Blue Beard

BLUE BEARD

Author:

First edition:

La Barbe Bleue, in Contes de ma mère l'Oye, ou Histoires ou contes du temps passé avec des moralités (mother Goose Tales), Barbin, 1697.

Main illustrators:

Bour Claverie Croqwill Devéria Doré Gigoux Kelek Lorioux Louis-Lucas Morin Pocci Southall

In short:

Blue Beard is a merciless tyrant. His young wife has all the keys of the castle, but she is forbidden to enter one particular room. One day she opened that door and found the corpses of Blue Beard's former wifes, murdered by him. The key got stained by blood and Blue Beard told her that she was also going to die. "Anne, Sister Anne, do you see nothing coming?"
"I see," replied sister Anne, "a great cloud of dust which comes this way."
"Is it my brothers?"

Hopefully, her brothers arrive just in time to save her and kill her husband.

Selection of edition:

Contes, illustrated by Achille Devéria, Mame, 1835.
Blue Beard, illustrated by Croqwill, Rotledge, 1845.
Contes des fées de Charles Perrault, illustrated by Jean Gigoux, 150 etchings, Lecou, 1851.
Contes de Perrault, illustrated by Gustave Doré, 384 etchings, Hetzel, 1862.
The Story of Blue-beard, illustrated by Joseph Edouard Southall, Lawrence et Bullen, 1895.
Les Contes de Perrault, illustrated by Félix Lorioux, Hachette, 1927.
Contes de Perrault, illustrated by Daniel Bour, Grasset, 1984
Contes de Perrault, illustrated by Kelek, Hatier, collection "Contes de...", 1986.
La Barbe Bleue, illustrated by Jean Claverie, Albin Michel, 1991
Barbe-Bleue, illustrated by Geneviève Marot, Mango, 1995.
Barbe-Bleue, illustrated by Jean-Pierre Corderoc'h, Lito, 1997.

Ricochet recommends: Barbe-Bleue in Contes de ma mère l'Oye ou Histoires ou contes du temps passé, by Charles Perrault, illustrated by Gustave Doré, Gallimard, Folio junior, 1988.

More about Blue Beard:

Its origins:

Popular figures (like King Komor from the legend of Saint Trophime) and historical characters (like Gilles de rais) may have inspired Blue Beard. Tales were very fashionable at that time and Perrault had already published three in 1694. The compilation of eight tales, including Blue Beard, in Mother Goose's Tales were very successful.
The oral version of the tale has scenes which Perrault ommited, like the animal messenger, the dog and the talking bird and other inventions that made the ending more plausible.
Love stories in all fairy tales were very fashionable during the 17th century and they did not refer to popular tradiction. Perrault's tales constratst sharply with this tradition, but he managed to keep the essential traits of oral versions and he adds or modifies chapters and characters to get literary adaptations who suit the tastes of his royal audience.
He moves form the magical and fanstastical world of popular tradition and adds morals. The success of his tales reached not only an upper class audience but got to the peasants with serials, thus going back to oral tradition. His literate audience then considered that Perrault's tales were meant for children.

Hero:

A rich nobleman is sorrounded by a mystery: his wives disappear. His blue beard is quite umpleasant (this trair is only found in Perrault's version and posterous ones). He gives tyhe keys of the castle to his wife while he is on a trip and forbade her to open one particular door. But curiosity is more dangerous than common sense!! But hopefully the ending shows that being a serial killer is more serious than being curious and it's him the one to be killed.

Even more:

Blue beard is one of the tales less suitable for children. The only fascinating detail is the staion of blmood which cannot disappear from the magic key.
Adult readers may find different interpretations to the story, such as destructive fatality of disappointing love, or knowing the secret of human beings is payed by death. But maybe it is esay to see what Perrault himself said in his morals:
Moral
Ladies, you should never pry--
You'll repent it by and by!
'Tis the silliest of sins;
Trouble in a trice begins.
There are, surely--more's the woe!--
Lots of things you need not know.
Come, forswear it now and here--
Joy so brief, that costs so dear!

Another Moral
You can tell this tale is old
By the very way it's told.
Those were days of derring-do;
Man was lord, and master too.
Then the husband ruled as king.
Now it's quite a different thing;
Be his beard what hue it may--
Madam has a word to say!

Adaptations:

Barbe-Bleue, film by Méliès, 1901.
Bluebeard, film by E. Dmytryk, 1972.
Barbe-Bleue, by Christian-Jaque, 1951.
Barbe-Bleue, Walt Disney Productions (1968)

Excerpt of the tale:

"At first she saw nothing, for the windows were closed, but after a few moments she perceived dimly that the floor was entirely covered with clotted blood, and that in this there were reflected the dead bodies of several women that hung along the walls. These were all the wives of Blue Beard, whose throats he had cut, one after the other.
She thought to die of terror, and the key of the room, which she had just withdrawn from the lock, fell from her hand.
When she had somewhat regained her senses, she picked up the key, closed the door, and went up to her chamber to compose herself a little. But this she could not do, for her nerves were too shaken. Noticing that the key of the little room was stained with blood, she wiped it two or three times. But the blood did not go. She washed it well, and even rubbed it with sand and grit. Always the blood remained. For the key was bewitched, and there was no means of cleaning it completely. When the blood was removed from one side, it reappeared on the other. "