The Legend of Melusine

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Melusine bathing
Melusine (also known as Melusina) is a faerie of European Folklore. Traditionally, the faerie is represented with a woman's body on land and when in water, a woman's torso and a fish and occasionally a serpent's tail. This is one of the many versions of the myth that was based around the story by Jean d' Arras. 

One day a noble knight- Count Siegfried was riding around the Luxembourg valleys when he heard a woman's beautiful singing. As he rode towards the enchanting voice, he saw a beautiful woman who turned out to be the water nixie Melusine. Count Siegfried fell in love with this mythical being and asked for her hand in marriage. She accepted,
as he was a handsome man, on the condition that each Saturday, she was allowed to retire to her chambers and he was not to pry on her. He agreed.

The count and the nixie married and she provided her husband with seven healthy children. However rumours arose around the count's friends about what Melusine got up to every Saturday. The temptation in the count built up and one day he peeked in on his wife. He saw Melusine in a bath but instead of legs, she had a large fish/ snake tail. This disturbed the peeping Tom so much that he let out a scream. As soon as the faerie heard her husband, she disappeared after several years of marriage. Legend has it that she returned each night to rock her youngest baby to sleep. 

During the late Medieval era Jacquetta of Luxembourg was tried for witchcraft because the Jacquetta was from the royal house of Luxembourg, which was supposedly Melusine's descendants, and all Melusine's female descendants were supposed to have inherited her magical powers.         

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