vidauri
Registered User
(4/8/03 5:18 pm)
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melusina
I have longed to begin a thread on Byatt's exploration of fairytales. However, most of the themes in her work treads on such complex and mature topic matter that I hesitate to begin. The powerful tale of Melusina, woman with a serpant's tale who emblemizes the feminine creative spirit in "Posession" keeps coming to mind.
Most of you must know more about the origins of Melusina than I. I thought that it was French, but it seems to have certain Germanic ties as well. How old is the tale, does anyone know?
There seem to be similarities to some other famous "dragon ladies" most notably the Asian tale of Lin Chou. Serpents, the earthly cousins of dragons, are often depicted as dangerous and violent creatures in fairytale and myth, but they also in their most creative state represent kundalini energy. I think there was an earlier post that mentioned the serpent of the Bible having been depicted in Christian Medieval paintings as having the head of the disenfranchized Lilith.
ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/...ePics.html
Any thoughts on dragons in their more passionate and creative incarnations?
Postscript - You may know this one. Here is a lovely color drawing
of Mellony from "Dragonsong", which is a universal favorite.
I wish Disney would cover it.
www.mtbca.com/dragonsong.html
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