Raymond looking at his wife on the only forbidden day of the week, Saturday). What interested me the most about this week’s story was how quickly curiosity can turn into a violation of privacy, especially when it comes to clear boundaries that were set from the beginning. In only a total of four pages, this week’s reading highlighted to me the importance of listening to others boundaries, especially when it comes to something sacred and personal like their body and overall identity. 

A different kind of story

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For this post I read The Legend of Melusina” (Penguin, pgs. 85-88)

While I can talk about how the story can be interpreted as power, with Melusine’s incredible power (her wealth and being able to build “the castle of Lusignan”(87)), and or that it is about the trust in relationships (Melusine making her husband promise not to come see her on Saturdays when she’s transformed). I would like to highlight how different this story is from the usual ones of its time and type, where such a secret would have seen Melusine not only shamed and hunted for her curse, but demonized heavily. Which the prelude text highlights that in different tellings, most likely NOT created by the original author, allude to. But rather the husband, Raymondin,“is not horrified but only saddened” (85). This is where I liked the story, because rather than immediately judge Melusine and her condition, showing that he truly only loved her for her looks, he becomes what I interpreted as relief, because he was egged on by someone else, driven by jealously. It wasn’t his words that convinced Melusine to ultimately leave, but Geoffroi, to be honest I would kick him in the shins for calling my wife a “snake and odious serpent” (88).

This also highlights my next interesting point, when Raymondin witnessed Melusine’s hybrid form the text described it as “in a snake, gray and sky-blue, mixed with white”, but this doesn’t actually apply to snakes, but to fish. As the beginning text said, “fish and water hold a redemptive symbolism”, which tells me that possibly Raymondin would’ve accepted Melusine for her curse and redeemed the curse (not her) in her eyes. Considering when their children were born, they were described as deformed, yet for Raymondin, “Raymond’s love for the beauty that ravished both heart and eyes remained unshaken”. Considering how common a trope it is for the husband to blame and scorn the mother if a child ends up with anything undesirable, it proves how much he genuinely loved Melusine. That she found someone accepting of her but another had to go off and ruin it. I can see the story having a message of acceptance as well, but that’s the tragedy.

Human Identity and it’s Connection to the Natural World in ‘The Great Old Hunter’

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In this week’s reading in Chapter 1, “The Great Old Hunter,” the author showed readers from the start of the story that this was a natural world being depicted as both menacing and awe-inspiring. Wolves, foxes, and wildcats stalk on the borders of human life, threatening children and livestock: “God help any child left playing on the doorstep, forgotten of an evening. On winter nights, in times of famine, packs ran through the streets, howling under the cold moon,” (11). Here, nature is not romanticized but is read as a force of hunger and violence that is used for conflict in fragile, weak towns. The “howling” wolves and the “diabolic” rustling of packs are described with words that border almost the supernatural, especially with the mention of the smell of sulphur, evoking literal Hell itself. The type of language that is used shows how the imagination of medieval people is often combined with the physical dangers of the environment, with moral and spiritual threats.

Yet, the forest and its creatures are not merely destructive. These animals also become the proving ground for, I suppose we can call it, “human greatness.” The narrator states that “evil reigned only if heroes failed to confront its dangers. It seemed that the one existed to give rise to the other, for humans do not show their mettle if left to themselves,” (12). In other words, the danger of nature is necessary because it brings out the courage, heroism, and even piety in humans. Aimery’s hunts are not seen as a simple sport but also as acts that extend human power into the world and reaffirm that divine order. When Aimery slays a boar, that isn’t a victory over an animal, but it’s a symbolic triumph over the Antichrist. Hunting becomes this sacred labor, an almost ritualized confrontation with the wild that we can see both disciplines nature and sanctifies humanity.

Overall, this passage suggests to us that in Aimery’s world, human identity comes from its relationship with the natural world–a world that constantly threatens, tempts, and tests humans, but also gives us opportunities for glory and grace. To live near the forest is to live near both the Devil and God, to be reminded that danger and sanctity often come from the same dark woods.

Week 5: The Great Old Hunter

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After having read “The Great Old Hunter”, I was seeing a different angle on other “things” and “creatures”, as mentioned in the story, and connecting them to the rest of the readings we’ve done. Particularly relating to sirens last week. From my understanding after having close read the texts, it seems as though the Sirens of war have served as a way to see into the future, or see the inevitable outcome of war for man, which is death. In someways, any catastrophes involving a siren and man at sea could simply be viewed as a dark favor by putting man out of ones misery prior to experiencing death involved in a war. In the reading for “The Great Old Hunter” however, the aviary creatures found within the forest of Broceliande, “[…] in the talons of a hawk on a golden perch, the Code of Love was to be found” (Pg. 12). This approach of the falcon/hawk is different than the ones of the sirens who attempt to lure men with their voice and beauty, or their alerts on war.

In this story however, it seems that man has the ability to question and be open to other voices, including their own, not fearing the unknown, “[…] men identified with things that could lead them further into the unknown; they sought in all directions the extensions of their physical and spiritual power. So they believed and so they lived, sure of themselves and strong at one moment, at the next deflated and weak[…]”(Pg. 12), this being so unlike the men on the ship in the Odyssey fearing a shipwreck, and too scared to listen to the sirens. It seems as though theres been a shift in the way the unknown is viewed and the way aviary creatures serve their purpose to man. In this case, they can be beneficial while taming the, “Fine proud heraldic and handsome, noble rulers of the sky[…]” (Pg. 13), yet another change from before. One in which I believe is a great shift.

Week 5: A Curse between Us and Them

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The Legend of Melusina is a heartbreaking story about a fairy whose curse, brought on by her mother, has led to a tragedy between us (humans) and them (non-humans). Although the curse can stem from one side, it will often have undesirable effects when the afflicted come in contact with a being from the other side. As seen in Melusina’s curse and her marriage with Raymond, the legend uses the curse as an outside force, whether natural/unnatural or in/outside the person, that can disturb or even devastate both sides of the equation.

Melusina’s rejection comes from her curse–which she cannot control–that turns her into a half-serpent every Saturday, which is lifted under a condition that a man who would marry her should “never [see] her on a Saturday, and should keep his promise.” (Penguin 86) If you know the context, she brought the curse upon herself by planning with her sisters to punish their father (on the “us” side) as “revenge” and confessing what they had done to their mother (on the “them” side). Because she was the one who carried out the plan in the first place, it is no wonder why she had the most severe punishment compared to her sisters. The curse forces her to live outside of society, “in search of the man who was to deliver her.” Raymond, a man who “accidentially” killed his uncle, meets her and swears to not see her on a Saturday.

Despite her curse, she is quite an able and powerful woman, as demonstrated in her ability to build castles and other majestic places “out of her great wealth” for Raymond, as seen in page 87 of the Penguin Book of Mermaids. However, their marriage would quickly crumble when her curse–and destiny–results in “the deformity of the children born of one that was enchanted” and Raymond’s cousin “exciting him to jealousy” and making him believe that his wife is retiring on Saturday. The curse has done more than just curse her body; it has tainted their marriage, and she’s sharing it with Raymond.

In the last parts of the legend, you may be wondering: why was Raymond hiding in Melusina’s room? It’s simple: the curse deceived him. The force from the other side has “afflicted” him, leading to him breaking his promise of never seeing his wife on a Saturday and the curse rubbing it in by making his son murder his brother. These events have led to Raymond seeing Melusina’s cursed form not with horror, but with heartbreak that he broke his promise. And because this curse has led to the death of his son Freimund, he yells at the accursed fairy to get out of his sight while calling her a “pernicious snake and odious serpent! thou contaminator of my race!” (87)

Raymond believes that Melusina was the one responsible for the misfortunes that happened in their marriage, as he is now fully convinced that she has “contaminated” him with the curse that will follow him until his death as a hermit. Melusina had found a man perfect for her to break her curse, but at what cost?

Week 5: Medieval Melusine

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“This transformation from a half snake, half woman may be tied to d’Arras’s situating her near water –a fountain and her bath– and to the fact that dragons and serpents have scales just like fish (86).”

After reading this tale, I set out to look for some art works of this depiction of melusine, as a serpent or dragon. Many modern depictions are mixed between her as a mermaid, sometimes with a serpent’s tail, even sometimes with wings. However, I also was interested in the remains of the castle that she built, whose ruins can be seen today in France. In this 15th-century depiction of the Chateau de Lusignan, Melusine is in the form of a dragon, flying over the castle and perhaps making good on her promise to fly over at the changing of lords.

.Here is googles rundown on the remains of castle Lusignan

This is a link to the Edward Worth Library’s collection of images of Melusine and her different versions of hybridity.

Although the symbolism of water is deeply tied to her myth, she is also punished for her misdeeds, and in some sense, her greed, to forever transform into a serpent hybrid. There are so many different elements in this story which I hope to explore further, such as the curse inflicted by her mother, the multitudes of her hybridity (half fae and human, half woman and serpent), the nature of the curse being carried on to her sons through deformity and cruelness: “Geoffri with the tooth had burned his brother Freimond (p.88).” I’m still at a loss about the relationship between her husband and the conditions of a broken promise. It seems that even as Melusine bestows many gifts upon her husband and their kingdom, her curse afflicts mostly suffering onto her, with her children’s deformity blamed on her curse(or hidden nature), and in the conditions of her curse being discovered resulting in isolation.