http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/tfm/tfm178.htm for Melusine (- aka Melusina, perhaps she became la Magdelina, a christian fairy... few similarities, except a woman alone, living in caves by springs. Wonder worker. Though poor old MM doesnt get to perform many wonders, I don't think -suffer, baby)
Elsewhere someone has written that the distinction between the immortality of fairy's of the North and of the South (d'Oil and d'Oc) is one of duration ; a bright spot for the morning:)
Decided that rather than reiterating the Melusine drawing of yesterday I would look for more info. Like the idea of Languedoc faeries. Having had breakfast in front of the computer and ploughed through sites, remembered how I loved fairy stories as a girl - all little girls of my epoch were fed them. More encoded behaviour, tainted by christian mores.
Living in the Languedoc perhaps makes the local ones more *real*, accessible. The stories of the Drac sending precious objects downriver so that the unwary fell in trying to reach them - look no further than the grail hunters hereabouts for signs of people having fallen into another dimension whilst reaching out :)
Still lots of superstition (as it is now called) here. Petes neighbour called him in because he had hung the christmas star in his window the wrong way up, two prongs up, which is a devil-attractor. When the local anti-OGM mob held a mock funeral procession in the market, the old were very upset that they had 'let death into the marketplace'; so much so that I never wear my lovely jumper with the skull and cross bones knitted in when I'm unsure of who will see me. The debate about which way up to hang the horseshoe continues to rage.
Square-eyed now. Think I'II put this lot out of mind and have a go at the yellow king.
Later; didn't. Got caught by books on my way up to the studio.
Marina Warner No Go the Bogey Man;Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock (Chatto and Windus: London,1998)
Kathleen Raglan, Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters; Heroines in Folktales from Around the World (W.W.Norton: NY,1998)
Edward Lucie-Smith, Symbolist Art (Thames and Hudson,:London,1972)
Warner points out how some female monsters are beyond redemption and I'd put Melusine in this category, since she still flies around howling. Does this affect anything?
Raglan has a complete compendium but NOTHING from France! Guess she doesn't read French cos the tales exist -
E.L-S quotes a critic called Victor Brombert writing on Flauberts' Salammbo; talks of the 'mobilization of life and animation of the inanimate' and ' as a result of this double tendancy.... the distinction between the organic and inorganic vanishes and BEING and BECOMING tend to merge' (p63)
Quotes Gustave Moreau;
One must only love,
dream a little,
and refuse to be satisfied, under pretext of simplicity,
where a work of the imagination is concerned,
with a simple boring ba-bo-boo
l like the Nabis. Didn't realise they were a *real* group, assumed it was a critics' appellation.
Eyes very hurty. Must rest them. At least this disability prevents scholarship, the curse of the arty classes-
dream a little,
and refuse to be satisfied, under pretext of simplicity,
where a work of the imagination is concerned,
with a simple boring ba-bo-boo
l like the Nabis. Didn't realise they were a *real* group, assumed it was a critics' appellation.
Eyes very hurty. Must rest them. At least this disability prevents scholarship, the curse of the arty classes-
Later still; ignored the yellow king and tucked into Hope. Its useless. Tomorrow will abandon unless something crops up before then. Fear the Melusine drawing above is also useless. Not uncheerful though.
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