Centuries after she became famous for her peculiar anatomy, the remains of the half-woman, half-fish Melusina have been found. However, contrary to popular belief, the fish part was on top, say experts.
The remains were discovered at a construction site in Luxembourg City, near which was an inscription in Latin that reads: “Here lies Melusina, buried by her beloved Count Sigfried, who went on vacation and forgot to ask someone to put fish food in Melusina’s fish tank. RIP.”
“She wasn’t a mermaid, and the bones speak for themselves,” said Dr. Yasmine Carruthers who was among the first experts to arrive on the scene. “Melusina, we now know, was basically a walking, talking carp.”
“Did she have hair on her fish head?” she added. “Gills on her human legs? We may never know.”
The discovery challenges one popular variation of the story of Luxembourg’s founding, a legend in which Count Sigfried did not know Melusina’s true cross-species nature when he married her in the 10th century.
“For a thousand years, we’ve been pretending that this guy didn’t know that Melusina was half-fish, and that when he did find out, he got scared and she slipped back into the river,” said historian Jean-Philippe Muller. “It’s pretty clear now that ol’ Sigfried was well aware.”
“We have to wonder if this guy had some kind of fish fetish, or maybe he had a thing for salamanders,” he continued. “Which is fine. Personally, I’m attracted to tall redheads. My friend, he’s got a thing for school teachers.”
Other observers say they are not at all surprised by the revelation.
“I’ve been saying this for years, if Melusina was some kind of mermaid, how could she walk around Luxembourg on her fish tail?” said Sonia Gibberfesch, an amateur opinion holder from Mondorf-les-Bains. “She would be slipping all over the place, probably leaving a trail of slime everywhere she went.”
Also, local fish have long complained about Melusina’s artistic representation as mostly human, calling for a more “anatomically correct” depiction.
