There was once a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold. But this man was so unlucky as to have a blue beard, which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him.
One of his neighbors, a lady of quality, had two daughters who were perfect beauties. He desired of her one of them in marriage, leaving to her choice which of the two she would bestow on him. Neither of them would have him, and they sent him backwards and forwards from one to the other, not being able to bear the thoughts of marrying a man who had a blue beard. Adding to their disgust and aversion was the fact that he already had been married to several wives, and nobody knew what had become of them.
Bluebeard, to engage their affection, took them, with their mother and three or four ladies of their acquaintance, with other young people of the neighborhood, to one of his country houses, where they stayed a whole week.
The time was filled with parties, hunting, fishing, dancing, mirth, and feasting. Nobody went to bed, but all passed the night in rallying and joking with each other. In short, everything succeeded so well that the youngest daughter began to think that the man’s beard was not so very blue after all, and that he was a mighty civil gentleman.
As soon as they returned home, the marriage was concluded. About a month afterwards, Bluebeard told his wife that he was obliged to take a country journey for six weeks at least, about affairs of very great consequence. He desired her to divert herself in his absence, to send for her friends and acquaintances, to take them into the country, if she pleased, and to make good cheer wherever she was.
“Here,” said he,” are the keys to the two great wardrobes, wherein I have my best furniture. These are to my silver and gold plate, which is not everyday in use. These open my strongboxes, which hold my money, both gold and silver; these my caskets of jewels. And this is the master key to all my apartments. But as for this little one here, it is the key to the closet at the end of the great hall on the ground floor. Open them all; go into each and every one of them, except that little closet, which I forbid you, and forbid it in such a manner that, if you happen to open it, you may expect my just anger and resentment.”
“Honestly,” she said, “I’m more than happy to observe whatever boundaries you ask me to honor, but it feels a little harsh, to me, when you detail future punishments for hypothetical transgressions without giving me the opportunity to show up for you in our relationship.”
And Bluebeard said, Oh my God, I had no idea, but of course that’s how you experienced it. I can see that now. I was so afraid of being disappointed that I failed to give you the opportunity to meet my expectations.
“We have to take all possible futures into account,” the damsel told him. “I can acknowledge your wounds without taking responsibility for them.”
And Bluebeard said, Thank you for this dialogue. I feel truly known. We’ve really interrupted a cycle of negative self-talk I hadn’t even realized I was trapped in.
She promised to observe, very exactly, whatever he had ordered. Then he, after having embraced her, got into his coach and proceeded on his journey.
Her neighbors and good friends did not wait to be sent for by the newly married lady. They were impatient to see all the rich furniture of her house, and had not dared to come while her husband was there, because of his blue beard, which frightened them. They ran through all the rooms, closets, and wardrobes, which were all so fine and rich that they seemed to surpass one another.
After that, they went up into the two great rooms, which contained the best and richest furniture. They could not sufficiently admire the number and beauty of the tapestry, beds, couches, cabinets, stands, tables, and looking glasses, in which you might see yourself from head to foot; some of them were framed with glass, others with silver, plain and gilded, the finest and most magnificent that they had ever seen.
They ceased not to extol and envy the happiness of their friend, who in the meantime in no way diverted herself in looking upon all these rich things, because of the impatience she had to go and open the closet on the ground floor. She was so much pressed by her curiosity that, without considering that it was very uncivil for her to leave her company, she went down a little back staircase, and with such excessive haste that she nearly fell and broke her neck.
Having come to the closet door, she made a stop for some time, thinking about her husband’s orders, and considering what unhappiness might attend her if she was disobedient.
Is this really about the room? she asked herself. Or is this about me? Why do I feel like I have to go into spaces I haven’t been invited to? Is this a privilege thing? What am I acting out here? Am I trying to reenact a violation I’ve experienced elsewhere in an attempt to absolve myself of culpability, or cast myself in the familiar role of transgressor?
You need to apply your own oxygen mask first before you self-sabotage, she reminded herself, and went back downstairs. Just because everything’s going right doesn’t mean something’s wrong.
Bluebeard returned from his journey the same evening, saying that he had received letters upon the road, informing him that the affair he went about had concluded to his advantage.
“If I’m honest,” Bluebeard said, “I want to ask you for the keys back right away, and to ask about the locked room, because I’m so convinced you’re going to repeat the betrayal I’m most afraid of that I want to get it over with as quickly as possible.”
“But that’s not my best self,” he added. She smiled.
“You never need to use a lock to keep something private,” she told him. “All you have to do is ask. Respect is the only lock that we need.”
No one ever went into that room again, because you don’t have to justify your No to make it meaningful. No is enough by itself. They were very happy together. The kind of happy where they both knew the passwords to each other’s phones, but never used them. “Do you mind if I use your phone?” they’d always ask. Just because you can go somewhere doesn’t mean you have to.
This is perfect and hilarious.
“Just because everything’s going right doesn’t mean something’s wrong.” <3 What’s a corpse or five?
This was a really nice change of pace and something I desperately needed today.
I like this a lot and would like to see more of it.
Seconded!
I am oddly touched. Yay for respecting boundaries!
I’m just so glad everything ends well and they live happily ever after and Bluebeard doesn’t ever have to get married again.
Please rewrite more stories in the vein of respected boundaries, this was very lovely, ty.
It was a like a cup of warm tea that whispers sincere validations with every sip
This was delightful.
I love this so much, words literally can’t express the feeling of joyful relief.
Awww, I love reading depictions of healthy and communicative relationships.
Mallory <3
Oh haha, she thinks we’ll forget what she did to Frog and Toad, huh? Or Pooh Bear and Eeyore? Tell me how to UNCRY TEARS, Mallory. TELL ME HOW.
She’s just trying to comfort us, to make us feel warm and safe; slowly stitching back together the tatters of our mangled hearts so she can, with gleeful malice, rend them apart anew.
It’s just like when my sister was teaching me to ride a bike. Each time down the hill she’d promise me, she’d promise, she wouldn’t let go. And every time she would. And every time I’d whiz screaming, betrayed, into the wall of the shed.
Coming soon: Horrific Stories Made Even Worse
New series: Your Top Ten Childhood Nightmares Described in Lurid Detail, Extracted From Your Unsuspecting Mind Using Witchcraft Most Foul.
Stories That Are Perfectly Delightful And Innocent, Like A Brightly Colored Toy Box That Plays “All Around The Mulberry Bush” When You Turn The Crank, So Why Not Just Keep On Turning It, Anticipating Nothing, What Could Possibly Happen
just putting it out there, tho – a third-verse variation of ‘pop goes the weasel’ goes like this:
Jimmy’s got the whooping cough
And Timmy’s got the measles.
That’s the way the story ends,
Pop! goes the weasel.
OT, but does anyone want to talk about the Bluebeard parallels in Ex Machina? As soon as Oscar Isaac said, “There are some rooms you can’t go into,” I was like Oh nooooooooo. This won’t end well.
I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that! He even has a beard, and everything.
I actually forgot about it until the scene with the cabinets in the bedroom (I’m trying not to be spoilery), then I was like OH AND HE HAS A BEARD TOO. Once you notice it, it feels obvious, but there’s so much else going on that it’s really not.
I am feeling kind of dumb that I didn’t see the parallels!
Aaaahhhhh I never thought about this and now I have to get through the rest of the work day before rushing home and rewatching it.
the only thing i’ve seen of that film is the gif of him dancing with the girl. i’m starting to think maybe it’s not a lighthearted romcom about robots?
do you associate the words “unsettling, creeping sense of dread and unease” with the phrase “lighthearted”? if so, yes. if not, dude, NO it is not a chipper film.
This is so joyful and I’m trying really hard to internalize “Just because everything’s going right doesn’t mean something’s wrong” when it comes to this story. About 75% there.
Ok, ok, but the part I struggle with in both versions is where this guy’s series of mysteriously vanishing wives is somehow less of an obstacle to marriage than having a blue beard? Like, “Yeah, he keeps getting married to these women, and nobody ever sees or hears from them again. I guess they die, since he keeps marrying, but whatever HAVE YOU SEEN HIS BEARD OMG EW!”
Trust is important in a relationship and all, but when the secret is that your husband is an actual serial murderer, I dunno, I feel like snooping is maybe justified? What did his first wife see when she opened that closet anyway? Was it empty, or did he just plant it with magic blood from somewhere else, or…?
I know it’s a fairytale and all, but… I still have many questions.
Oh, thank God. I’m reading all the comments about how everyone’s like, “Yay, now it’s happy!” and I felt very alone in my worry about those first wives.
You’re not alone
I always wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t gone into the room. My suspicion is that he would have been angry because his excuse for murder would have been taken away
(I may or may not have dedicated a segment of a gothic novel pastiche I once wrote a first draft of during nanowrimo to this scenario)
I just always assumed that everyone assumed that previous wives had died in childbirth. Which, with no surviving children to back that up, may be specious reasoning, but childbirth was very dangerous for quite some time (or so i understand).
Perfectly reasonable, and the absence of children is no problem–death in childbirth often included death of the baby, too.
But isn’t that the sort of thing people nearby would know? Like your local doctor/midwife? Wouldn’t people be aware, “Oh, that poor man down the road with the blue beard, he’s been widowed so many times, it’s heartbreaking! What poor luck!” Instead of “Yep, he’s had some wives, none of us know what happened to them, but nothing seems noteworthy here, aside from his oddly colored facial hair!”
Well yeah, but the BEARD. It scared everyone. Even the midwives and doctors. Which is why all of the women and their babies died; they were basically going childbirth alone.
“Trust is important in a relationship and all, but when the secret is that your husband is an actual serial murderer, I dunno, I feel like snooping is maybe justified?”
Yes, this. I have a very firm Do Not Snoop policy, but if, like, people are turning up dead every time your SO has a “poker game out of town”, I feel like maybe that’s an exception.
There’s an 1864 sensation novel by Ellen Wood where the first wife, Clarice, disobeys her husband by following him to the town where he’s secretly courting her sister Laura (who doesn’t know the guy’s her BIL). He murders Clarice and marries Laura, and then Laura pries into his secret murder documents, prompting him to be arrested. At the end, the moral of the story is presented as “have no concealments from your husband, and never disobey him” = secret to a happy life.
But… um… WHAT ABOUT THE CORPSES OF THE OLD BRIDES? ARE THEY STILL ROTTING IN THAT CLOSET? DO THEIR FAMILIES NEVER GET ANY RELIEF? And what if she HAD gone in the freaking closet? Would he have gone ahead and killed her? Which, if so, I think, means that he’s still a controlling and abusive man and that is going to come out in their relationship SOMEWHERE. Except now he has the guise of Nice Guy and the appropriate buzzwords and psychobabble to cover his monstrousness. Honestly, the suspense of that unopened closet is killing me, I find this just as or more horrifying than the original.
Well done.
Yep, all the folks on here who are truly comforted by this … should take a closer look …………………………………. (ominously excessive ellipses)
There are both zero and many corpses in the closet. Schrodinger’s Domestic Violence
There are zero, because they were eaten by Schrodinger’s Cat.
Ooooh is it Opposite Day on the Toast?
BizarroToast
If X weren’t your Y.
An Interview with Someone who hasn’t ever thought critically about their religious beliefs, but is generally pretty low key about it anyway.
Hetsday (in which we discuss which supposedly gay fictional characters would have been really great in het reltionships)
Goodbye Bros
How To Tell You’re Not In A Novel (a brief primer in reality testing)
(this really ought to be the schedule for 4/1/16)
Happy Heterosexual Couples In Realistically Comfortable Poses In Western Art History
Lengthy letters from Jane Eyre.
EVERY ARTICLE WILL BE COMFORTING OR HILARIOUS AND NOT HORRIBLE AT ALL.
I was suspicious that Mallory has swapped to the southern hemisphere and her brain got reversed also, just like bathroom whirlpools, but then I realized she would have written then before she left so that theory doesn’t work.
I mean we all have closets full of our dead exes who WEREN’T so good at respecting boundaries, right?
I mean like
metaphorical closets
closets in the metaphorical sense for sure
Ok but is the closet still full of dead wives?
I dunno about y’all but my relationship requirements, in order of importance, go something like:
1) No murders
2) Mutual respect for boundaries
Not the other way around?
I don’t know, boundaries are pretty important to me
Like, you better know not to interrupt me when I’m reading, etc.
I have so many thoughts on the Bluebeard story, y’all. So many. When I read it as a kid, I remember thinking this woman was useless and the author must have agreed, because she didn’t even get a name (unlike her sister, Anne), and if she’d been half as smart as Beauty (from Beauty and the Beast), she’d have had a much better and longer life. To be honest, I always felt a little bad for Bluebeard, possibly because my wee child brain understood the effects of betrayal of trust more than it should have. Also, I have never had a curious nature, which makes me less sympathetic toward his unnamed wife. Someone tells me not to do something and although it might be a weird request, following their directions doesn’t bring harm to me or anyone I care about? Fine. No problem. I don’t do The Thing.
If you haven’t already checked out SurLaLune’s annotations on it (on everything, really), I recommend doing so.
When it comes to spousal murder stories, I infinitely prefer “The Elf Knight,” where Lady Isabel gets a name and the elf knight doesn’t, he says he’s killed a bunch of wives before her and she’s next, for no particular reason except the seelie lolz, then she uses either magic or sex (or both, folkin’ vagaries of balladry) to lull him to sleep and she straight-up kills him all the way to death, albeit not before telling him to his dying face, “If seven kings’ daughters here have you slain, then lie you here, a husband to them all.”
What did the first wife do to Bluebeard? Who hurt you, man?
Yes, go Lady Isabel!
So many possible stories about Mr. Bluebeard and his first wife. So many.
“straight-up kills him all the way to death”
Made. My. Day.
Maria Tatar’s “Secrets Beyond the Door,” is also excellent for your Bluebeard-ing needs.
The introduction to Fitcher’s Brides (the Bluebeard entry in the Terri Windling fairy tale series) is also pretty solid–I have kind of mixed feelings about the book. Usually I address those by rereading, but it’s disturbing enough I have to be in a brave sort of mood.
Thank you for the recommendations and the warning!
Did not realize “folktales…about women whose brothers rescue them from their ruthless husbands or abductors” was a whole genre.
There is also a genre of “women who rescue their brothers from witches/enchantments.”
I…did not realize that in the original his beard is actually blue, and it is actually a problem? That sounds GREAT.
I had no idea either, and was preoccupied all through the story with
1) Shaving
2) Hair dye
Aarne-Thompson type 955, the robber bridegroom.
Be bold. Be bold, but not too bold, lest you destabilize the foundation of your marriage with your instinct that (much as you trust your husband) something is clearly Not Right here.
But it is not so, and it was not so, and God forbid it should be so.
I remember reading that as “Mr Fox.” Who ends up cut into a thousand pieces.
I feel like I’d be remiss to not post Ursula Vernon’s version of Bluebeard here, which follows a very similar track w.r.t. relationship boundaries but also addresses the “didn’t he still murder women though?” part of the story: http://tkingfisher.com/?page_id=212
O…oh. I feel so bad for her. That was so good.
I had to read the thread to see if someone else linked it first.
I *love* that story, even in the way it’s still horrifying.
This is EXCELLENT.
I love all of Vernon’s protagonists. They are so delightfully grounded in ways that so many protagonists *aren’t*.
SPOILER (I didn’t understand why they were all wearing the key? Was that punishment for snooping?)
Well, you wouldn’t take your dead wife’s key and give it to the new one. Because 1) in the original, the key would’ve been bloodstained which, you know, kind of makes even the most boundary-respectful wife suspicious and 2) maybe it’s like giving your new wife your late wife’s old dildo? (To mix my Toast and Dear Prudence sensibilities.)
This is now in my mind the real tale of Bluebeard.
Ursula Vernon has also published a short novel with another take on the Bluebeard story–The Seventh Bride (again as T. Kingfisher).
Yes, the Seventh Bride is wonderful. As are Bryony & Roses (a retelling of Beauty & the Beast) and The Raven and the Reindeer (a retelling of the Snow Queen).
Basically, everything Ursula Vernon has ever written is wonderful, and everyone should go read something by her right now.
I CAME HERE TO POST ABOUT THIS.
It’s so good.
To be a total folklore pedant, The Seventh Bride is a take on The Robber Bridegroom, which is similar to Bluebeard but not *quite* the same story.
I came to the comments to see if someone had posted this! I’m glad you did, because I didn’t remember where I’d read it.
Oh wow. Excellent read. Thank you.
Yes, was just coming here to make sure someone had shared a link to this! All of her retellings (many free on that site) are wonderful.
That is just So Very Good and my introduction to Ursula Vernon. THANK YOU
That was a wonderful story!
Okay but what’s she going to do next because obviously this is a trap Mallory is carefully laying for us all
I FEEL SO CONFLICTED. But also this takes all the amazingly creepy parts of the original (Oh-ho-ho, young wife, I’m setting you up to fail to justify the anger I’ve already decided you will incur so I can murder you like all the others; also, the weird thing with the blood-stained egg in some versions) and turns them on their head in a way that is in certain respects at least as unsettling as the original because it throws the original into such stark contrast. #beforecoffeerunonsentences
I quite like John Finnemore’s take on the Forbidden Room temptation in the second episode of the fourth season of his Souvenir Programme. (Transcript available here; http://j-f-s-p.livejournal.com/5865.html)
I think the best line is:
“When I say… Ok so I’m saying, ‘don’t open the trapdoor’, right? But my remark is imbued with subtext!”
Which is basically the case in all of these stories and makes it really unfair that all of the people in them get killed for having curiosity about the thing that someone has gone out of the way to make them curious about.
But what about “Eh yes absolutely we always give our guests breakfast in the morning because they’re always still here.”?
(thank you for the link this is hilarious)
To be perfectly honest, that’s a big part of the problem I’ve always had with the concept of Original Sin. You have God giving Adam and Eve this natural curiosity, with no sense of what could possibly go wrong if they indulge in it (they were innocent and free of the knowledge of good and evil, after all), and then put a big shiny boobytrap in front of them which punishes them and all their descendants for all eternity when they inevitably touch it.
Even if I believed in god, I’d have trouble believing in that.
Agreed! My other problem is the concept of Free Will. If option A is do exactly as I say and go to heaven, and option B is disobey and I’ll send you to hell for eternity? It’s the ecclesiastical version of slapping someone in the face with their own hand and saying “Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you damning yourself to hell?”
But I grew up fundamentalist apostolic, so I have lots of feelings. LOTS.
This is actually the plot to Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher’s take on Bluebeard! It’s in her short story collection and it is pretty cute. I mean, there are definitely still murders, but it’s cute.
I just read it for the first time, thanks to yours and Cricket’s recommendations. LOVED IT.
??????????????
^ me finding myself feeling relieved after reading a children’s story by mallory
I read a riff on this story where the wife just figured the room was his porn-reading room, and she figured everyone deserves some privacy, so she never went into it and they had a wonderful life together. Then he died and the dead wives were found, and people were all like “BUT YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN!!!”
I love this.
That’s the T. Kingfisher one.
Yeah! Someone linked it upthread. I’m sorry but when she just goes, “Oh, you should keep the key then” it kind of made me go “awww” because really–that seems like the reaction a very reasonable and sensible person would have? Just because “hey, don’t pry, but here’s the ability to do so… you know… no reason, just thought you might like… want to be able to” is of course pretty weird and it makes sense that she would go “don’t be silly, I don’t need that”. Except it’s colored by knowing there really was cause to fear all along.
the lesson of bluebeard is you can do whatever you want no matter what your awful husband says, because in the end your sister will show up with some bodyguards and have him stabbed for you. or in the Angela Carter version, your mother with a blunderbuss. point is it’s a comforting story from the get-go. although the part where the blood WOULD NOT come off the key no matter how she scrubbed it always did freak me out and I don’t like what Freud has to say about that one bit.
the other lesson of Bluebeard is you should always listen to your boring parents who tell you not to dye your hair unusual colors or you won’t get a good retail job this summer. they are wrong about the employment thing but you don’t want to manic panic up your beard before you go imprisoning any wives because the legal system will be prejudiced against you and you will not get away with it.
BTW, has anyone ever seen Secret Beyond the Door? It’s a very strange noir-ish take on Bluebeard, with kind of a Jane Eyre-ish happy ending. The main dude is really creepy: his hobby is recreating rooms where famous murders occurred.
But why did he kill the first wife? There wouldn’t have been any bodies for her to discover. What could she have done?
She suggested he try teal this time?
She kept her original surname and didn’t change to his?
I don’t know of any version that says what the first wife did, but I have my own ideas. Hoolia’s answer is so great, though, I’m not gonna try to follow that.
JESUS MALLORY.
This feels like a good place to put a link to one of my favorite Making Light pieces, “Folk Songs Are Your Friends.” Or, as it says in some book or another, “A little Childe shall lead them.”
I want to upvote this a thousand times! The comments just continue the fun!
Word on the street is that the story of Bluebeard is loosely based on Gilles de Rais, sometime associate of Joan of Arc and later executed for supposedly murdering hundreds of people outside the context of religious war.
I think most historians are of the opinion that Gilles must have done something nefarious to merit his reputation, but I think the evidence points more toward the classic witch trial scenario, with the difference that the victim was not a poor nobody, and was also a colossal drama queen given a captive audience and wryly determined to dick with the proceedings as much as possible. “Oh yes, the witnesses don’t know the half of it, I been murdering so many people for Satan all the time, you would not believe, it is exhausting. What happened to the victims? Oh, I ate some of them, had sex with the others. With their organs, anyway. The bodies? Er, they were burned, entirely, leaving no remains or evidence whatsoever. That happens, you know.”
Going down in a blaze of glory…
I have not heard this interpretation of Gilles de Rais but I am ecstatic to add it to my imagination.
HOW IS THIS THE SCARIEST ONE OF ALL?
Oh my god, Mallory, you sick genius. Now I’m going to have nightmares about healthy respectful relationship behaviours MAKING IT SO I DON’T DISCOVER THE BODIES.
Yep, this, this is the trap.
Read Secrets Beyond the Door by Maria Tatar for all your Bluebeard-ing needs!
Also Edna St. Vincent Millay! http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bluebeard/
Oh my God, Mallory!!! Oh, wait, this is a happy story….
The closet is full of his cross-dressing clothes. The first wife flipped out, and he ended up bribing her to move away and take his secret with her (as he is clearly quite wealthy). But she ended up leaving behind a couple of her particular favorite dresses because he had tried them on. Into the closet they went, but that just made the emotional mess that much more tangled. More marriages down the line, the cycle seemed unbreakable to him. He had to travel more and more to keep business going just to pay off all the ex-wives, and half his womanly pretties had painful baggage attached to them.
Imagine what a relief Wife #7’s respect for privacy was. Eventually, when they knew each other better and had built mutual trust, he told her what was in the closet. He did a whole fashion show for her, and together they went through and got rid of the ex-wifely clothes, which went off to be sold at distant boutiques. When she traveled with him, she would go to merchants and have dressed made to his measurements, claiming they were for her mother. Their house became a merry place, she in her pantaloons and he with his blue hair and corsetry, both in ridiculous jewels, and eccentrics and vagabonds came to visit them from far and wide.
I LOVE THIS VERSION. <3
I find this sudden placid twist deeply unnerving. What are you plotting, Goody Ortberg?
This deserves many more upvotes.
Jesus, Mallory…
That was sweet <3
I had no idea either, and was preoccupied all through the story with
1) Shaving
2) Hair dye
I remember reading that as "Mr Fox." Who ends up cut into a thousand pieces.
That was a wonderful story!
There are zero, because they were eaten by Schrodinger's Cat.
For me the most important version of the Bluebeard story will always be Charles Dicken’s, where the murder dude is named Captain Murderer. Not only does it contain pie-crust and cannibalism, it provides the valuable life lessons “Don’t marry a woman who hates you,” and “Don’t marry a man named Captain Murderer unless it’s for revenge.” These lessons have been a lot more helpful and relevant to my life than “Don’t unlock doors when specifically requested not to.” No one has ever made that specific request of me?
There's an 1864 sensation novel by Ellen Wood where the first wife, Clarice, disobeys her husband by following him to the town where he's secretly courting her sister Laura (who doesn't know the guy's her BIL). He murders Clarice and marries Laura, and then Laura pries into his secret murder documents, prompting him to be arrested. At the end, the moral of the story is presented as “have no concealments from your husband, and never disobey him” = secret to a happy life.
Another clever write, it’s always worth it reading your stories
Wait, but… did he still murder all his previous wives in this version? And she/readers just never find out about it?