Dr Lydia Zeldenrust talks about Mélusine on BBC Radio 3
Posted on 24 January 2022
Dr Zeldenrust is the author of The Mélusine Romance in Medieval Europe, which examines how this popular late fourteenth-century romance became an early European bestseller. The story tells of a beautiful young woman, the progeny of the union between a king and a fairy, who is condemned to spend every Saturday with her body below the waist transformed into the tail of serpent. She agrees to marry only on the condition that her husband should never seek to see her on that day every week. The Free Thinking episode explores the emergence of this hybrid mermaid-woman, her historical significance, and the legacy of the medieval myth of Mélusine. The episode is also available for download via the Arts and Ideas podcast.