The Tale of Melusine II Lore Books

Description

The second part of the Luxembourg legend of the fairy Melusine.

Text

The Tale of Melusine
Part Two

Knight Raymondin and Melusine lived happily and had many children together, all of whom were marked by the mark of the family, though all became brave knights and wise rulers. In time, though, Raymondin began to be consumed by curiosity as to what his wife was doing alone in her chambers on Saturdays and why only she could be there on that day. So one Saturday he hid and waited for his wife to come to her chambers. With his knife he cut a slit in the door through which he could see inside. And what he spied there horrified him. In the room was a big tub of water in which Melusine reclined, but from the waist down she had the body of a scaly creature – a serpent! Fright gripped his heart and he called out in surprise. At which Melusine realised that her husband had betrayed his promise to her. She was seized by terrible sadness, turned into a dragon and flew out the window. And from that moment Raymondin never saw his wife again…

Until, many, many years later, she appeared to him to tell him he would die in three days time. And so it came to pass, and Raymondin died. From that day forth cursed Melusine secretly guards the lives of all the descendants of her line, and appears to them three days before their death to foretell it.

As was foretold, many glorious princely families descended from the line of Raymondin and Melusine. Among the most renowned, respected and foremost of them is the Luxembourg family, including Wenceslas IV, King of Bohemia, and his brother Sigismund, King of Hungary. That is why the knights of this house often carry in tournaments an ornament in the form of a dragon, and because they themselves have a little dragon’s blood in them, it is not prudent to anger them or enter into conflict with them or disagree with them, because their lineage makes them quick-tempered, quarrelsome and hot-blooded.