My mom studies traditional folk ballads. She is part of a global community continuing the oral tradition of English/Irish and American music1. The songs she sings have kept certain stories alive for centuries and across continents. Thanks to recorded history we have hundreds of versions of these songs now, and we can see how much they change regionally and over time. While the stories overall reflect the ethos of the cultures they were performed in, the individual tellings always reflect the philosophy of the singer. I see this in real time, as my mom tends to cherry pick for versions or specific verses that empower women and uplift humanity. That’s not an erasure of history– that’s how oral tradition works, and we are seeing it this week in André LeBey’s retelling of Melusine.2 In this short collection of quotes I am not investigating how the story of Melusine reflects the culture it came from, but how this retelling of that story reflects the man who wrote it.
From two chapters of Melusine, I have developed the distinct impression that LeBey loves women. As some of you have been pointing out3, it’s a kind of love that is very hard to extricate from control, possession, domination. The story of Melusine, as Penguin pointed out, hinges on Raymondin’s utter infatuation, to the point of blind trust; I’d argue that this kind of “love” is more universally human- and more beautiful- than a strictly patriarchal reading will reveal.
To LeBey, women are a source of comfort; “townsmen huddled for comfort against their wives,” (11). He presents human men, men capable of fear, men capable of drawing emotional support from companionship.
I appreciated, also, the treatment of legendary female figures. Hildegarde, (12) is described as a “warrior”, saving the life of a man, equal to him, at least in that moment, in dignity, agency, and power. Queen Dido (13) is… mentioned.
LeBey’s description of the female practice of falconry (13) was ennobling as well; although he provides a very clear binary of the sexes (men as ‘big, strong, and majestic’, and women as ‘small, capricious, and fantastic’) he dignifies women as renowned birders. After all, the “simple daughter of a tradesman” could train and tame a famously well-disposed hawk. This also presents a less damning interpretation of the sirens’ songs; to LeBey, women, with their gentle voices and golden brown transfixing eyes are tamers in their own right; it is as respectable for a man to be tamed by a woman as it is for a bird to be tamed by a man.
Another line that struck me as almost worshipful of the institution of womanhood; “Women… told stories… like threads of gold spun from their distaffs… sparkling through the fatigue of their work,” (23)– a refreshing alternative to the demonization of womens’ stories in the promises of Odysseus’s Sirens.
By the time Melusine appears, I am not surprised to see her feelings treated with equal respect to Raymondin’s. On page 25, “it [gives] her pleasure to repeat his name”. And Raymondin’s love is complex. Yes, he above all wanted to possess her (27). But “it was always she, indeed, who led” (29) and he followed her- “he listened to her as if to a living poem”(28).
This collection of lines is only one half of a thesis on LeBey’s Melusine; I would love to explore first his attitude towards women, and then his complex entanglement of love and possession.
To come full circle– from personal, to academic, to personal– I was deeply moved by this text. I believe that the human desire to change that which we love exists outside of patriarchal control of women; I believe it can be seen in the domestication of plants and animals, in the production of art, in the eighteen years we spend raising our children in this country, in the “I can fix him” meme. This is a delicate subject to unravel; I don’t mean to endorse the impulse to control or possess, I think it’s led humanity in dark directions. But I also think that it’s deeply human, and LeBey’s writing– his palpable love for the world– is untangling the edges of this paradox.
