Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/203

 THE ROMANCE OF M^LUSINE.

{Read at Meeting, June iSt/i, 191 3.)

The tale of iMelusine, the mysterious wife of Ra}-mond, Count of Lusignan, belongs to a cycle of folk-tales the interest of which is imperishable. Its earliest mention is b\' Gervase of Tilbury, favourite of the Emperor Otho IV. and Marshal of the Kingdom of Aries. It is found among other stories in his book entitled Otia Imperialia, a col- lection, (like the Dc Nngis Cnrialinni of his contemporary, Walter Map), of speculations, folk-tales, and superstitions current in his time. Nearly two centuries later, Jehan d'Arras, a courtier of the Duke of Bar, worked it up into a political romance in honour of his patron and for the amusement of his patron's duchess, Marie, sister of Charles V., King of France. This romance has been made the subject of an elaborate study by M. Jules Baudot in the first volume of a work on Les Princesses Yolande et les Dues de Bar de la Famille des Valois (Paris : Alphonse Picard et fils, 1900). M. Baudot has minutely investigated the circumstances in which it was written and the political references it contains. The result of his researches is to show that Jehan d'Arras began the composition on the 20th- November (St. Clement's Day), 1387, and finished it on Thursday, the 7th August, 1393. I do not propose to follow the commentator in his ingenious identifications of many of the characters and incidents of the story, interesting though they are. Their importance is chiefly due to the light they may throw on the history of the ducal