What piqued my interest at a first glance was the description of Melusina’s ability to travel between all planes of existence that I can think of. She can slither and exist in the horizontal plane, she can swim, she can exist on the ground, and she can fly. In my eyes, this gives her some form of omnipotence that seems significant to the story.

As I continued to read the version of the story, I realized that maybe she does have some sort of all-powerfulness. With the line, “and though people may not perceive me in the air, yet they will see me by the Fountain of Thirst” (Keightley 85) it is suggested that Melusina will always have some presence and influence over the castle.

In many of these stories, the knowledge or power possessed by female characters seems somewhat contrary to the culture at the time and place of the story. Why is it that the mermaids are powerful characters when the stories are being written and re-written in times of intense female degradation? I wonder if maybe the power that is alluded to is the power of female sexuality. This power that women have is displayed appears similar to what was depicted in Macbeth by Lady Macbeth. I’m not sure if that is a message of this particular story, but I imagine that many of the texts interpreted by the Catholic church were manipulated to paint women in a way that warns men of there sexuality.

On the other hand, I’m excited to open this up in class because I sense there are many things that went entirely over my head. The dialect from the time is somewhat confusing to me. The change over time of these stories is interesting and I would like to see a side-by-side of the progression of a story over the years. It would be cool to see the different biases that a particular interpreter might have compared to others depending on the time frame and cultural norms at the time.