Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth. Ed. Misty Urban, Deva E. Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes. Explorations in Medieval Culture, 4. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017, pp. xiv, 437, 6 color, 1 b/w ill.

Abstract

In the careful and informative preface to this collection, the essays’ editors explain that the medieval Melusine is part of a large global family of women with magical power—hybrid figures that include the sirens and neriads of classical mythology, but also the snake women and bird women of Middle Eastern and East Asian myth. Their humanity explains their irresistible beauty, while their otherness accounts for the dangers they pose.