essible beauty." [87]
One of them advanced to meet Raymond, and according to all mythological
precedent, they were betrothed before daybreak. In due time the
fountain-nymph [88] became Countess de la Foret, but her husband was
given to understand that all her Saturdays would be passed in strictest
seclusion, upon which he must never dare to intrude, under penalty of
losing her forever. For many years all went well, save that the fair
Melusina's children were, without exception, misshapen or disfigured.
But after a while this strange weekly seclusion got bruited about all
over the neighbourhood, and people shook their heads and looked grave
about it. So many gossiping tales came to the Count's ears, that he
began to grow anxious and suspicious, and at last he determined to know
the worst. He went one Saturday to Melusina's private apartments, and
going through one empty room after another, at last came to a locked
door which opened into a bath; looking through a keyhole, there he
saw the Countess transformed from the waist downwards into a fish,
disporting herself like a mermaid in the water. Of course he could not
keep the secret, but when some time afterwards they quarrelled, must
needs address her as "a vile serpent, contaminator of his honourable
race." So she disappeared through the window, but ever afterward hovered
about her husband's castle of Lusignan, like a Banshee, whenever one of
its lords was about to die.

The well-known story of Undine is similar to that of Melusina, save that
the naiad's desire to obtain a human soul is a conception foreign to
the spirit of the myth, and marks the degradation which Christianity had
inflicted upon the denizens of fairy-land. In one of Dasent's tales the
water-maiden is replaced by a kind of werewolf. A white bear marries a
young girl, but assumes the human shape at night. She is never to look
upon him in his human shape, but how could a young bride be expected
to obey such an injunction as that? She lights a candle while he is
sleeping, and discovers the handsomest prince in the world; unluckily
she drops tallow on his shirt, and that tells the story. But she is more
fortunate than poor Raymond, for after a tiresome journey to the "land
east of the sun and west of the moon," and an arduous washing-match
with a parcel of ugly Trolls, she washes out the spots, and ends her
husband's enchantment. [89]

In the majority of these legends, however, the Apsaras, or cloud-maiden,