There are many versions of the story of Melusine, and indeed, over time an entire academic community has grown around the story and its history. The most famous version is by Frenchman Jean D’Arras, written around 1392-94[1] as one of a series of “spinning tales,” to be told to ladies to amuse them while at their spinning. In most versions of the Melusine stories, she sews as she weeps over her fate, but in at least one version, she knits.
In this archetypal tale, Melusine, a fairy, meets and falls in love with the human prince Siegfroid (Rainmondin in one famous version of the tale), and weds him with the proviso that he agree not to seek her out on Saturdays, as she must spend this day locked in her quarters by this punishment of her mother’s. He agrees to this condition and they marry.
The story goes that the night that Siegfroid and Melusine were married, she created the castle on top with her fairy magic and insisted that they live nowhere but in that castle on the cliff.
When the children were mostly grown and life was comfortable, Melusine was on her way to attaining a mortal life. At this time, Siegfroid entertained a cousin who questioned his host about what his wife could possibly be doing on her Sabbath days. The query wakes a curiosity in the husband’s heart and the seed that has been planted grows: if she has nothing to hide, why, then, does she lock herself away on that one day of the week and keep it secret from him?
The patience that he had so long mastered ebbs and finally, one Saturday he enters her chambers. His wife Melusine, her legs fused into a fish tail, swims in a basin of water, a golden key in her mouth. In that instant, she loses her chance at living the span of a mortal. The rock on which the fortress was built opens up and she disappears.
Every seven years, Melusine is said to appear again from inside the rock, alternately in the guise of a fearsome monster or a beautiful young woman. During the intervening six years, in her hiding place within the stone cliff, she knits a chemise of linen, taking one stitch each year. If she were to ever complete this garment, the rock would crack and the fortress would turn to rubble. The mortal man who takes the golden key from her mouth can free her forever from this fate.
In a famous illustration from the Très Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, Melusine is discovered by her husband. In another, she appears in her dragon form, hovering over the castle to protect it from harm.
The Luxembourg of the Melusine myth forms part of a region known more for its weaving and bobbin lace work than for its knitting in the first century of the modern era, yet one version of the myth claims the story for knitters.
At the time of the real Siegroid’s[2] lifespan, (circa 922 – 998 Common Era), a simple linen or cotton chemise was the basic garment for both men and woman. A chemise could be an undergarment, a smock that worn by day, perhaps with an apron over it, or as a nightshirt.[6]
Chemise pattern to come
Sources:
The distaff gospels : a first modern English edition of Les eÌvangiles des quenouilles / translated and edited by Madeleine Jeay and Kathleen Garay. Library of Congress: PQ1561.E93 E5 2006
The Gospelles of Dystaves. A more modern edition (Collection Jannet) had a preface by witty and cynical tale-teller Anatole France.[3]
Cet ouvrage anonyme de la fin du XVe siècle, met en scène de vieilles femmes qui bavardent au cours des longues veillées d’hiver. Il mentionne maintes recettes, plus ou moins magiques, au total environ deux cent trente croyances populaires répandues[4]
D’Arras, Jean. Melusine. Edited by A.K. Donald. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Tribner & Co., 1895.Published for the Early English Text Society, Extra Series 68. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1975. Referenced in: http://www.pantheon.org/areas/folklore/folktales/articles/pressyne.html
Le Noble Hystoire de Lusignan (“The Noble History of the Lusignans”),
Jean_d’Arras with Antoine du Val and Fouquart de Cambrai – a collection of stories entitled L’Évangile des quenouilles (“The spinners’ gospel”).[5] The frame story is that these are the narratives told a group of ladies at their spinning, who relate the current theories on a great variety of subjects. The work dates from the middle of the 15th century and is of considerable value for the light it throws on medieval manners, and for its echoes of folklore, sometimes deeply buried under layers of Christianity.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_d’Arras
[2] Siegfroid van Luxembourg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_of_Luxembourg
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_d’Arras
[4] http://renaissance.mrugala.net/Sorcellerie/Sorcier%20au%20Moyen%20Age.htm#_Toc79468994
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_d’Arras
[6] Floating Blah Blah