Below: Melusina, oil on linen, 1998, 80x36
in.
Scroll down to read more about the legendary character
MELUSINA
© Copyright 1998 by Sheryl Humphrey. All rights
reserved.
WHO WAS MELUSINA?
"A fairy occurring in legends, sometimes
in the form of a siren. Jean d'Arras dealt specifically with this
fabulous being in La Noble Hystoire de Luzignen (1393).
When a great disaster was about to befall she would give voice
to a scream thrice repeated. 'Melusina it was who caused mysterious
buildings to be set up in a single night by swarms of workers
who would disappear without trace once the work had been completed.
When she marries, all her children have some physical abnormality;
in the same way, her magic buildings all have some defect, like
those bridges of the devil which always have one stone missing.'
(Henri Dontenville, La Mythologie Française, 1948.)
Melusina seems to be the archetype of intuitive genius, in so
far as intuition is prophetic, constructive and wondrous, and
yet at the same time is infirm and malign."
-- from J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, Barnes
& Noble edition, 1995