1. In the best-known version of the Melusine story, out of the French Middle Ages, Melusine is the daughter of a fairy and the King of Albania. Because she shuts her father up in a mountain, she is condemned to spend every Saturday changed to a serpent from the waist down. When she marries Raymond of Poitiers, he promises never to look at her on Saturday, but eventually he breaks his promise, with the result that Melusine disappears. She is not seen again, but sometimes her wailing and lamenting can be heard within her castle—often as a harbinger of death or other evil coming to her descendants or to those who hear her cries. How has Banks used this story? In what ways is Banks's Melusine like and unlike the Melusine of the old legend?

2. What are some of the social issues Melusine...