Melusina
| Melusina | |
 Cities of Nouvelle Alexandrie | |
|---|---|
| Official Name | City of Melusina |
| Region | Isles of Caputia (Salzstein) |
| Established | c. 1691 AN |
| Founder(s) | Melusinian colonists |
| Government | |
| Type | Mayor-Council |
| Population | |
| City Proper | c. 430,000 (1758 AN est.) |
| Demonym | Melusinian |
| Geography | |
| Climate | Oceanic |
| Infrastructure | |
| Economy & Culture | |
| Major Industries | Fishing; port and shipping; Melusinian crafts |
| Notable Landmarks | The Tidal Temple of Melusina |
Melusina is a city in the Isles of Caputia, a region of Nouvelle Alexandrie, in the state of Salzstein. Settled from about 1691 AN by colonists of the Melusinian Faith and named for the goddess Melusine, it is the Melusinian settlement of the islands, a fishing town of some 430,000 people on the Captive Sea coast of the archipelago.[1]
Set in a region settled largely from the Kydrian and Hammish stock of the old Region of the Isles, Melusina is the one substantial town of the Isles founded by and for the faithful of Melusine, and its character, its calendar, and its trades all turn on that inheritance. It is not the seat of its faith, for that place belongs to St. Melusine in New Caputia, and the great sanctuary of the Isles is the Shrine of the Seas at Gotfriedplatz; it is rather the home of an ordinary Melusinian people in a region where they are otherwise few.
Name
Melusina shares its dedication to the goddess Melusine, the Cow of the Sea and central figure of the Melusinian Faith, with St. Melusine, the larger Melusinian port and seat of the faith in the Region of New Caputia. The two are distinct cities of the Caputian diaspora that carry the same devotional name, and are not to be confused.[1][2]
History
Settled from about 1691 AN by colonists of the Melusinian Faith, Melusina grew from a fishing settlement into the principal Melusinian town of the region.[1] It lies within Salzstein, the state set apart from the region's Kydrian core as the home of its non-Kydrian settlement, and ranks as the smaller of that state's two principal cities beside the capital, Velez.[3] From its founding the town has lived by its harbor and its fishing fleet, and the faith its settlers carried gave it the temple, the feasts, and the crafts that mark it out among the towns of the Isles.
Geography and climate
On the coast of Salzstein, on the seaboard of the archipelago in the Captive Sea off western Keltia, Melusina is a low town built about a working harbor where the tide runs strong. The climate is oceanic, mild and wet, with cool summers and gentle winters tempered by the sea and with frequent rain and sea-fog through the year. The tides of the coast are strong, and the working of the port is set by them; the same tides the faithful keep as a daily sign of the goddess, a mark of the faith in the ordinary motion of the sea.
Economy
The economy of Melusina rests on the sea. Fishing has been the mainstay of the town since its founding, as it is of the island economy as a whole, the Isles of Caputia being among the leading fishing grounds of the Federation, and the harbor supports a fishing fleet, the curing and processing of the catch, and the coastal trade of Salzstein.[4] Beside the ordinary trade of a fishing port the town keeps the particular crafts of the faith: the working of the spiraled shell and silver of the devotional cult of the Horn, and the binding of copies of the Libro Aquæ in the sea-blue of the faith, trades carried on for the temples and the faithful of the region.[5]
Religion
Religion orders the year and the life of Melusina, a town of the Melusinian Faith. Its chief church is the Tidal Temple of Melusina, a temple of the ordinary kind, built about a font of living water into which the tide is let, where the people wash on entering and gather about the water for the reading of the Libro Aquæ and the sacrament of holy butter, the oldest of its prayers said in the Audente tongue of the faith.[5] The temple is served by a Water Steward, the ordinary priest of the faith, and it is a parish temple and no more, for the great sanctuary of the Isles is the Shrine of the Seas at Gotfriedplatz and the living seat of the faith lies beyond the region at St. Melusine.[1][5]
Much of the everyday religion of the town is kept in its lay orders, the devotional societies that Melusinian custom gathers under the Five Currents: the contemplative Order of the Serene Pools, which tends the fonts and shrines, and the more active Society of the Harmonious Current, which runs the charities of the faith, together with the burial and mourning societies that keep the vigil of the Returning Tide over the dead. In the town's first generations, before it had a temple or a priest of its own, it was these societies that kept the faith alive, and they order much of its devotion still.[5]
The town keeps the calendar of the faith with particular solemnity. Its year turns on the Day of Melusine, the Great Churning, kept in the butter-month of Butterary (XI); on the Feast of the Sacred Herd in the high season of Herdtide; and on the Feast of the Returning Tide, kept at year's end in Geburtsber (XV), when the people keep a night vigil by the water for the dead who dissolve into the world-sea and are drawn back with the turning year.[5]
Government
A municipality of the state of Salzstein, Melusina is governed within the regional and local framework of the Isles of Caputia. It keeps a mayor-council government of the kind common to the cities of the Federation, and under the Local Government Act it maintains a Civic Assembly and a Youth Assembly, deliberative bodies that meet monthly to debate the affairs of the town, adopt resolutions, and receive petitions.[6] As a locality it stands under the Regional and Local Government Organization Act, 1699, and its ordinances are subject to review by the regional legislature, the Congress of the Isles; the regional court that serves it sits at the state capital, Velez.[7]
Culture
The town's culture is that of a Keltian fishing port shaped by the faith of its people. Its markets and its fishing festivals keep the ordinary round of a working harbor, while the great feasts of the Melusinian Faith fill the streets and the quays with procession; butter, which the faith holds to be grace made edible, is as much the mark of the table as of the altar, and the fish of the town's own fleet is the staple of its cooking.[5][4]
Demographics
The people of Melusina are drawn from the Caputian and Hammish diaspora that carried the worship of Melusine into the islands, and the town is overwhelmingly of the Melusinian Faith. Its devotion, its calendar, and its crafts set it apart from the Kydrian and Hammish towns of the region, whose speech and whose churches are not its own.[1][3]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Isles of Caputia, Major cities.
- ^ St. Melusine.
- ^ a b Isles of Caputia, Administrative divisions.
- ^ a b Isles of Caputia, Fishing.
- ^ a b c d e f Melusinian Faith.
- ^ Isles of Caputia, Governance.
- ^ Isles of Caputia, Law.
