Melusine
Melusina
The water-woman with a serpent’s tail.
Melusine: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In the French legend Melusine marries Raymondin on condition that he never see her on a Saturday; when he spies, he finds her a serpent from the waist down, and she flies away. Jung wrote of her in his essay on Paracelsus, who made her a spirit of the waters, and read her as an anima figure: the soul that belongs half to the unconscious and cannot be possessed by prying.
Melusine: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Jean d’Arras’s Romance of Melusine (1393), the undines of Paracelsus, the mermaid, Fouqué’s Undine (1811), Andersen’s Little Mermaid.
From the Sources
In Baring-Gould's retelling of the tale, Melusina is seen in the water with her lower extremities changed into the tail of a monstrous fish or serpent.
“…beheld her in the water, her lower extremities changed into the tail of a monstrous fish or serpent.”
S. Baring-Gould, M.A., Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Chapter XIX, 'Melusina', p. 477. New Edition; London: Rivingtons, 1877 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Baring-Gould quotes Brantôme's report of what was told at Lusignan: that Melusina was seen bathing, half a beautiful lady and half a snake, or on the great tower in a beautiful form and as a snake.
“…bathing, half her body being that of a very beautiful lady, the other half ending in a snake; others, that she used to appear a-top of the great tower in a very beautiful form, and as a snake.”
S. Baring-Gould, M.A., Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, Chapter XIX, 'Melusina', p. 480, quoting Brantôme. New Edition; London: Rivingtons, 1877 (Internet Archive OCR text). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon” (1942), CW 13
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among Monsters and Hybrids
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Melusine.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/melusine.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Maiden: The girl carried below and returned. The Mandala: The circle with a centre, a picture of wholeness. Mercury: The quicksilver spirit, the elusive heart of the work. Metamorphosis: Changed into another form, and changed back.