Dragon-lines and Queen Melusine

 Magical Village of Vence, South of France

The land of France is a wondrous tapestry of layered history. Where the great cathedrals stand today were once the sacred sites of the ancient tribe of the Gauls or temples from Roman times. The Gauls and the Romans understood the natural  earth currents, known as the Ley-Lines or lignes telluric in French. Feng Shui understands the importance of these magnetic earth currents for the placement in Sacred Architecture.

The Ley-Lines are found many times in rock ridges. If one looks closely into the face of these rocks one can begin to see the bodies of dragons. In Feng Shui this is called the Green Dragon Energy. The south of France has many examples of this: many villages are built beneath the power of the dragon. This is why there are so many stories of dragons in medieval folktales.

In China these types of ridges are called Lung-mei, Dragon Lines. They are invisible subtle electric currents of energy that flow through the landscape. They create fertility for the Earth. There are always two main dragon lines: one is the yin line, representing the female polarity and the other the yang line, representing the male polarity. The male dragon line will be found in high, steep craggy ridges while the female line will be in softer areas in the landscape. But in both lines, if you look closely, you will see the body and shape of dragons.

Scales of a dragon-line St Geroge's Point, California

The understanding of dragon lines was not only used in China. Other ancient cultures were also are aware of them, such as in the British Isles, Australia, and the countries of Europe. The powerful magnetism experienced from these ley-lines caused the creation of many ancient roads, temples, standing stones and burial mounds. 

The wildlife of the area also used such lines as their walking paths. Later, they were used for human foot traffic. Then the great road builders, the Romans, used the Ley-Lines to build their roads over the ley-lines.

The Gauls called the land between the main ley-lines the Wouivre. Wouivre means a snake that glides through the landscape. This earth serpent energy can also be connected to underground water currents or veins of gold, copper or silver. Sometimes it is also connected with different ridges in the landscape that have been pushed up by the magna deep in the earth. When this underground serpent energy surfaces, the land is fruitful. This ley-line power of the land was also used for initiations such as the Labyrinth of the Cathedral of Chartres. Walking the Labyrinth of Chartres is an excellent example of how this serpent energy coils and rises from the center of the maze into the tower steeples of the church.

Mythology expresses the secrets of the Wouivre Currents when it portraits creatures such as Queen Melusine of the European folktales or the Naga beings of India. These mythical beings are half serpent and half women or are pictured as flying dragons and singing sirens.

Queen Melusine in a church near Vence, France

When I was in Vence, a small village at the foothills of the French Alps, I spied a dragon-shaped mound curled up on a near-by hill. As I walked and explored the streets of the village, I discovered it had many fresh spring water fountains scattered throughout the town. I visited an old local church that had been turned into an art gallery. I discovered an image of a green dragon growing as algae on the outer wall of the building. Plant algae that had grown from the old foundations of this chapel naturally formed this dragon. The fountains, the dragon hill and the algae dragon were all the clues that help me understand that Vence was built on a Wouivres network.

I took a walk into a cobblestone plaza and found a Metaphysical Shop. When I walked through the door I found a magical place full of flying fairies, crystals, and a beautiful blond woman behind the counter. The shopkeepers name was Valérie. I began to tell her about the dragon I had seen in the village. She then began chatting away with a small group of women speaking very rapidly in French. She began to tell me that several of the women had experiences of Les Fey, the fairies, in the local area. They called one of the fairies La Reine Melusine. This fairy was half woman and half serpent. Sometimes she would also be seen with wings.

 My ears perked up as the shopkeeper slowly began to translate the women’s experiences. One reason for my interest was that I had my own experiences with beings such as the Fey Melusine but I call them the Naga Beings. The nagas are the rulers of the waterways and are sacred in India, Tibet and Bali. In fact, many other cultures all around the world have legends about nagas

The Story of Melusine is a European legend that came from what they call the Spinning Yarn Tales. These are stories that the old wives would tell when they were spinning and weaving together. Jean de Berry brother of King Charles writes the romance of Melusine, the translation of the tale is in the link below. The Story of Melusine tells about a noble man, Raymond of Poitou, who  meet a beautiful woman while he was on a hunt in the forests of France. Raymond of Poitou is from the lineage of the House of Lusignan.

Raymond became enchanted by Melusine's beauty and married her. But she placed one condition before they walked down the altar: that he was to never see her on the day of Saturday. He made his vow and they lived for a while happily. They had ten sons. But as fate happened, one day he made the mistake of going into her chamber on Saturday to see her bathing. There was Queen Melusine in all her glory in the bathtub complete with the long tail of a serpent. This of course was a bit of a surprise to the king. But before he could even come out of his shock, Melusine quickly took flight, never to return again as his wife. But some say they could hear her wailing on some nights mourning's the loss of her children as she flew around the castle's turrets.  Melusine sometimes shows up in the cathedrals of Europe in the stone carvings on pillars. She also has been Christianized as Sainte Venice. This saint is found with serpents entwined around her feet. The Catholic Church adopted many of the pagan gods and goddess, giving them the veil of sainthood. This of course made it easier for the pagans to adopt the new religion if they still had their old gods to pray too.

                                                             

My own spinning yarn now has become to cross cultures and to weave together the fabric of history that has been torn. I would like to try to repair some of the lost threads of dragon Ley-Lines and the subtler Wouivre currents. 

The Melusine fairies were keepers of the waterways just as the Naga beings of India. These spirits were often feared, because they could bring floods, diseases from the pollution of water; and they were known to be the rulers of earthquakes. 

In olden days in Asia, people thought  water pollution was caused by the nagas, bringing sickness such as cancer, leprosy or other diseases. However, it is more likely that human stupidity and lack of sanitation, rather than the spirits of the nagas, caused the pollution of water. 

The Buddha had great respect for these beings since they sheltered him when he was meditating. According to legend, Muchalinda, the King of the Nagas, rose up from the earth in the form of a 7-headed cobra. He coiled himself around the Buddha and stretched his hoods out to form an umbrella over the Buddha's head to shelter him from the rains.

It is said in Tibet that the Buddha was taught in the Naga realm before he came into his last human incarnation. It is also said that he left certain Sacred Texts with the Nagas. 

Today in some eastern countries offerings are given to these beings to protect the villages from snakes, diseases and earthquakes and bring fertility to the land. If you consider the state our water is in on this planet, it might not be a bad idea to be making such offerings. The stories of flying dragons, serpentine women with wings, represent the Ancient Spirit of the Wouivre rising from the depths of the Earth and spiraling upward. The steeple of the cathedrals and also the castle turrets that were built on these great power spots help channel these Earth Currents towards heaven. This may be the real reason for Melusine flying around the old castle turrets: she is calling out to her children that have been alienated by the medieval Church and consequently lost their connection with the Mother Earth Goddess. Valérie then advised me to visit a church in the neighboring town of St Paul de Vence. I thanked her for her help and went along my way.

copy rite Raylene Abbott from the book "A Mystic's Journey to the Sacred Sites of France. 

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The 12th Century Tale of Melusine