Misty Urban

Editors Misty Urban, Deva Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes offer an invigorating international and interdisciplinary examination of the legendary fairy Melusine. Twenty lively and evocative essays reassess this powerful figure’s multiple meanings and illuminate her dynamic resonances across cultures and time.

“It’s true,” the woman said. “I think I’m ready.” She crossed her legs at the ankle. She touched the handles of her heavy shoulder bag and then patted her knee, like she was putting something into place. The light material of her trousers felt smooth and cool beneath her fingers. Like snakeskin.

She sat on the deep wooden porch in the chair her grandfather had made, and she rocked. The evening clouds, dark in their underbellies, clumped and hurried toward the line of beech trees lining the creek. The insects hummed and the birds chittered and the frogs croaked nervously, and once in a while the big garrulous ga-THUMP of the bullfrog belched through the other noise.

I have never understood the point of walking a labyrinth. They've always seemed to me to be sites of danger.