THE WATER WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES: ON THURING VON RINGOLTINGEN'S ADAPTATION OF MELUSINE AND THE BETRAYAL MOTIF

Abstract

Supernatural beings were considered as animals in medieval Europe and for this reason were widely included in both church iconography and literature. This emerged from the idea of a transitive figure that blurred the boundaries between human and animal. Thus, hybrid beings come to the fore both in church descriptions and in literature. In particular, supernatural beings whose upper body is human, lower body is in the form of a snake or fish, and whose habitat is water have been the subject of literature in various contexts. Among these supernatural beings, Melusine, known as a water woman, was developed in various versions in medieval Europe and reached its final schematic features in two French writers, Jean d'Arras and Couldrette, written around the End of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. The basis of melucinic narratives is based on a taboo-bound marriage and the motif of betrayal that follows it. The oldest German version of Melusine is the prose novel by Thüring von Ringoltingen, published in 1474. This study examines the motivations for Ringoltingen's writing of his Melusine adaptation, the points at which he differentiates in the main narrative scheme and the way he portrays the Melusine figure. In addition, this study discusses the two-staged betrayal motif in Ringoltingen's by associating this two-staged motif with the desire of an supernatural being like Melusine to attain an eternal soul.