“Bluebeard” was included in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book. Lang in turn gives his source as Charles Perrault who first published the story in 1697.
Bluebeard was a very rich man who was considered ugly due to his blue beard, an unnatural color. He has a neighbor with two beautiful daughters, but neither will marry him, not only because of his blue beard, but also because he has been married several times before and no one knew what had become of the women.
Bluebeard takes the two young women, their mother and several of their friends to his country house for a week, where they did nothing but have parties, hunt, fish, dance and eat. It was a delightful week and the younger of the sisters decided that perhaps Bluebeard was nice man and did marry him.
Not long after being married, Bluebeard has to leave home for several weeks to attend to business affairs, but he tells his wife to feel free to invite her friends over to the house and have a good time. He gives her all the keys, keys to the rooms where the best furniture, keys to his strong boxes holding his gold and silver and to his casket of jewels. He also gives her a small key to a closet on the ground floor. He tells her she may go into all the rooms, except that closet.
Of course, curiosity gets the better of her and she opens the closet. There she finds several dead women, Bluebeard’s previous wives, against the walls and the floor is covered with blood. In her shock she drops the key in the blood but retrieves it. She quickly shuts the door and rushes upstairs. She tries to wash the blood off the key, but here is the bit of magic. It’s a magical key and will not become entirely clean. The blood remains.
Bluebeard returns home that same evening and the next morning asks for the keys. Once his wife gives them to him, all but the closet key, he knows by her trembling what has happened and sends her for the last one. She gives it to him, and he knows fully well why there is blood on it. He knows she opened the closet and tells her she’ll have to take her place with the other women. Bluebeard is prepared to cut off her head, but the woman stalls long enough for her brother to get there, rescue her, and kill Bluebeard.
“Bluebeard had no heirs, and so his wife became mistress of all his estate. She made use of one part of it to marry her sister Anne to a young gentleman who had loved her a long while; another part to buy captains commissions for her brothers, and the rest to marry herself to a very worthy gentleman, who made her forget the ill time she had passed with Bluebeard.”
The room full of dead women makes this a gruesome tale, but I do like that Perrault gives women the power to make their own decisions. The sister wasn’t forced to marry Bluebeard. Granted, he did everything he could to make himself seem to be a desirable husband, and she should have remembered the other wives that had disappeared, but she still chose to marry him of her own free will. It’s also her choice to look into the closet. I’m sure most of us would. There’s nothing like being told not to do something to make you want to do it, especially when you’re sure it holds a secret. It was quite obviously a trap.
There is, I’m sure, all kinds of symbolism in the story. Commentators have seen the key as a phallic symbol, the stained key as proof of sexual infidelity that took place when Bluebeard left, the wife betraying him. I’m not good with symbolism. To me, Bluebeard was a nut job. I don’t care what the women did, killing them was irrational and keeping the bodies was flat-out crazy.
I like the ending though. The wife gets everything, controls all the money and the property, which had to be unusual at that time. The money allows her sister to marry for love, a privilege few women got at that time. And it allowed her to marry a man she chose. She got a happily ever after.
Thursday’s Tales is a weekly event here at Carol’s Notebook. Fairy tales, folktales, tall tales, even re-tellings, I love them all.
Stop by Mommy Want to Read. Melissa is joining in again with a post about The Goblin Pony.
This is my B post for the A to Z Blogging Challenge.
Interesting tale. I love that illustration. Sometimes that is my favorite part of the tales is seeing the old paintings. I too picked a tale this week from Blue Fairy Book. I went with The Goblin Pony.
I’m don’t think I’ve ever heard this story. Thanks so much for sharing the story and the beautiful illustration! And I do love a HEA!
Oooh, this story always made me scared as a little girl! Great subject. I’m doing amazing animals, http://www.lizbrownleepoet.com Liz
See, I just would not have looked in the closet. I mean, my first question would have been “Why did he give me the key to some room he doesn’t want me unlocking?” It’s just so obviously a trap. She had no need for that key, and she should have had the sense to just call the police and have them unlock the door.
i read something new, thanks. i have blog for children’s poems and stories also
Thankyou so much for sharing this story. I had never heard of it before.
I love folktales, so this was fun to read. thanks for sharing the gruesome tale of bluebeard with a HEA.
Sometimes people read too much into things. Oh those lit peeps
So glad I found your site! What a treasure trove to mine.
I knew of Bluebeard but never knew the full tale. It’s an interesting one. Thanks for sharing.
http://www.tdharveyauthor.com
What a great choice for your B entry and Thursday’s Tales. Glad to have found you via the A-Z challenge, and look forward to following your posts.
I adore these old paintings and illustrations from stories and fairytales:) Just gorgeous.
I’d heard of Bluebeard before but didn’t know the story – or blocked it out because it was so gruesome!
Weirdly, in my head, I’ve always mashed up the stories of Bluebeard and Blackbeard the pirate. Maybe that’s something I should write, one of these days.
So has my daughter, apparently.
Great story. I like that the wife gets everything in the end 🙂