Jean d'Arras, perhaps the same, wrote at the request of
John, duke of Berry, as he says in his introduction, a long prose romance variously called the
Roman de Mélusine or the
Chronique de Melusine part of
Le Noble Hystoire de Lusignan ("The Noble History of the Lusignans"), in 1392-94. He dedicated the work to
Marie of Valois, Duchess of Bar and expressed the hope that it would aid in the political education of her children. Leaning on perhaps mostly oral tradition surrounding the originally Celtic region of Poitou, it is one of the first literary versions of the tale of
Melusine, a
fairy cursed by her fairy mother to become a hybrid woman/serpent every Saturday. If she married a mortal man who remained faithful to her and obeyed her request never to seek her out on that day, she would gain the status of a mortal woman and enjoy salvation as a Christian. She guided the spectacular rise and subsequent fall of the
House of Lusignan after she met the nobleman Rainmondin by a fountain in the forest, who married her and fathered ten sons on her whose exploits in the
Crusades brought them fame, despite the fact that most of them carried some form of physical blemish. Raimondin remains faithful to his promise until he is persuaded to believe that her hiding every Saturday is an excuse for her to entertain a lover, and he spies on her in her bath. He doesn't betray her secret until one of their most deformed sons, Geoffrey Big-Tooth, burns down the monastery his brother Fromont has retired to. In despair, Raimondin curses her publicly for her demonic nature that has infected their sons, and she turns into a dragon and flies away, wailing. ==References==