Robert Sepehr: Melusine and the Royal Houses of Europe

[Music] have you ever looked at the Starbucks logo and wondered who or what that mythological creature was on it some say she's a mermaid some say she's a siren and others a seaman in actuality the beautiful maiden that is shown with the crown upon her head and two mermaid like tails is none other than Melusine an ancient medieval times the tale of mellow scene or sometimes Melusina is spoken in reference to a water fairy who was stricken with the condition of being half woman and serpentine or half fish every Saturday the myths would often begin around spinning wheels meaning that women were gossiping and telling stories while working as long as methylenes husband didn't see her on that one particular day of the week Saturday everything would be fine and normal as with most fairy tales or legends things don't go according to plan mellow scene the daughter of prasena a full-fledged water fairy and of a mortal man King L&S wasn't always a mermaid according to the myth she was stricken with this ailment or condition after her mother found out what mellow scene did to her father King Elena's King L&S had met prasena the water fairy at the fountain of thirst and fell madly in love with her at first sight and asked for her hand in marriage prasena agreed to marry the king under the condition that he never entered into her chambers during or just after child's birth shortly after the marriage she became pregnant with triplets and soon thereafter gave birth to three daughters melusine Mellie or and plant ena King Elena says curiosity got the best of them after his elder son from a previous marriage insisted that he go in and see his wife and new babies prasena was so overcome with sadness because her King had broken his promise that she takes the babies and runs away off to a hidden island when the daughters are teenagers prasena takes the girls to look upon their father's realm she tells the girls about the promised her father broke and mellow scene decides to seek revenge against her father she convinces her two other sisters to help her kidnap their father and imprison him inside of a mountain once Prince EA finds out about this she becomes very upset and punishes Melusine by telling her that she will become a half fish or serpent creature every Saturday for the rest of her life mellow scene goes on living in the forest until one day she stumbles across account or in some versions a Duke who had been very distressed due accidentally killing his uncle during a hunt he was unsure what to do but melusine gave him advice on how to go about explaining the accidental death he caused of his uncle to his family and further promised him that she would help him obtain riches wealth and power to which he could never imagine this helped ease his grief and he was so pleased with mellow scenes help that he asked her to be his bride she agreed under one condition that he could not see her in her chambers on Saturdays no matter what he agreed to the silly request and they were married at once mellow scene helped him gain power to the kingdom and to build up the prosperous city where mellow scene became the mother of ten children of now a royal lineage she even had the castle built there and ruled over the land graciously and lovingly adored and appreciated by her people it was obvious due to the time span of so many children being born that they had been married for at least 10 years or more when the Duke became pressured by his other family members about mellow scenes odd Saturday activity his curiosity increased when they informed him that she didn't I'd like to attend Mass at their Cathedral and so he started wondering what she may be doing in her chambers by herself and a fit of jealousy thinking that she may also be cheating he peeked through the keyhole in the door to her chambers sees her bathing in a tub appearing very beautiful as usual from the waist up but from the waist down her fish or serpent like body splashed around with a fierce tail he couldn't believe his eyes an accused her of being a false serpent mellow scene is so distraught over the fact that he not only knew of her secret and thus breaking his promise but also that he announced to everyone what she really was some books say that mellow scene then turned into a dragon and flew away while others state that she jumped out of the window in her fish-like state and swam away into the river she was said to visit her children some nights in human form but other stories claim that she was a bad omen and if you saw her flying around that meant an impending death in the land many French Royals dating back to the days of Charlemagne have claimed to have descended from mellow scenes family line or at least dating back to the time when the story took place and were extremely fascinated with the legend for example the plan didn't families angevine lineage and the House of Anjou and vert still claim lineage that date back to the story of mellow scene according to the book the serpent and the Swan the animal bride in full corn literature the name mellow scene was used as an abbreviation of the words mayor des baux Siegen or mother of the Lusignans the house of Lusignan was a Royal House of French origin which at various times ruled several principalities in Europe and Levant including the kingdoms of jerusalem cyprus and armenia from the 12th to the 15th century during the Middle Ages it also had great influence in England and France with some derivations of the name mellow scene paired with greco-roman deities and even Celtic origins and when I say Celtic that includes northwestern France or Brittany where there's a lot of information to interpret here from an astral theological context of fish serpents and Dragons there's also a cultural interpretation regarding bloodlines from the Middle East and Eurasia entering Europe also associated with serpentine imagery that said for this presentation let's examine the story from the perspective of anthropologist dr. Sharona Frederick of the Celtic countries and I don't know but now you do that when I say the Celtic countries part of that includes northwestern France is that clearly so we talk about northwestern France gave an amazing area they are called Brittany over at Dom right and Brittany is part of the Celtic countries and the story that we're going to analyze and take apart in all of its funny tacky like substance maybe you've seen or met Lucy I was like her up calling her in Spanish she is a Celtic legend the kepta culture includes northwestern France and frankly it also includes a lot of northwestern Spain so you'll find the Melia same story which finally comes into English at the very beginning of the early modern period or what you can call the Renaissance in 1500 you'll find the milieu scene story very widespread throughout the Celtic countries that means you'll find the story everywhere in Ireland Britany in northwestern France Galicia in northwestern Spain but you'll also find it all over England because once that translation was made in 1500 from Old French and from old Irish in which the story had also been written into English it became a much-loved if indeed one of the creepiest of all fairy tales so we have the English language value scene in 1500 but actually what is one of the most popular versions of the million scene legend and we're also going to be making it back tonight is the German version because a version came into mid 15th century Germany where the melusine character became so popular that she became an unofficial saint of the Catholic Church in Germany and even more interesting than that following Germany's profound religious schisms in the 16th century when we had the great and very terrible battles between Lutheranism of michalak church both Protestants and Catholics in Germany continued the custom which actually you can still see in rural areas in Bavaria of leaving offerings to Melia Singh who became in a popular sense associated with the poor and the indigent so she goes from being a rather bizarre two-tailed mermaid to being the patron saint store with her to tales of the poor and the indigent she becomes a much-loved figure despite her monstrosity you see here is an image of a cat by the name of Ramon Dean looking at Nellie you seen in her Twilight as she puts herself together looking beautiful for him but unfortunately he has come on the one day that he's not supposed to come and see her which is on a Saturday and we'll see why that is because this Legend welcomes everybody coming in come in sit down this legend has many ramifications to it when I was a child I used to think that there was something vaguely anti-semitic about the legend I hope judeo-spanish background what you call a Sephardic - descendants from the Jews were expelled from Imperial Spain in 1492 and every time I would read Saturday and I think a way to go if that Shabbat in Jewish tradition that's where they have rest why is what a mom Dean prohibited from seeing her on Shabbat and my questions regarding some of the Jewish origins of the legend fused with the Celtic origins of the legend fused with the Germanic origins of the legend so we get a story that imbibes from at least five different cultures okay there are German elements there are Sephardic Jewish from the South of France elements the larger picture is a Celtic matrix from Brittany there are French elements which are not Celtic because France of course has many nationalities in it are you aware of that to be French is also to belong to different groups you can be Catalan French you can come from lang dock and be French there are many different ways to be French so we have elements that come in from Paris from the medieval storytellers of Paris and those elements are we have many Englishmen evil elements and English early modern elements early modern folks think 1492 to the very end of the 18th century that's usually maybe he grew up without being called the Renaissance I grew up with that be called the Renaissance - until historians started realizing that you don't call the time period of religious warfare slavery or Spanish Inquisition of Renaissance the early okay and there are so many elements from Irish and Welsh legends that have come to the story this is the glory of the folkloric tradition okay and when the folkloric tradition was dying out in the 19th century there were two brothers who went around Germany do you know who I'm talking about the Brothers Grimm literally literally collecting what was considered worthless stories thank heavens they did that because thanks to the inspiration from the Brothers Grimm we got lady Gregory of doing the same thing in Ireland we got anything I believe in the same thing among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews we got Andrew Lang doing the same thing all over the world in China and West Africa don't let this tradition by this comes from the oral tradition the source is the story called melusine the siren first written down in the mid 14th century by Jean and French je and das D a R Ras that is the first summation of this story that had been rolling around different cultures and different countries beginning in the Catholic area rolling around and in the area meaning Brittany Ireland and Wales so northwestern France Ireland and Wales in the mid 14th century okay so that's the origin and that is only how we know of this story though later on again the Brothers Grimm will locate a whole bunch of fails about melia seen in rural Germany and then that will also spark interest in what turned out to be the German written versions of the menacing legends that actually go back to the late 15th century okay now does Melia Singh who is a two-tailed mermaid have any basis in fact if she does I'm going to scream and they're going to be rather frightening but I want you to understand that she is viewed as the scion the origin of the royal household of two places the first is Luxembourg the Duchy of Luxembourg are you familiar with what's over a teeny tiny little country in Europe with the vanishing bridge at least that is where this is one of many things that's famous for supposed to have a rinsed it appears only once every seven years of dissolution and if you see that but the entire household of the Duchy of Luxembourg traces its ancestry back to Mellie but she is very much viewed as the founder of that dynasty in the early Middle Ages when I say that tarimov referring the feud is a real character myself now that same house that she was believed to have been the founder of the house of loosing young actually did run that entire island in the period of the of the third and fourth Crusades that's about the 12th or 13th century on the island of Cyprus so lo and behold if any of you go to the island of Cyprus you're going to find that just as in Luxembourg maybe you seen is viewed as a real character and as the founder of these dynasties is this is particularly interesting folks because are you rare the fact usually a woman is not credited with founding a dynasty in Western Europe I generally belongs to men this is how you can you can tell the Celtic origins of the story because clinic society stressed I don't want to think it's completely matriarchal but it's stressed very much percentages of strong winning and of women founders as well as male founders so that's one of the many giveaways regarding the Celtic origins of this northwestern French story now male Useem story in a much more innocent form will also be the origin of house Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid and it does very show of hands how many of you saw other Disney film how many of you ever read Henderson story his story is very tragic his story absolutely rips their guts out it is a tragedy with no happy resolution and Anderson although he toned down the more monstrous parts of the story know you've seen is looking very pretty there we know that when she transforms one day a week she's pretty horrific looking although he tones down the uglier aspects of the story for the sake of the children that he was writing for Anderson had a very great social conscience this magnificent Danish writer of the 19th century and a menacing story interested him because it was for him a model of the difficulties with which different cultural groups cannot come together that's what he was seeing in 19th century Europe I think we can see this unfortunately all over the world so maybe you've seen or The Little Mermaid as he renames becomes the symbol of the outsider right he's willing to do anything to be accepted except you know if you've read the story there's no happy ending if she dies okay which is a little bit of a sign of what would happen when you would do anything to be accepted because cultural diffusion has to go both ways right you have to give him us to get she doesn't get anything so that is the origin of Anderson's story by the way that is not that all my theory Anderson left many letters in which he spoke about his interest in European folklore in general and his rewritings of many of these stories had a lot to do with the social meanings that Anderson found in those stories so menacing plays an important part in historians - customers yes and yes it is and you're going to see that in that interest oh yes and now you that was a dreadful questions asked because now you're going to see now you see literally following you every time you have a lot of and it is a little bit odd to me although I'm sure that Starbucks is being filled let me just say keep sort of Starbucks employers the audience I'm assuming Starbucks made some sort of agreement with the house of Lucy now which still exists by the way the descendants of absolutely said yeah because that is specifically the Starbucks image comes from an earlier fifteenth century would be okay of the kind of ghastly smiling mermaid with two tables so the first time that shows up in Seattle back in 1991 right pipes pipes coffee house I don't know if they had asked for the copyright at that point but that image was not one they invented it was one way and transpose that specific units thank you very much for asking that question anything else please don't feel embarrassed yes [Music] so that's a fantastic question and that question emphasizes the blurring that I was mentioning with Anderson if you read John that losses actual text from the 14th century make no mistake about it that is supposed to be one heck of an ugly frightening serpents now divided into so the stories of melia seen when they become a very front part of Western folklore and the 16th century men go out to the new world where everybody knows I eventually bring these look absolutely my specialty and we'll see what happens - now you see when she gets to the French colonies in the New World the stories of the Nagas which are the kind of serpent sirens from India and also water deities are taken to the new world because the Portuguese who get to the new world have first colonized parts of India remember mas for the Gama gets there first but the Portuguese like their cousins the Spanish have a large new world empire and when the whole thing is taken over by Spain in 1580 all of that folklore merges together and you can go into churches colonial churches in Brazil and see images of the Nagas that look like now you see because Spain was a big country at that point and it had taken over so much of the new world that also was invading French territory no dysmelia scene has a mirror because none you see was supposed to be very beautiful she was the daughter of a water nymph authentic water nymph associated all over with wells and Springs in northwestern France her mother's name was Christina and Hasina fell in love with the king of our beyond anybody know what country album would be okay so we should is translated as Albania that makes the story rather odd if you read that and think it's old man anything whoa the story really got around the White Cliffs of Albion Thank You England again this goes back to the early Celtic period in English history in the period when the Celts and the Saxons were fighting each other between the 5th to to the early 9th century so casino whose Celtic French Celtic falls in love with the king of Al Bianchi they have three daughters one of them is Melia seen and her two sisters Mellie Arvin paletine and everything is positively proven everything is wonderful between prasena and album except that she has imposed one strict obligation on on Albion that he can never see her when she is nursing her triplets you see I have to point out that whenever fairy folk supernatural sprites like like Christina marry immortal there will always be these issues involved are you familiar with the word taboo okay so there will always be a taboo there will always be a rule that cannot be broken and when it's broken it will lead to dreadful dreadful consequences one day I'll be embraced in a casino and that and she takes the three daughters off with her to the Isle of Avalon do you know that aisle from any other place where he knew King Arthur and that also points up the Celtic patronymic of the story Avalon in Celtic Irish should Welsh northwestern French tradition represents paradise what it actually means in 5th century syndrich the language which is still spoken and well although Montana's 5th century version is literally Island of apples it's a symbol of paradise and the Massena takes her three daughters Mele arm that you see mentality off to Avalon and they grow up in Adelaide and when know this scene is 15 it's very beautiful young woman I was admiring herself in the mirror she asks her mom mom why do we know who dad is and Pristina says there's a reason there's a reason he broke the taboo and she breaks down and tells Mel you see family are in poverty the story of how Albia had broken the taboo with Millie or Mel you seen sister says well that doesn't sound so bad mom it sounds like he was curious nothing more and piloting says hey I think we should see our father King Alvin and know who seems very quiet she doesn't say anything because about you scene is actually couldn't fabulet in some pie prefer revenge and the next evening at twilight think of twilight crossroads times when times which are considered portals to a kind of supernatural world Mele scene goes off and finds the king of a Liam Superman thump us this is her problem she's a little too impulsive and she takes the king of Albion and walls him up in a high tower to punish him for having hurt her mother this is interesting she goes back look at what the story tells us about human relations she goes back to Avalon thinking that her mother will be very pleased with her right punished our dad for not listening to you instead prasena flies into a rage she's a rather unpleasant character in the story and she smacks me scene thrice alright or is the number three another very sacred number to a certain degree connected with the idea of the Trinity but remember a lot of these thirds are from a pre-christian era so they're also connected with the idea of the Mora GU in Celtic tradition the three-headed female Muse or shall I say rather three female muses stuck together who revolved as though they were one body she smacks her three times that she says how do you sing you will never be forgiven for what you have done to me and your curse will be double now we generally only remember the first part of the curse that there's a great a very great writer in argentina manuel boutique alignment who took up the second part of the curse which is a little bit more difficult to deal with I'll tell you about that in a minute we remember the first part of the gerson the first part of the curse that could have seen up lips on her daughter Val you see who again was trying to make her mother happy right she says you are already the most beautiful of my daughters I cannot I cannot take your beauty from you but what I can do and I will do is make one day a week and it will be the seventh day in which you will turn into a monster and if you find a man who can love you despite that monstrosity you may marry you may in fact marry someone without telling them of your monstrosity but your union your marriage will end he sees that on Strasse t so she gives me you saying the horrible curse of the Serpent's tails when I take a look at the firt we have the first images of a bit nicer the second it is both more sexual and more creepy yeah because there you see the beautiful woman with a really snaky tail now because procedure was a water thing and they went off to the Isle of Avalon Luc and her sisters live in the water but Melia seen can also live on land because for six days a week she's a human being what are the curses give it to her other two sisters one is to be walled up in a castle until the end of days but I've seen this kind of a mother from hell and the other one is to become invisible altogether so she is not a nice woman Madeline will peek Elena at the Argentine writer heard about the second curse but Cristina gives Melia same because of a million is going through absolute torture because of this horrible curse she cries out to her mother and said mother I will do anything for you please give me another body and this was the part that our writer Mojica Lena it takes up Pristina appears that she says no you think you want another body okay I'll give you another body she gives her a bamboo spine and she leaves her with a woman's spirit and a man's body Melia scene grows up you know and she's a spectacularly beautiful woman except one day a week and so what she does she leaves the Isle of Avalon and she goes to inhabit all of the wells and creeps and anything connected with water and the coastline of Brittany in northwestern France she's a very common figure in northwestern France and you will see her image on many many she is credited with leaving food for the poor and she generally stays by fountains because she is so spectacularly beautiful men fall in love with her and because she has no reason to trust any mortal man she will flirt with them she will sometimes make love to the moment she will disappear she doesn't trust any man with loving her enough to be able to not ask her secret of where she goes on Saturday and why she must completely disappear on Saturday in the French story she needs to count right on dean of the house of loosing on and for the first time she falls in love with a man and she decides to do something so that when she is not done which is all for herself in marriage and she does today not Dean and they fall madly in love except this weird taboo insists that one day a week II may not see her and again that day is very suggestively Saturday and I just say this because if you're if you want to take a look at media European folklore which often has very weird attitudes towards people of other religions it was a great deal of suspicion against Jews for having a different Sabbath than Christian Sabbath azama Saturday the Christian Sabbath is on a Sunday this was something that often raised eyebrows except you're going to find that most of the racism or anti religious or anti-religious bias tips to come more from the upper classes the lower classes generally really didn't care very much to eat when you pray too and so it's about not unsympathetic attitude towards male you see and read balding says well you know what you want Saturday off I'll let you have it and they have three changer except the tragedy is each of the children is born terribly deformed now is anybody aware of towards the deform in late medieval Europe they were pretty horrible and by the way this continues into the early modern period have you ever heard of the word bedlam this is total bedlam this is craziness right bedlam was a ditch in England which later became an ersatz mental asylum where people with the form of these are people with mental infirmities were thrown into the ditch and other people would go and laugh of them including a very cultured English poet from what we used to call the Renaissance Sir Philip Sidney who said quote unquote we laugh at the formula melia scene is a captor way to that because Mellie is saying is supposed to have loved her children and to have stopped Katherine Ondine from killing the children when they were born to farm so now you seen also becomes the patroness of people who had physical deformities that's very powerful and cultures that did not accept physical deformities when the story was translated into German in the late 15th century and take a look at the slide closer to my hand it's a very very powerful image notice the look of terror on Mellie esteem space she does not want her German Knight who was the one she meets after a mundane basically betrays her when he comes in and spies on her when she's in her bath one Saturday and screams when he sees the serpents felt and he spells her from the loose in yon castle in Plateau and she turns into a dragon goes up into the air shrieking and promises that she will appear flying in the sky the sea serpents of the sky three days before the death of any member of the house of lucid ow okay so this relationship divided and well she goes off to the forests of Germany and there in the German version she meets a german knight who is supposed to be an older man okay so he's finally grown up take a look at the image because he is portrayed as being older and although he is horrified when he accidentally sees Melusine transforming into the two-tailed serpent unlike Ravon Dean he decides to keep her and to be a good husband to her and the problem is that melia scene does not trust him enough to keep the taboo even though he has he has done so and in one of her most unwise moments she decided he's not to be trusted because she's convinced she is simply too horrible for him to look at and she leaves him now he goes mad because he loves her but after she's gone for a number of years he has to be married because he is animate he has to make sure that he has some sort of issue it could be biological it could be adopted that he needs somebody to inherit his property and he causes the calls for men who seem to come back and she doesn't so he remembers and then now you've seen appears of the weddings one of the most frightening images of a male using leather just as he the German made and his wife are about to consecrate their marriage with the kiss they see a snake tail in the window and a little bit of blood drips down from the ceiling and the general might realize that Isabel you seen come back hey this is a very moving story the German Knight goes outside of seize Melia scenes sitting threatening Lee on the rooftop and it says male you seen my dears you know I always love to and you were bad me would you kill me now and death would you leave me with no songs he said I wanted to adopt your sons you didn't allow me to do that are you going to kill my bride until you sing realizes she's made a mistake she's becoming expendable in an unjustified way with this young woman as her mother was with her and somehow you seen leaves for gentlemen night but I think the saddest goodbyes and she disappears forever but all throughout Germany there are wells consecrated to her that continued to be consecrated to this day okay she's a very interesting character in terms of representing the eternal outsider now this part of France northwestern France Brittany it's very very different to the rest of France because it is Celtic the Celtic tradition of Brittany places it as the resting place of Arthur's magician and prophet and advisor who am I talking about Merlin exactly because Brittany is the place where the sea nymph Nimue or the sea nymph Vivien or by some tokens Melia seems to sisters meliora piloting seduced Merlin and walled him up in a rock in Brittany which is still shown as far as it says the rock where Merlin is sleeping but Merlin has to sleep a certain amount of years because Merlin I don't know if you know this ruse backwards so he's supposed to have been born at the age of ten thousand I guess younger every year and supposedly wake up and move that rock in Brantly when he reaches the right now hey Jumanji so this is an area steeped in Celtic folklore and in the western Celtic tradition the tradition of the West of Ireland the northwest of France to a certain degree Wales the western ocean always plays a very big part in Celtic tradition paradise as always in the western ocean whether it's Avalon the island of apples of the Welsh kept or tear Nano which interestingly enough also appears for the French Alps in Brittany and of course Ireland the land of eternal youth it's always set in the West and this is the area to which email you seen goes in the legend after she messes up what could have got a good relationship with her german mind she goes to the oceans of the west and she forms a pact with madeleine mclean mamelon the son of the sea god leader in this pact we're going to see Mel you seen can also sometimes find their I say marital satisfaction because guess what there are male silence and a female sirens there are mermen and myrrh women and so we have an entire colony of these rather odd see people who some like mill you see can walk on land when they so wish at least six days a week and some cannot in the Americas many of the native peoples including the Maya and lives and even the Aztecs were much more landlocked and the Inca Indians of the Pacific in the mountains of Peru who also went across to the Pacific to Easter Island they have their own stories of women who were half half human and half fish or have servants and when the Melia seed stories travel with Breton and Irish sailors to the new world the traditions will fuse so we back of course you have an image of the ship called the Flying Dutchman it's as supposedly a 17th century ship manned by a Dutch sailor who was trying to get around the coast of what is now South Africa and told the crew on a stormy night you will not junk this ship you will not leave me alone you will never jump this [ __ ] then of course because the ghost story nobody could jump the ship and the ship became the ghostly Flying Dutchman which continues to rank the cove round the southern coast of South Africa and sometimes sails out to the New World and excited in the Caribbean and excited in the Pacific and excited anywhere where pirates have had a lot of rum nothing was finished groups of the folkloric process as one so now we have seen with that name starts turning up in maritime sea war in the late 16th and early 17th centuries she has swum out to the new world and we have a stunningly beautiful image here by the American illustrator Howard Pyle if you don't know how it file do please google and fantastic illustrator of old Celtic legends King Arthur and many many others and we have an in a terrible you seen in the typical sirens role she lures the sailors to her and then she kills them was that one nice thing to do you see in the new world she's given a bit of shall I say a judicial role she meets out justice to men who have not treated women well there you see her that must be on a Saturday when her tell is amiss full glory and Mel you seen will punish those who raped women she will punish those who mistreat women now in the Hebrides in northern Scotland where we have folklore connected with the north with the Celts some of anybody else who happened to be in that area these stories from the Hebrides ton up in Jamaica in the early 17th century and in those stories Mel you seen will ride the manatee was as interesting as ice you know this is a new world preaching novelties of the old world and the manatee is every bit as supernatural as Melly because the Manatee will actually bring those sailors who need to be punished directly to this manatee may be cute but he's no jerk okay so the manatee follows the sailors who have done wrong and he will bring them to belly asain and their new world cousins if you take a look at the first image or the image closer to my hand says the mermaid asks for the Kings child this is a very famous variant on Amelia scene legend that you will find in Argentina in the 16th 17th and into the 18th century and it's part of a story Manuel Malik Elena throat called lecea venom siren in which the melusine character pops up and tries to impede the conquest of Rio de la Plata the silver River which Spain is embarking upon and she seduces the captain of the ship the many you've seen character by the time you get to the early 18th century was so well known in the new world that many people didn't realize it had actually originated in northwestern France of the old world in those colonies conquered by France the legend came and here's where Brazil comes into that strike he was weird Brazil wasn't conquered by France okay now wake up to one of the oddest bits of French history go online and google France in 16th century Brazil and you will find that there was a huge effort by France to colonize the sea in the same century okay and it was called Antarctic France France down in the south and there was a very very important French colony run by somebody named Jean delivery in in 16th century Brazil most of those people were French Protestants you get on screen religious persecution in France many were also Catholic and all of them brought the story of many you see and it is not accidental that in the area of colonized by France in Brazil later we have the story of the Yarra and Jana combines the Melia same story Melia seen as a wronged female with another element Jana has been rapist by her brothers and Jana who is Melia seen as well now sits and waits for all sailors were dared to mistreat women and she will bring the balance of the debts it didn't invent that logo and their first coffee shop that of Seattle in the early 90s used this to town to town mermaid now Nellie Essene is the only mermaid in Western folklore who has a split town and when she travels to the New World to Brazil to Haiti to everywhere she gets him a new world that split tail is always the sign of no you see what is the connection between that and here Lotte I'll be damned if I can tell you I will tell you one thing that seems to be said a lot in popular media which is the in the corporate world there is and this probably won't surprise many of you there's a lot of interest in mysticism you know that Wall Street boys are very famous for frequenting forts of those there are entire bits of corporate folklore which are very connected to mystical or magical earlier folklore and as to why she was chosen I don't know what I do know is that Starbucks has fully admitted that yes this is one of the original shields of the house of loosing time my name is Robert separ I'm an anthropologist please check out my books available on Amazon I'd like to say thank you to those who support me on patreon there should be a link below kindly share and please hit the like button don't forget to subscribe I look forward to reading your thoughts in the comment section have a wonderful weekend and I hope to see you again soon