From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In European mythology, the Melusine or Melusina is represented as a mermaid with two tails. Unlike the marine mermaid, the melusine is a spirit of fresh waters, in sacred springs and rivers. She figures as a heraldic charge, above all in German and Scandinavian coats-of-arms, where she supports one scaly tail in each arm. She may appear crowned.
The melusine myths are connected with the northern, most Celtic areas of Gaul and the Low Countries. When Count Siegfried of the Ardennes bought the feudal rights to Luxembourg in 963 CE, his name became connected with the local melusine.
The melusine is one of the pre-Christian water-faeries who were sometimes responsible for changelings. The "Lady of the Lake," who spirited away the infant Lancelot and raised the child, was such a water nymph.
For other European water sprites dangerous to humans, especially men, see Lorelei, Nixie.
"Melusina" would seem to be an uneasy name for a girl-child in these areas, but the Duchess of Kendal, George I of England's German mistress, was christened Ehrengard Melusina von der Schulenburg in 1667.
External link
Reference
Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox, Melusine of Lusignan: foundling fiction in late medieval France, A volume of essays that examine the monumental French prose narrative, the Roman de Melusine (1393), which was written by Jean d'Arras for Jean, Duc de Berry, the great patron of the 'Tres Riches Heures'. The Roman traces the powerful medieval dynasty of Lusignan from its founding in the city by the legendary Melusine, an enigmatic shape-shifting faery figure, through its glorious rise in Europe and in the Crusader kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranean (see Guy of Lusignan, King of Cyprus), weaving together history and fiction, with elements of myth, folklore, and popular traditions fused with epic, Crusader narrative, knightly romance, and Christian doctrine, all to glorify and uphold the proprietary claims to Lusignan of the work's illustrious patron.
