Chapter Bloods to Blue Beard of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

fruit” is too tempting to be resisted, the door is opened, and the young wife finds the floor covered with the dead bodies of her husband’s former wives. She drops the key in her terror, and can by no means obliterate from it the stain of blood. Blue Beard, on his return, commands her to prepare for death, but by the timely arrival of her brothers her life is saved and Blue Beard put to death.

N.B.—Dr. C. Taylor thinks Blue Beard is a type of the castle-lords in the days of knight-errantry. Some say Henry VIII. (the noted wife-killer) was the “academy figure.” Others think it was Giles de Retz, marquis de Laval, marshal of France in 1429, who (according to Mézeray) murdered six of his seven wives, and was ultimately strangled in 1440.

Another solution is th at Blue Beard was count Conomar, and the young wife Triphyna, daughter of count Guerech. Count Conomar was lieutenant of Brittany in the reign of Childebert. M. Hippolyte Violeau assures us that in 1850, during the repairs of the chapel of St. Nicolas de Bieuzy, some ancient frescoes were discovered with scenes from the life of St. Triphyna: (1) The marriage; (2) the husband taking leave of his young wife and entrusting to her a key; (3) a room with an open door, through which are seen the corpses of seven women hanging; (4) the husband threatening his wife, while another female [sister Anne] is looking out of a window above; (5) the husband has placed a halter round the neck of his victim, but the friends, accompanied by St. Gildas, abbot of Rhuys in Brittany, arrive just in time to rescue the future saint.—Pélerinages de Bretagne.

(Ludwig Tieck brought out a drama in Berlin, on the story of Blue Beard. The incident about the keys and the doors is similar to that mentioned by “The Third Calender” in the Arabian Nights. The forty princesses were absent for forty days, and gave king Agib the keys of the palace during their absence. He had leave to enter every room but one. His curiosity led him to open the forbidden chamber and mount a horse which he saw there. The horse carried him through the air far from the palace, and with a whisk of its tail knocked out his right eye. The same misfortune had befallen ten other princes, who warned him of the danger before he started.)

Campbell has a “Blue Beard” story in his Tales of the Western Highlands, called “The Widow and her Daughters.”

A similar one is No. 3 of Bernoni’s, and No. 39 of Visentini’s collection of Italian stories.