Document Type : The social history of women in the art and society of Iran and the ancient world(Guest editor: Dr. Esmail Sangari)
Authors
1 Assistant Professor of French Language and literature, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor of History, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
In the fourteenth century, two French novels were published under the name “Melusine”. Melusine was a semi-human-semi-animal creature (snake or fish). She brought wealth and fertility to his human husband, but on the condition that her husband never watches her while bathing. The pact was broken and she was forced to leave her husband and family forever. In Eurasian stories, we come across similar stories, but there are some differences. According to Georges Dumézil, in order to be a melusinian story, it must have these three elements: a human and a fairy meet, there is a requirement or a pact, the pact is broken and the fairy goes away. In Iranian mythology, we encounter such motives. In this article, we tried to compare some Iranian stories with Melusine's story. The stories of Fayez and Perry, and Hassan Basri are among those which clearly have a melusinian pattern. In the case of Siavash, it may not be easy to talk about a melusinian pattern, although the existence of several elements of the story of Melusine can give some clues to recognize an underlying pattern, and these elements can even lead us to find a few missing motifs in the myth of Siavash.
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Extended Abstract
Mélusine and Some Iranian Fairy Tales: A Comparative Study
In the fourteenth century, two French novels appeared in written form under the name “Mélusine”. Mélusine was a semi-human semi-animal creature (snake in some traditions and fish in others). Once married to a human-being, she brought wealth and fertility to his husband, but on the condition that her husband never watches her while taking bathe. But this pact was broken, and she had to leave her husband and family forever. In Eurasian stories, we come across similar patterns. In 1929, Georges Dumézil evoked the “Mélusinan story”. According to him, in order to be a Mélusinian story, there must be these three elements: a human and a fairy meet, there is a requirement or a pact, the pact is broken and the fairy goes away. In Iranian Mythology, we come across such patterns. In this paper, we tried to compare some Iranian stories with the story of Mélusine in order to know if we find the melusinian pattern in theses folktales. We chose the story of Fayez and Perry, Hassan Basri, and the story of Siavash from the Book of the Kings.
Our study will be based on comparative mythology. As we said, Georges Dumézil was a pioneer in this field, and he wrote Indo-European Gods on this subject. Later, Micea Eliade and Philippe Walter continued these studies. We can talk about the double circulation of the myths which means that we must interpret myths from a syntagmatic and pragmatic point of view. Each element of a mythical syntagme can be referred to a diachronic paradigm for the myth uses combinatory variants during a long period of time. For example, in Mélusinian stories the fairy wife is not always a lady-snake, but sometimes a ladybird or even et ladyfish. But in all the stories the animal-lady imposes a pact to his future husband. So the important factors to understand a myth are time, space and knowledge about the history of religions.
The main character of this stories is Mélusine or a fairy who is connected to water. She meets a man who falls in love with her, and they get married after a promise or pact. The fairy gives birth to children, but once the pact is broken the fairy goes back to the Other World where she belongs to. Raymondin (from Lusignan) meets Mélusine in a forest near a water source. Raymondin kills accidentally his uncle while hunting. Mélusine gives him 2 rings and promises to bring him wealth and fortune but on the condition that he never watches her Saturday in her bath. Raymondin becomes riche. They have 10 children 8 of which have a deformity. The husband can’t help watching her wife in the bath and he sees that she has a snake tail (or in other traditions a fish tail). Mélusine leave the castle forever.
Mélusine belongs to the Other World. This world was mainly a sea world during the Middle Ages. Sometimes it’s an island where no human being can go. For Medieval authors, unconsciously, Mélusine is a combination of woman and fish for she likes to take her bath while she is an animal. On the other hand, she is usually connected to water. For instance, Raymondin meets her for the first time near a water source.
In Iranian fairytales, perry has similar functions. The etymology of the word shows that, for it means “fertile” or “birth giver”. Most of the time, perrys get married to human beings a have children. In Iranian traditions, because of the virtue a moral values preconized by the Zoroastrian religion, perry was considered as devilish creature but she continued to give fortune and descendance. Kings and heroes usually fall in love with these fairies and have children, they have rarely a good destiny. At the origin perry was a goddess of water and rain, so she has the same connection as Mélusine with water.
In this paper, we followed the mythical chain of Mélusinian stories in several Iranian fairy tales. In the story of Hassan Basry (On Thousand and One Nights) falls in love with a fairy while she was taking bathe in a lake. But he breaks the pact even before getting married to her. He had promised to fairies that he wouldn’t open a door in the castle while they go away. But he didn’t keep his promise so that he is in love with the bird-woman who take off her bird clothes in order to swim in the lake. The only solution is to steal her cloths and that’s what he does. They get married, have two boys, but the fairy run away with his children and leave her address for her husband: “Vagh” Islands where no human beings can go.
In The Book of Kings, we can see changes in mythical elements. Beautiful women as substituted fairys. We suppose that Siavash’mother made a pact to his father Kavus and the pact was broken. She was a beautiful maid that King Kavus met in the forest and took her as his wife. But after giving birth to Siavash the author says nothing about her as if she has disappeared. There is no direct allusion to a pact, but we suppose that there is an implicit one for in ancient Iran making pact was very important and sacred.
There are several common points in the structure and different elements of these traditions. Studying and comparing these stories we can find their common foundation. We can also understand better ideals, relations and limits in a society. In this case woman’s place in the hierarchy of the family and her role as source of fortune and wealth is interesting.
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