Stone Tablet - levesinet

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Before the story continues, it is time to shed some light on Melusine's background. In Ireland, there is a forgotten crypt, the tomb of Melusine's mother, Pressyne. On her sarcophagus, Pressyne is holding a stone tablet that records the family history. Like Melusine, her mother was not an ordinary human being. * * * One day, Elynas, the King of Albion, met a beautiful fairy by a fountain. So lovely was the fairy, who was called Pressyne, that the King fell in love with her and eventually, made her his wife. In time, Pressyne grew heavy with child. During her pregnancy, she made one condition to which King Elynas had to agree that he would not see her while she was in labour. However, in his excitement when he heard that she was giving birth to triplets, he rushed into the birthing chamber to see his new daughters, ignoring the taboo. As a result, a very unhappy Pressyne had to leave the kingdom forever, taking her three daughters with her to the lost Isle of Avalon. King Elynas mourned the loss of his family for seven years; his son, Nathas, by his first wife, became the king. The three girls, Melusine, Melior, and Palatyne grew up in Avalon. On their fifteenth birthday, the eldest, Melusine, asked why they had been taken to Avalon. Upon hearing how their father had broken his word, forcing them to leave the kingdom, Melusine sought revenge. Together with her sisters, Melusine captured Elynas and locked him, with his riches, in a mountain. Pressyne became enraged when she learnt what the girls had done to their father, and punished each of them for their disrespect. Melusine was condemned to take the form of a serpent from the waist down every Saturday. If she found a husband who would agree to never see her on Saturday, she would remain a human woman. But if her husband saw her on a Saturday, she would revert to the serpent form until Judgment Day. Melior had to keep a sparrow hawk in a castle in Armenia until she was rescued, and Palatyne was imprisoned with her father’s treasure on a mountaintop in Arragon. * * * Alas! history has a cruel way of repeating itself. Only God knows what kind of supernatural element there was in Melusine's bloodline. Nonetheless, there are representatives of the House of Lusignan living this day. Elizabeth Woodville, wife to Edward IV of England, was a descendant. Her mother was reported to be a witch that could call up storms. As for the deformed children, Martin Luther, who lived in the late Middle Ages and was familiar with a modified version of this story, writes: "So far as incubi and succubi are concerned, I do not deny, but believe, that the devil may happen to be either a succubus or an incubus; for I have heard many relate their very own experiences. Augustine, too, declares that he heard the same sort of story from trustworthy people whom he felt compelled to believe. It delights Satan if he can delude us by taking on the appearance either of a young man or of a woman. But that anything can be born from the union of a devil and a human being is simply untrue. Such an assertion is sometimes made about hideous infants that resemble demons very much. I have seen some of these. But I am convinced either that these were deformed, but not begotten, by the devil, or that they are actual devils with flesh that they have either counterfeited or stolen from somewhere else. If with God’s permission the devil can take possession of an entire human being and change his disposition, what would be so remarkable about his misshaping the body and bringing about the birth of either blind or crippled children?" (LW 2:11)