Gracious Creature

Some men just can't keep their promises. Of course, when that promise is to his magical wife, the consequences can be dire. This episode brings you the story of Melusine, the mythical faerie of the waters said to have founded some of medieval Europe's most powerful ruling dynasties. 

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben, with original music by Purple Planet.

Episode sources  

Chapters

• 0:00 Pre-roll
• 0:07 Intro
• 1:24 The Birth of Melusine
• 5:57 Melusine and the House of Lusignan
• 12:02 Melusine’s Legacy
• 17:32 Conclusion
• 21:08 Outro

Transcript

Pre-roll
You’re listening to Enchanted, a podcast on the history of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. I’m Corinne Wieben.

Intro
Some men just can’t keep their promises. Of course, when that promise is to a magical woman the man in question has married, the consequences can be much more dire. This is precisely what happens in the medieval story of Melusine. Melusine, descended from a mortal father and a water-goddess or faerie mother, asks just one thing of her mortal husband. He must never see her on a Saturday. Of course, he fails, but not before he and Melusine create a line of children born to rule kingdoms from northern Europe to the eastern Mediterranean.

In this episode, I bring you the story of Melusine, the mythical faerie of the waters said to have founded some of medieval Europe’s most powerful ruling dynasties. 

The Birth of Melusine
“Once there was a very worthy king in Scotland.” So begins the origin story of the faerie-goddess Melusine. According to the tale, King Elinas went hunting one day in a forest near the coast. There, he heard a beautiful voice singing. Drawn by the voice, he approached until he spied its source: a lovely and noble-looking lady singing by a fountain. Enchanted by her beauty and the irresistible lure of her song, Elinas approached and asked where she came from since there was no lodging for miles around. “So how, then,” he asked, “could such a beautiful and gracious creature as yourself have come here all alone?” She explained that she had been traveling with a retinue but sent them on ahead so she could bask in the beauty of the fountain. At that moment, her servant arrived with her horse, and she left the king alone.

Later, as Elinas thought about the woman’s beauty, he realized he was in love. He forgot all about the hunt and rode after the lady. When she spied him, she saw at once his love for her, but she pretended not to know why he had come. She asked him what he wanted of her and bade him speak boldly, to which he replied, “‘My lady, since you ask, let me tell you that I desire above all else to have your love and your good graces.’’ To this, the lady replied, “If you wish to take me as your wife, you must swear that, if we have children together, you will never in any way undertake to see me in childbed. Then I shall obey you as a loyal wife must obey her husband.” The king swore to obey her request, and the couple soon married.

However, not everyone was happy about the king’s marriage. When the queen gave birth to three daughters, the eldest of whom she named Melusine, the king’s son from his first marriage, a treacherous prince, tricked Elinas into spying on his wife and breaking his oath. Furious at the betrayal, the queen cried, “Faithless king, you have broken your promise; misfortune shall befall you, and you have lost me forever… I must leave at once…’’ After this speech, she took her three daughters and abandoned the king and the land.

After leaving Elinas, the Lady Presine brought her three daughters to the Lost Isle of Avalon. When the girls had come of age, Melusine begged their mother to tell them why she was so sorrowful. She told them the story of Elinas and his betrayal, and the three secretly plotted to avenge their mother. They imprisoned Elinas in a mountain, where he would spend the rest of his life. When Presine learned of this, she cursed her daughters, saying, “You treacherous, wicked girls, too bitter and hard of heart! You have done an evil thing in punishing the one who engendered you, driven by your treacherous and proud hearts, for it was from him that I derived all the pleasure I had in this mortal world, and now you have taken it from me! Doubt not that I shall repay you as you deserve!

‘‘You, Melusine, who are the eldest and should be the most understanding, I know very well that you instigated this harsh imprisonment of your father, and so you shall be the first to be punished… I proclaim that henceforth every Saturday you shall become a serpent from the navel down. If, however, you find a man who wishes to marry you and will promise never to look upon you or seek you out on Saturday and never to speak of this to anyone, you shall live out your life as a mortal woman and die naturally. In any case, a very great and noble lineage shall descend from you and accomplish many great acts of prowess… And whenever the fortress that you shall build and endow with your name is to change lords, or whenever one of your descendants is about to die, you shall reappear there three days beforehand.”

Melusine and the House of Lusignan
Time passed, until one day, a noble knight named Raymond was out hunting in the forest with his uncle. In a horrible accident, Raymond, attempting to slay a wild boar, slipped and struck his uncle instead, who soon died of his wound. The poor knight wandered despairing through the woods until he came upon a fountain where sat three beautiful women. The noblest of these women, whom we know to be Melusine, reproached the knight for failing to greet them when he arrived at the fountain. She revealed to him that she knew all about what happened to his lord in the forest. When he became afraid, she reassured him, saying, “Without my help and advice you cannot succeed in what you undertake; whereas if you do believe in me…, I shall make you the greatest and most lordly man of your entire lineage, and the most powerful!” Raymond, having little other choice, agreed. However, before Melusine would consent to be his wife, she said, “Swear to me, with all the oaths befitting an honorable man, that never on a Saturday shall you seek to look upon me, or inquire as to my whereabouts. And I swear to you, on peril of my soul, that never on that day shall I do anything whatsoever that will not bring you great honor; on that day I shall devote myself entirely to thinking how best to increase your personal worth and your estate.’’ At that, Raymond swore to obey the Lady Melusine and took her as his wife.

Raymond was made a great lord of the House of Lusignan and, with Melusine’s aid, acquired for himself an enormous plot of land where, thanks to Melusine’s powers over the waters, a miraculous spring bubbled up. As his fortunes rose, Melusine reminded him of his promise, saying, “Know for certain that if you always keep your word in this way, you will be the most powerful and most highly honored man of all your lineage. If you do the opposite, you and your heirs will slowly decline, and the land you hold when you commit that fault—and may God forbid that you ever should!—will never again belong in its entirety to any of your heirs.” In celebration and to mark the ascendancy of Raymond’s lineage, Melusine summoned skilled workmen to construct a massive castle fortress, with towers reaching up toward the sky and thick walls to defend the grounds. As the couple continued to live in their new home, Melusine gave birth to many children, including eight strong sons to serve as Raymond’s heirs. The eldest son became king of the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Another became the Duke of Luxembourg. Still another traveled to Ireland and, from there, joined his brothers to fight against Muslim armies in the east. All told, Melusine’s sons would acquire kingdoms in Armenia, Bohemia, Cyprus, and Luxembourg.

While the House of Lusignan won fame through the heroic undertakings of Raymond and Melusine’s sons, the couple lived happily in their home in Poitiers. Raymond kept his word to Melusine, allowing her privacy and solitude every Saturday. One Saturday, Raymond’s brother came to visit and asked to greet his brother’s wife. Raymond told his brother that Melusine was occupied but would be able to receive him the next day. At this, Raymond’s brother said, “I must not conceal your disgrace from you. Fair brother, it is rumored hither and yon that every Saturday your wife dishonors you by lying in carnal sin with another man. Nor are you bold enough, so blinded are you by her, to find out where she goes! Some say she’s an enchanted spirit who does penance on Saturdays. Personally, I don’t know what to believe, but as your brother I must not conceal your dishonor from you or tolerate it, and that’s why I’ve come here today.”

Inflamed by this speech, Raymond stormed off to the place where Melusine went every Saturday. When he found the door was locked against him, he carved a peephole in the wood and peered through. There, he saw Melusine bathing in a large tub. From the waist up, she was the beautiful woman he had always known, but below her waist, she had a large tail covered in scales like a serpent or a fish. Raymond’s heart broke to know that his beloved wife had been faithful to him and that he had, at last, betrayed his oath to her. Raymond, furious at his brother, banished him from Lusignan lands. The sorrowful lord took to his bed, sick with grief and remorse, until Melusine came to him at daybreak the next day. Because he had kept her secret to himself and told no-one else, she forgave him.

However, as Melusine predicted, the fortunes of their house began to fail. In a moment of anger and despair, Raymond lashed out at her, saying, ‘‘Ah! you deceitful serpent, by God, you and your deeds are nothing but phantoms, nor will any heir you have borne ever come to a good end!” At that, because he had betrayed her true nature, Melusine was forced to abandon her husband and his house to eventual misfortune.

Melusine’s Legacy
The legend of Melusine comes to us from the 1393 chivalric romance Melusine; or, The Noble History of Lusignan written by Jean d’Arras. Combining myth and history, Melusine recounts the mythical origins of the noble Lusignan family of France and the origins of the fortress of Lusignan in the province of Poitou. As its title suggests, it’s challenging to categorize D’Arras’s work, since it has the elements of a medieval romance but also purports to tell the history of the House of Lusignan. The romance of Melusine served a few different purposes in its time, but D’Arras’s chief motive for writing it was to emphasize the right of Duke John of Berry, a purported descendant of Melusine and her father, King Elinas, to the Lusignan tower and the land of Poitou during the Hundred Years’ War. However, the use of Melusine and her hybrid monstrousness lends the story a multi-layered argument. De Berry’s claims are both magical and real, global and local, as D’Arras weaves the tale of the duke’s Lusignan origins. While the story of Melusine may be mythical, the Lusignan family she was said to have founded was very real. Its descendants did, in fact, become rulers of Cyprus and dukes of Luxembourg. The House of Anjou and its descendants, including England’s Plantagenet ruling dynasty were also rumored to have descended from Melusine.

At the time of the chronicle’s composition, late medieval France was still reeling from the demographic and economic consequences of the Black Death, the epidemic of bubonic plague that swept through Europe starting in 1348. Subsequent waves of plague continued to devastate the population, especially in crowded cities like Paris and London. To add to the misery, the people of France were also suffering through the Hundred Years’ War. When Charles IV, King of France, died without a male heir in 1328, a dispute broke out over the line of succession to the French throne. The two potential claimants were Charles’ nephew, King Edward III of England, whose mother, Isabella, was the sister of the late French king or Charles’ cousin, the French nobleman Philip of Valois. The French nobles chose Philip, but Edward wasn’t willing to let go of his claim. By 1337, this tension broke into an all-out war that would continue to rage well into the next century.

As the war raged on in the beginning of the fifteenth century, the duke of Bedford, brother of King Henry V of England, married into the descendants of Melusine by taking as his wife Jacquetta of Luxembourg. Jacquetta not only became the duchess of Bedford, but, following the death of Henry V, she became the personal favorite and confidant of the new queen of England, Margaret of Anjou, wife of the new king, Henry VI. When Jacquetta’s husband, the duke of Bedford, died, she came to England, escorted by Richard Woodville, the young and handsome steward of her late husband’s house. On the journey, Jacquetta and Richard fell in love and married in secret. However, since Richard was a commoner and he and Jacquetta failed to seek the king’s permission before they decided to marry, they were banished from the royal court until Queen Margaret intervened and the couple paid a hefty fine of one thousand pounds. Since it was unseemly for the very royal Jacquetta to be married to a nobody, King Henry VI granted Richard Woodville the title of “baron,” but Richard had to choose a name for his new noble house. After consulting with Jacquetta, he decided to pay tribute to her mythic ancestry by becoming Baron Rivers.

When the Wars of the Roses broke out in England, Jacquetta and Richard allied themselves with the House of Lancaster, the faction supporting Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. However, the royal couple suffered a disastrous defeat in 1461 at the hands of Edward of York, who was then crowned King Edward IV of England. Richard and Jacquetta’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, newly widowed as a result of the wars, petitioned the newly crowned king for the return of her husband’s lands, which she argued belonged to her two sons. The young king fell in love with the beautiful Elizabeth and married her in secret. Elizabeth Woodville, purported to be the descendant of Melusine through her mother’s Luxembourg ancestry, became queen of England.

Conclusion
Melusine’s hybrid nature, at once human, fairy, siren, and serpent, is the result of her mother Presine’s curse. But Melusine has the opportunity to change the outcome of her mother’s story. While Elinas failed to keep his oath to his wife never to see her in childbed, Melusine has the chance to become fully human if she can find a husband who will keep his oath never to see her on a Saturday, when she temporarily regains her serpent’s tail. Even when Raymond fails to keep his promise and spies on Melusine, she remains with him, since he keeps the secret of what he saw to himself. It’s only when Raymond publicly denounces her in a fit of anger that she transforms into a dragon and leaves him, trapped in her monstrous form until the end of time.

It demonstrates the strong association between femininity and the faerie realm in late medieval Europe that power is said to be given to the Lusignan family through descent from the supernatural Melusine rather than the fully human Raymond. Several women in late medieval romances are associated with faeries or water spirits. The most famous example of this is probably Morgan le Fay, the sister of King Arthur of Camelot and often said to be an enchantress. Her name, Morgan, is most likely Celtic, meaning “born of the sea.” Like Melusine, Morgan is as much a spirit of the waters as a woman. Like the waters, Morgan and Melusine are paradoxically ever-changing and ever-present, life-giving and dangerous, vulnerable and powerful.

As in the legend, Melusine’s magical legacy would haunt her descendants. After Jacquetta Woodville’s daughter Elizabeth became queen of England, their political rivals, led by Lord Warwick, known as the “Kingmaker,” rebelled and temporarily deposed King Edward. Warwick oversaw the summary execution of Jacquetta’s husband, Richard, and her son, John. Soon after, Warwick’s followers accused Jacquetta of witchcraft, including that she had bewitched King Edward into marrying her daughter. Before she could be convicted, Edward IV was restored to his throne and cleared Jacquetta of the charges. Jacquetta died a few years later in 1472. After King Edward’s death in 1483, his younger brother, crowned King Richard III after the mysterious disappearance of his late brother’s sons and heirs, revived the charges of witchcraft against the late Jacquetta.

Richard III was killed in battle just two years into his reign by the Lancastrian forces led by Henry Tudor. Henry would go on to unite the houses of Lancaster and York by marrying Jacquetta’s granddaughter and being crowned King Henry VII of England. Yet another of Melusine’s descendants would be made queen of England and the founding mother of England’s famed Tudor dynasty.

Outro
If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to Enchanted wherever you listen. This episode was produced by me with original music by Purple Planet. You can find them at purple dash planet dot com. If you want to learn more about Melusine, be sure to check out the sources link in the show notes. Special thanks to Enchanted’s Patreon patrons for supporting the production of this and every episode. If you want to support Enchanted, please visit patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. If you’re looking for a way to support the show that won’t cost you anything, you can always give Enchanted: The History of Magic & Witchcraft a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Audible, or wherever you listen and recommend it to your friends. You can get in touch with me via email at enchantedpodcast at gmail dot com or follow on Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr at enchantedpodcast. As always, for more information and special features, visit enchantedpodcast dot net. I’m Corinne Wieben. Thank you for listening and stay enchanted.