“Blue Beard.” Histories or Tales of Past Times Written for Children Told By Mother Goose with Morals, Charles Perrault, edited by J. Saxon Childers, London: The Nonesuch Press., 1925, pp. 30-40.

Tale Summary

There was once a rich man who unfortunately had a blue beard, which made him so ugly that women hated him (it did not help, also, that he had several wives before, and no one knew what had become of them). He had a neighbor with two beautiful daughters, neither of which wanted his hand in marriage, so he arranged a whole week in the country with them and other young people, where they had so much fun that the youngest daughter agreed to be his bride. After about a month, Blue Beard told his wife he must leave for six weeks, and gave her the keys to everything within his estate, but warned her not to unlock a certain closet under threat of a great deal of anger and resentment. After he leaves, his wife invites her neighbors and good friends, who are excited to see her house, and they all run through the rooms, which all had much to admire. The wife is so curious about the closet, however, that she leaves the company to unlock it. Inside, she finds that the floor is covered in blood, and there are several bodies of dead women against the walls. She is frightened and leaves, but not before dropping the keys in blood. She is unable to clean the keys because they are a fairy, and when Blue Beard returns, he spies the blood and knows what has happened. He tells her that she must die, and ignores her pitiful pleas for mercy, but agrees to give her half a quarter of an hour to pray. When she is alone, she calls out to her sister to go to the top of the tower to see if her brothers are in view, for they promised they would come, and to signal them to make haste. For some time her sister looks, seeing nothing, as Blue Beard yells for his wife to come down until the two horsemen come into view. At this point, the distressed wife had to go to her husband. Before he is able to strike, her brothers enter and kill him. The wife becomes the mistress of the estate, marries her sister to a young gentleman, buys Captains Commissions for her brothers, and marries herself to a worthy gentleman.