Blaubart

***Bluebeard*** is a German folktale collected by the brothers Grimm that they heard from a member of the Hassenpflug family, first published in 1812 in the first volume of *Children and Household's Tales*' first edition.

## Origin

The most well-known previous version to Grimm’s tale is undoubtedly the fairy tale of the same name by French writer Charles Perrault, published in 1697. Because the brothers Grimm thought their tale was too similar to Perrault’s they omitted it in subsequent editions, although the story has some significant details that differentiates one from the other. The first and most significant one, the character of the heroine’s sister is omitted. Also the power dynamics between Bluebeard and his last wife are significantly changed, with Bluebeard becoming a king in Grimm’s tale while his wife’s social position, although not explicitly established on the tale, seems to be a commoner by the fact she lives in a hut in the forest with her family. The story was already pretty popular in Germany by the time the brothers Grimm published their variant, with playwright Ludwig Tieck writing a play based on Perrault’s tale and publishing it in 1797.

## Synopsis

In the woods lives a man with his beautiful daughter and his three sons. One day a golden carriage pulled by six horses and followed by a crowd of servans stops by in front of the man’s hut and from it a king gets out and asks the man for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Overjoyed by the prospect of a king wanting to marry his daughter the man says yes, but his daughter feels there’s something wrong with his suitor because of his blue beard. Her father insists her so much to accept the proposal that she finally gives in, but because her suspicions haven’t gone away before she leaves with the king she gathers her brothers and asks them to come to her rescue whenever they hear her scream. After saying this the girl goes with Bluebeard to his castle, where they get married. Although the girl gets everything she wants, she’s still afraid of her husband and never becomes completely accustomed to his presence. After a while Bluebeard announces to his wife that he has to go on a trip that will take long, and gives her all the keys to the castle, warning her not to open the door whose key is the smallest and made of gold. The young queen promises not to do it, and right after her husband leaves she opens all of the chambers in the castle to admire the treasures kept inside of them, until there’s only the forbidden chamber left to open. Initially she resists the temptation to open it, but in the end her curiosity is stronger and decides to open it to just take a brief peek, hoping Bluebeard won’t notice when he comes back. When she opens the forbidden chamber’s door a flood of blood comes out, and inside she finds the corpses of women hanged to the walls. Horrified for the image the girl closes the door slamming it, but because the key is still in the locks it falls into the blood on the floor. The young queen quickly picks it up, but the key already has bloodstains that no matter how hard the queen tries to wipe them out they never go away, because when they disappear from one side of the key they appear on the other. After a whole day uselessly trying to wash the key the queen leaves it in the hay, hoping that would make the bloodstains be gone by tomorrow.

But the next day Bluebeard comes back from his trip and the first thing he does when he arrives is to ask for the keys back. His wife gives them back hoping he won’t notice the little golden one is missing, but Bluebeard counts the keys and when he notices that one is missing he asks his wife why. The queen replies she must have lost it in the hay, and Bluebeard tells her he knows she hasn’t lost the key, but left it there on purpose to get rid of the bloodstains that prove she opened the forbidden chamber. The queen doesn’t have other options than go to fetch the key, which is still stained with blood, and when Bluebeard sees it he tells his wife she must prepare to die. The young queen asks Bluebeard to let her pray before she’s killed, and seizing the opportunity when he lets her she goes upstairs and from a window she calls her brothers, who are in the forest drinking wine, asking them to come and rescue her. The youngest feels that their sister must be in danger, and the moment he tells his two eldest brothers they jump on their horses and ride to Bluebeard’s castle as quickly as possible. Meanwhile Bluebeard is sharpening his knife and asking his wife when she’s going to come down while his wife is looking out the window, hoping her brothers will come in time. Finally Bluebeard’s patience runs out, he goes upstairs and grabbing his wife by the hair he forces her to come down. Right when he’s going to stab her, the three brothers come bursting through the door and after disarming Bluebeard they kill him. Bluebeard’s corpse is hung from the walls of the same chamber where he kept the corpses of the women he killed, and the girl returned home with her brothers.