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

Sacred Serpent: Melusina and The Fall of Man

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What caught my attention most after having read Thomas Knightley’s summary of “Legend of Melusina” in The Penguin Book of Mermaids was the religiously charged symbols of feminine power and male transgression. The story integrates many aspects of medieval Christianity ambivalence towards female agency and nature. One way this can be seen is from Melusina’s curse of transforming every Saturday into a hybrid snake-woman which highly reflects Christianity’s mistrust in female agency.

Melusina’s hybridity and curse draws many parallels to that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Like Eve, Melusina falls short on transgression of obedience. For Eve it was being tempted by Satan (in the form of a serpent) to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil and in turn she and Adam are banished from Paradise. For Melusina, she “took the king[, her father,] and all his wealth, and, by a charm, inclosed him in a high mountain, called Brandelois” for which her mother “condemned Melusina to become every Saturday a serpent from the waist downward” (87). Both Eve and Melusina’s transgression and fates align with medieval Christian conceptions of the Fall of Man as the result of female agency. These parallels of serpent imagery correlate with duplicity and evil. Satan as a serpent in Eden and Melusina’s hybridity being duplicitous. As a liminal figure, Melusina is a representation of religious binaries: God/Satan, man/woman, good/evil. Often in Medieval perspective, hybridity see’s these binaries as dangerous, suggesting a sense of impurity and crossing of boundaries. On top of Melusina being an impure hybrid, her curse is somewhat of a ritual happening every Saturday or Sabbath, something unholy happening on a holy day. This can be seen as female impurity especially in relation to menstruation something natural yet taboo. With that, Raymonds is in violation of “the taboo” and commits a sin of curiosity, much like Adams sin of disobedience.

While Medieval Christianity views her transformation as a mark of shame, I view it as more of breaking of trust on Raymonds part. Much like many men in this time he ventures into and violates lands and people that are not his, under a sense of religious authority. Yet it is her suffering and departure that leave behind, not destruction but, a mark of sanctity. She leaves her footprint in stone (307), and becomes symbolically a martyr of mans ambition and an example of feminine agency. Her Saturday transformation is something sacred that when crossed exposes human kinds desire for dominance over that which they cannot comprehend.

Lines of Succession Know No Boundaries

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The only thing that wives and mothers in the story of Melusina ask for is a respect of boundaries. Pressina, Melusina’s mother asked for Saturdays to herself from her husband and when she curses her daughter she sets for her the same boundary. This story embodies the themes in mermaid stories of demonizing the “other” and the female threat to a patriarchal system. Both of those themes play into the subtle political line of succession message in the legend.

The Fay Women found by human men when they were in need of saving are magical creatures. They provide love and success to these mortals in exchange for devotion and promises of letting them keep some part of their power. This power is not over others like it is expected in the patriarchal system of mortals, but in their autonomy to limit the access to their bodies by others. I found it interesting in both of the marriages of mother and daughter, it was a relative that encouraged the husbands of these Fay Women to violate this boundary set forth in the marriage.

In Pressina’s story, it is her male stepchild Nathas and likely heir to the throne of Albania that excited his father to violating the martial pact. It is not explained if Nathas knows of this agreement. Though if he knew about his stepmother giving birth before his father, it is fair to assume Nathas had his finger on the pulse of the activities in the castle. While the birth of three daughters might have not pushed Nathas out of the line of succession, his father’s current wife providing so many additional heirs might have challenged his position. Creating a wedge or a reason to dissolve the marriage might have been in the prince’s best interests.

Later in Melusina’s story it is the cousin of Raymond who had “excited him (Raymond) to jealousy…by malicious suggestions of the purport of the Saturday retirement of the countess” (88). Nathas used joy to break the martial bond, while this cousin used distrust of a wife who would not provide full access of herself to her husband at all times. As a wife Melusina had given Raymond riches and castles he wouldn’t have had otherwise, but she was still an outsider to the world of mortals. Stories and myths often depict how outsiders are always a threat to the accepted system.

The gender and position of the cousin is not depicted in the story, but the relationship of this family member to Raymond reminded me of the only other mention of his family. When we are first introduced to Raymond he has just “accidentally killed” (87) his uncle who is a count. Melusina uses her power (possibly influence) to protect Raymond from the fallout of this killing.

Could this cousin be a child of that uncle?

Could this be a cold dish of revenge by someone whose position was lost from this coupling?

Or was it just Melusina’s ability to maintain some form of power over the societal powerful position of Raymond?

Raymond’s strength is made secure not only through what Melusina built for him but in the children she bore, his heirs. It is only when the sons of Raymond and Melusina are taken out (or at least compromised) of the line of succession that he turns on her. She then becomes a spectre who will haunt the family line when there will be a death in their lineage.

In respecting a boundary, Raymond and the King of Albania were abdicating part of their power given to them by the patriarchal system they were entrusted to maintain. This clearly illustrates the threat the “other” can impose on the sanctity of the established family, teaching how it only brings heartache and ruin for future generations. Underlining how an “outsider” woman who is not is in complete submission to her husband, like the women of the society were conditioned to do, must have flaws and secrets that threaten societal norms.

Fear and Wonder in the Forest 

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In chapter one, “ The Great Old Hunter”, the forest isn’t just seen as a setting or a scenery in the background. To me it feels more alive, sort of like a character in the story. The way it’s described shows how medieval people saw the natural world as both familiar and terrifying and also as something that could provide for them but also threaten them. On page 11 the text says, “The forest stretched beyond, menacing and dangerous, full of the unknown, concealing the surprising and the supernatural” this shows how the forest symbolized mystery and fear all at once. 

The people in this story lived right next to the forest so danger was always nearby. Wolves and foxes could sneak into villages and even sometimes drag children away. The text makes a point to say that the weapons were useless against the wild creatures which shows how powerless the people often felt. Even being inside their villages they could never fully escape the dangers of the wild. What really stood out to me was how the forest isn’t just described in physical terms but also in a spiritual way. Villagers often hear clawed feet on the stones and smell sulphur and smoke and this made them think of the devil. This sort of blurs the line between natural threats and supernatural evil. The forest becomes a place where our physical world and the spiritual world overlap. 

At the same time, the forest is also shown as an enchanting place. Lynxes were described as watching with “burning eyes” and bees drop golden honey from the treetops. I’ve always found the forest to be a beautiful place so this mix of beauty and danger is interesting because it truly shows how unpredictable the forest is and that it’s a place where anything could happen. I think that the forest represents both fear and fascination. The forest is a place that humans can’t fully control, where survival is uncertain and where they believed supernatural forces lurked but it’s also a place where they imagined wonder and magic. By making the forest appear so threatening yet mysterious at the same time, the story shows how medieval people lived right on the edge of the wild even though they were never completely safe and the unknown was just a few steps away.

Sociologically Swimming

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Melusine’s story of her fall at her own hands of destruction really drew my attention, because it reminded me of such a common sociological theory: symbolic interactionism. In her story, her devious behaviors against the king force her mother to punish her to become half serpent every Saturday, in her mind, effectively cursing her from any man ever wanting her. Once she gets married, she shuns him every Saturday, with this consequence that she would isolate him should he ever approach her.

In symbolic interactionism, the idea of labeling develops an association within people’s minds about how these labels hold weight. When juveniles are labelled as criminal from a young age, they internalize this mentality and shift their thinking to continue to act out because they have been deemed by society as these deviant beings, and recognize this as their only possibility for life. Melusina does the same, acting in an attempt to get revenge and even the score, but becomes branded as this evildoer by the curse set. Her inability to drop this act, to admit to her husband the reality of her behavior and her situation seems to reflect how this societal reaction theory acts within her.

His reaction, even when their kids are born as mutants, proves how her mentality surrounding it is an entirely internal thing: “still Raymond’s love for the beauty that ravished both heart and eyes remained unshaken” (Penguin, 86). His love for her in every sense transcended the reality he discovered until it presented real life effects, and one son was burned by the other. It’s then that he lashes out, and insults her the way everyone else had, and the story confirms its impact on her: “Melusina’s anxiety was now verified” (86). This confirmation from the one they love, in spite of the obvious nature to the audience that their avoidance caused it, feeds into this narrative of theirs and their destruction of this facade that they care not about perception of them, that they solely care for manipulation and power.

Her exit with him, her sincerity in grief of having to part with him actualizes that she did feel deeply for him and all of her behavior spiraled from this moment of childhood irrationality. It reflects how deeply our nature as human beings is to protect ourselves, and how our actions truly are all reactions to the perceptions in life, which stem from labels. The labels placed on mermaids as trivial childhood beauties or creatures of deception intended to destroy mankind’s sanctity, the labels we place on individuals as inherently kind or inescapably criminal, even the labels used commercially to lure us in regardless of how harmful, indicate how little we truly recognize how the ever-changing and important nature of everything within society. Our inability to decipher reality from what’s being presented lies at the heart of the tale, as a moral warning utilizing a monster and its nature to prove how our interpretations cannot always be correct.