Bluebeard

Bonjour. Ready for a French folktale??
Aujourd'hui on lit "Barbe Bleue" de Histoires ou contes du temps passé écrit par Charles Perrault et publié en 1697.
Except that we're actually reading the version from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book published 1889. We've heard it stays very true to the original Perrault version and is in English, which is better for us. Enjoy!
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
As his Dark Closet shows, blue Beard was a collector
at heart, and even after dispatching a wife, could not
let her fully depart. That is from Shuley Barzilai's Tales
of blue Beard and his Wives from Late Antiquity to
postmodern times.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Glorica.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to Folklorica, the podcast about folk tales from around
the world. I'm your host, Clayton Stecker.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
And I am also your host, Maggie Bowls.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
How are you doing, Maggie, I'm doing good.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm doing good. I feel like you really put on
your radio voice, like.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, like running star in. I feel like if I tip,
it's like when you tiptoe to dive into a pool,
but then you get scared. Last second, you belly flop.
You just gotta run, You just gotta go for it,
dive head first.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
It's almost like it's an audition, you know. Hello, and
welcome to Folklorica.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's how most of my social interactions feel like I'm
auditioning to be a part of them.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
So I'm doing good. So in the in the time
between our last recording and now, I have finished the
book that I was reading. Oh yeah, how to do
nothing book. I went off of social media myself.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Congratulations, how do you feel?

Speaker 1 (01:42):
And I feel better, although I still have like phantom
you know, like I'll have a spare moment and I'll
just pick up my phone and open it and then
realize I have nothing to do on it, and so
I'll just swipe around. I'll check my email. My inbox
is so empty. I'll be like, delete this track, read

(02:03):
my word of the day email, check.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Steps, check my steps, refresh steps, check steps, refresh.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Read an article here and there. But it's good. Actually
I needed a break. Are you still off?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah? Still off and and loving it. I really don't
miss it. I do have the similar, a similar like
phantom thing where it's like I open my phone and
I just scroll through my Now it's just my Google
feed that I look through. I'm not looking at the articles,
but it's just the habit of scrolling, you know, just
going through something. But then it's like that lasts all

(02:42):
of thirty seconds before I realize, oh, I'm actually not
doing anything. I'm not looking anything. It's my brain just
thinks this is what I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, it's like a it's a habit that we have
to unlearn.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Really really really, it's it's very frustrating, but a little
by a little making progress, getting off the phone more
and more and more. And now I mean I really
only use it for headspace. That's like all in YouTube,
I will say I use I still am on the YouTube,
but other than that, headspace is like where I to
vote all my time.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Now if I'm on my phone, how would you say
you use headspace every day?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah? Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Do you use it for meditation?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
I use it? Yeah, meditation. They have this really cool
feature where it's called the wake Up, and every morning
they have a new video, whether it be about like
the most recent one that I watched was about baby
c Otters, and so it's just this great It's just
like a great way, very positive, very informative, very calming
way to start your day. They have all these different videos.

(03:40):
Some of them are focused on like how to deal
with stress and finances, you know, so it could be
any anything really, but I start my day with the
wake Up and then do a couple sessions of meditation,
and then once in a while, if I'm having trouble sleeping,
I use the sleep cast side of things. But yeah,
so I mean Headspace every every day.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Wow, the pen that I used to write in my
journal every every day is a Headspace pen. I don't
know where it came from. I don't know why I
have it. It's probably Ryan's. I consistently steal all of
Ryan's pens. So maybe they were a sponsor on one

(04:21):
of his podcasts and he got some swag or something
like that. But oh, it's actually right here here.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Oh yeah, the little orange circle.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Little orange circle Headspace. So I look at it every
day and I think about, maybe I'm going to change
to Headspace because I actually tried to listen to Tamara
Lovett's Deep Relaxation Meditation the other day because Tamara Lovett
is the creator of Calm the call mapp, which is

(04:49):
the app that I use, and I couldn't do it.
Oh yeah, I couldn't do it. I hate her so much.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Is this that you sent me the link to her Welcome.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
To the Daily Calm?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
It sounds, it does sound. There is something like you
can hear a smile in everything she's saying, Like like Andy,
the main guy from Headspace, he definitely you can he
laughs and he smiles and you can hear that when
he's you know, going through the meditation with you, but
it's more like once in a while you hear the
smile once in a while. It felt like with her

(05:26):
it was like she was ear to ear smiling the
entire time, the whole time.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
It doesn't make any sense. It's meditation.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
It feels like she's mocking you.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, it does feel like she's mocking. It feels like
she's condescending, mocking, and I hate and I hate.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Her just feeling judged and all I want is inner
peace and this is the person who's supposed to bring
it to me, and she's mocking me.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
So I've been thinking about switching to Headspace pretty consistently,
but again because I paid the year which listeners. I
haven't told the listeners, but I recently re nude my
year subscription a calm, I think in November December. So
I feel like I can't switch now I have to go.
I have to stick it out another year.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, yeah, well I think it's worth the jump so far.
I mean, in my experience with Headspace, it's there's not
a person on there. I dislike there's a bunch of
choices for guided meditation teachers. The sleep cast same thing.
If Headspace wanted to sponsor US, I would happily do that.
That would be I would be a great spokesperson for them.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Hear that Headspace sponsor US, I'll do it. It'll give
me an excuse to switch from calm. Yeah, although you know,
we do have some cool celebrities on the call. Map
reading stories got Mandy Moore feel special, and then you
kind of get the weird ones. You get like Matthew McConaughey,
who's like, Hi, I'm Matthew McConaughey. You might have seen

(06:51):
me in movies like Gravity, and then he like goes
on and it's weird. I do think actually mentions the
movie Gravity.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Was he in Gravity?

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Wasn't he was? Or maybe I'm thinking of Interstellar. I'm
thinking of Interstellar.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
I would love it if if he was listing movies
he wasn't in. I'm Matthew McConaughey and I was in
Shawshank Redemption. I know you fucking weren't lunatic, remember me
Casa Blanca.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Casablanca, Shashank Redemption and the Princess Diaries too.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
No one can challenge me in my speaking booth. But yeah,
so you said you finished your book, and how do
you how do you feel do you feel like it's
get paid off in the end or or where are
you at? Is it something you'll carry with you or
is it something you have to revisit.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
So I listened to the book on Audible. I ended
up buying a copy because there's a lot of like
references to other books and people and all kinds of stuff.
So I was like, I need to have a physical
copy so I can go through it. I think I
might read it again. Interesting, I really liked it. This
is How to Do Nothing Resisting the Attention Economy by

(08:04):
Jennie O. Dalwich came out in twenty nineteen. It's one
of the big things. Well first of all, so she's
really into birding, which I've been trying to get into
for a number of years. What's bird watching?

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Oh? Bird watching? Oh that's cool?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Bird watching? Bird listening.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Do you go to a certain place to do your
bird watching?

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Well? So, no, because I'm not a real bird birder,
you know, like I like to when I'm out and
I see a bird, I like to look at it,
try to find it, try to figure out what it is,
listen to it, you know. But I don't have very
good skills, and I don't ever go out intentionally, like
with the intention of bird watching. It's more so like

(08:44):
a happenstance. But I do have a number of books
about birds which I like to just look through because
they have ridiculous names. Have you seen the names that
they name birds like plumbus gnatcatcher. Okay, so I've got
this Audubon Society book of birds that if I just

(09:05):
were to open it up, we've got this book is
called a clapper rail or this bird is called a
clapper rail, pied build grebe. The grebe, I mean, there's
the blue footed booby, which is a classic classic.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Hello, I'm the blue footed booby.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Glaucus winged goal, laughing goal.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Are gulls always birds that live near the sea.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. But there's
a lot of great bird names. Thick build mrr rufus necked.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Stint what I know that man? Lesser yellow legs, these
are like awesome.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Like solitary sandpiper.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
These are like eighteen forties nicknames.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Black bellied plover. The names of them are just so ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
A ruffed grouse do they do any sort of like
any of the entomology on how they the names came about.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Oh, you know, I don't know. It's a good question though.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Like how did we get to grouse? What's a grouse?
What's a greb?

Speaker 1 (10:04):
What is a grouse? What is a grebe? Surf scooter?
Was that old squaw? Anyways? That's spectacle, lighter, greater scop,
lesser scop, Eurasian wigeon, American wigeon? What are these? They're
not even real words anyways. So that's how I got
into birds in the first place, was just flipping through

(10:26):
bird books and being like, these are ridiculous names. Who
named these?

Speaker 2 (10:30):
You know, it's enough, it's enough to peak the interest
for sure.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
So anyways, so Jenny O'Dell, the author of this book,
is very into birds, and she talks a lot about
birding in the book. So I think that that's going
to be my first takeaway is to try to get
more actively into birding and also the idea of bioregionalism,
which is, you know, understanding the biology of the area
that you live or where you're from.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's really cool and it's a good way I.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Try to understand about exactly. So I'm going to try
to get to know the birds and plants near me.
I've been doing a lot more walks, you know, recently,
not recently, but like, you know, over the last year,
I guess, you know, since Yeah, since we've been in
this situation. And so I want to get to know

(11:16):
the names of things. That's I think one of my
big takeaways.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
And I think that's cool to like put it into
your locale, to go what's immediately around me, what's the flora,
what's the fauna that's natural or natural to my area?
Such a great place to start, exactly.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
There's like this moment in the book where she thinks
about her about where rain comes from, like the rain
that falls on her house comes from, and it's like
the rain that falls on her house comes all the
way from the Philippines.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
I had never thought about where rain comes from either. Yeah,
but there's these like like atmospheric rivers basically where water
travels from one end of the Earth to the other
and then just falls on us and it's bonkers.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
That's bonkers. That's funny. It makes me think of I've
been really fast and it speaking of birds, looking into
why certain fish end up in bodies of water that
they're not naturally there. They're not naturally occurring in that place,
and it'll be like a pond or something like an
isolated body of water. And for a long time, scientists
couldn't figure out how these fish were ending up in

(12:22):
this body of water that they didn't belong in. And
they found out that it was actually that birds, when
they eat fish, sometimes eat fish eggs, but then the
eggs don't get digested, they get processed or whatever, but
then it's like they poop out the eggs and the
eggs just fall where they fall, and sometimes they just
happen to fall into random bodies of water. So then

(12:43):
fish end up traveling. And now we've got like salmon
in places you do and you wouldn't see salmon or
that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I've never heard that before in my life.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, I just read an article on that not too
long ago.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
But birds eat fish eggs, pooped them out, and then
fish hash from them.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Mm hmm. Somehow they so wild. Yeah, so that's cool.
We're both off social media. We both find birds fascinating.
You enjoyed your book, and to to speaking of books,
perfect transition, the reason the story we're doing today is

(13:21):
Charles Burrow's blue Beard from his book Stories from Pastimes,
published in sixteen ninety seven. The text we will be
using is Surprise Surprise from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book,
which apparently stays very true to the original, So that's
what we'll have to go with. But I was inspired
to pick this story because of the book I'm reading,

(13:43):
which is Kurt Vonnegut's blue Beard. But I realized that
I had never read the story. It's a very famous
folk story. And Maggie, you said, you actually know this story.
Did you grow up with this story, like knowing the
story or is this something you came across later.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
No, I never knew the story because my big introduction
of folk lore was The Brother's Grim And this isn't
a Brother's Grim story.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Right, correct?

Speaker 1 (14:11):
The Brothers Grim didn't retell it, or did they?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
They have two versions that are based on blue Beard.
From my understanding, they have one called The Robber Bridegroom
and then another called Fitcher's Bird.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Those are those Grim brother tales.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Mm hmm. Interesting and they're I think, yeah, retellings of
blue Beard. I don't know if they actually have like
a like a direct Bluebeard story.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
But yeah, so I only learned blue Beard in college
through retelling from the author Angela Carter, who wrote a
book of short stories that were of like feminist retellings
of old folk tales. And the Bloody Chamber is the
name of the blue Beard retelling and it's the title story.
It's great, great book of short stories if you want

(14:55):
to read sort of some magical realism, modern postmodern rit.
And then also the one and only Joanna Newsom as
the song Golong, which talks about Bluebeard also. But so
it's a but it's a French story, m hm. And
we haven't done a French story on folk Larca yet.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
No.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Charles Perrot is super super famous.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, he's the as far as I can tell, he
is the originator or the earliest collector of some of
the most famous stories that we know today, at Puss
in Boots being a big one. I think he's famous
for having written Little Red Riding Hood and just any
number of other classics that we've we've talked about on
this podcast, or you know, just from Again Disney or

(15:43):
any other folklore collection.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Do you think that there's much French culture involved in
this story.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
I was actually going to ask you that. I mean
from what I read, I mean, I don't know about
societal standards of the time, but I didn't pick up
anything that seemed distinctly French to me. But you actually
lived there for like a couple of years, right, or
a year or something?

Speaker 1 (16:07):
One year?

Speaker 2 (16:07):
One year, I'd be so curious did you pick up
anything like that? Did you notice anything that was in
the story that felt distinctly French from your experience?

Speaker 1 (16:14):
I mean, in keeping with our you know, general rule
of not reading the story the other person's story beforehand.
I have not read the Andrew Lang Fairy book version
of this story, so it's going to be it's going
to be fresh to me.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Okay, that's cool.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
I mean there's something kind of like, well, I guess
we'll talk about this after, but there's like some sexuality
I feel like in the in the frenchness of it.
Maybe have you.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Been to France never? Did you notice a lot of
differences between culturally between well, what we know of where
we've lived in the States versus where you were in France.
Any differences that spoke to you or jumped out at you.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
There are, yes, Yeah, I think there are cultural differences,
but I was in Paris, and I think the rest
of France feels like Paris is like doesn't reflect the
general culture of France and of you know, the country
as a whole, because it's like the big city. It's
like saying, like the culture of New York is reflective

(17:13):
of American culture.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
I see. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
But one thing that's funny is that when I lived
in Paris, I lived on a street called Square Charles Dickens,
which is an English writer, obviously, right, Charles Dickens. And
when I got there, I had to learn how to
say it to get home in like cabs and stuff,
And so I had to learn how to say Charles

(17:38):
Dickens with like a French accent, which is so stupid
because I still can't even say it right. It's like
Charles Dickens, Dickens. It doesn't make any sense. And it
was really hard.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
What's how do you say square in French?

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Square? It was just square?

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Oh? Square?

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, it was well, I don't know, it was its
something else. I don't remember anymore. Maybe I said rue.
I don't know. I would like to go back there
to Paris.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Is there anything you recommend I if someone were able
to venture that way.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
I have a lot of things i'd recommend. A thing
I was thinking about the other day of missing a
lot was there's this part of the Seine called the
Canal Samartine, which is it's not even particularly pretty, but
it's like a part in like the northeast side of
Paris where the sin is going out of the city,
and it's just like a concrete part of the canal.

(18:33):
But on the weekends in the summertime, it's just like
crawling with people and everybody just sits out there and
has like wine and food and sits on the canal
and it's like just like really really nice. And I've
been missing that as like just sitting on the water,
even though it's like all concrete, like it's not when
I think about what it looks like, it's like it

(18:53):
there's magical, but it's not like beautiful. It's not like
the Sein in like the Il San Louis, which is
like there's like buildings and trees and stuff. It's like regular.
I don't know, but I would recommend doing that if
you ever go there during a normal time where it's
not apocalyptic and everybody can sit out and be kind
of crowded and everybody just sits and they drink. You

(19:15):
buy like a beer from the liquor store, and you
sit there and you just like shoot the shit with
your friends on the water for as long as you want,
because there's no it's not like being in a bar.
Like there's no open container laws in Paris as in
most of the dang world, so you can actually just
have drinks and sit outside and enjoy a beautiful evening
with your friends without you know, fear of being arrested

(19:38):
or ticketed or something.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
You know, it sounds like you just described the thing
that's been taken away from us for the past like year.
You know, like this is the scene. It's like people
hanging out having a good time. There's no concern, no rush,
no worries. We're all socializing outside together and in a
you know, beautiful surrounding and it's just like that sounds

(20:00):
exactly like you're missing the moment, you know, and then
missing all of these things about that too. That sounds great.
I would love to just be as much as I
do have social anxiety, as I would just want to
be in a crowded place again and not be freaked out.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
I miss being around strangers oddly enough.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, yeah, I miss talking to people I don't know. Yeah,
I never thought I would say that.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
I know, it's wild. I like meeting new people. Yeah, surprisingly.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
I think that's what this has all made me realize
is that I actually do okay better than I thought,
you know, thinking like, okay, my social energy level of
dwindles fast, but while it's going, I do love socializing
with anyone mm hmm. And that's what COVID's made me realize,
is like, oh my god, like just being stuck at home,
like I would talk to a stranger right now. I

(20:47):
would absolutely do that.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
I would willingly talk to a stranger right now.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Mm hmmmmm.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
It's great, child, Yeah, so great. What do you know
about Charles Perrow?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
What I know Charles Perrault. He was born in sixteen
twenty eight, and he was a French author and member
of the French Academy, which is the pre eminent French
council for matters pretending to the French language.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
So that's actually something wild about the French Academy. There's
like the French language is bonkers, Like there's so many
things that people say and spoken French that aren't like
allowed to be part of the French language. Like I
can't remember now because it's been too long, but there's
all kinds of like phrases and words and ways of

(21:33):
speaking that the French academy who decides what is French
and what is not. It's basically there's actually a council
of people who says like that's not French, whereas like
in English, you know, we've got like selfie in the dictionary.
You know, English is so quick to invite words into
the lexicon, whereas French is way more discriminatory about it.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Do you feel like that's a is that a good thing?
Or do you feel like it's kind of stifling their
ability to be more a part of a culture, a
global thing. Or is it more like they're trying to
maintain French origin. Only it's got to.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Be a little bit of both, right, you know, like
there's something there's something to be said for the plasticity
of the English language, but I think there's also something
to be said for, you know, trying to keep a
language sacred if you feel like it's has like cultural
relevance to be a certain way, I don't know, I
don't think it's good or bad.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, and is it the way it is? So it's
they try to maybe maintain French origins exclusively, like if
a word, if it's origins obviously maybe are Greek or
something like what would the what would the guidelines be
if you.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
Know, I don't. I don't know, but I assume it
probably comes up as being like probably exclusionary at times,
you know, I don't know. I just always think gets
so wild to have there be a governing body who
decides what can can't be in the language, Whereas in
America with English, were just like edit to the dictionary.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
You know, like you know enough people are using booty delicious,
so I guess you know what bootylicious is in the dictionary.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Booty lishoes is probably in the dictionary. They add definitions
like for like, for some reason, the word lit comes
to mind because it was just in the in the
in the New York Times cross re puzzle. It was
like saying at a party, let's get blank and the
answer was lit, And I was like, are you serious?
New York Times cross re puzzle wild?

Speaker 3 (23:40):
But I bet.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Litt is in the dictionary now as being like a
light also a really good party, also high, you.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Know, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we're definitely we play
real fast and loose with our with the English language.
It definitely is just like, oh, if we use it
enough culturally, it's going in there. There's like it's like
the lawless Land. It's like no rules. It's like enough
people are saying it.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
It's there, but there's something, there's something to be said,
probably for like some language is fleeting, you know, some
slang comes in and goes out quickly, and by adding
it to a dictionary, you kind of immortalize it rather
than letting it come and go, whereas if you say,
this doesn't count, this is just slang. It's got to

(24:23):
be around for you know, twenty thirty years before we'll
consider adding it to the to the dictionary. Maybe that,
you know, so that we don't end up with stupid
words like I don't think of a specific Yeah, that's
a good that's a good example.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
And what's yeah, exactly to your point, like at the time,
and I'm pretty sure it's in there because I remember
it being a thing. It was like when they added
Homer's dough became a word in the dictionary, which should
be It's like we were using it a lot at
the time and then yeah, now, like you said, we've
immortalized it, but now no one's using it.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah, no one says bootyleshes Saith, the lo sadism that
should have gone away.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, now it's forever.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
It's forever. And you were telling you were telling us
about Charles Purou No.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
I think that segues perfectly because I think a big
part of his career working in the French Academy, he
started writing these folk stories and it caused a bit
of a clash because obviously, with the Academy having very
strict guidelines on what was French and what isn't. When
it came to art evolving, it was like, you can't

(25:31):
do that or that's not okay because that's not classic French.
You know, that's not this, it's you're going against type.
I don't know how to describe it, but he got
some kickback from a lot of people because of the
way he was telling his folk stories. But even before that,
I know that his family were also, like I think
his dad was also in the French government in some way,
French Council of some kind. He had initially Charles Burroau

(25:54):
had initially gone to school to study law, and I
want to hold on, I want to put like a
pin in that because of he's got a very interesting
moral agenda. It seems like he tries to go after
and so I'm so curious one why he has We'll
talk about it later, but why he has this specific
moral agenda, and if maybe working in law or a

(26:15):
life experience led him to law school. I don't know.
There's something. There's something there that I want to dive into,
a little.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Bit, some connection between like didactict in folklore and enforcing
the law in a government job.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Interesting, and how he viewed people and strangers, like he
really seems to have been one of the first, like,
as far as I can tell, one of the first
people to really promote the stranger danger idea m m like.
I'll read this quote of his about his own story,
the Little Red Riding Hood children, especially attractive, well bred

(26:55):
young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they
should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf.
I say, quote unquote wolf. But there are various kinds
of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming,
complacent and sweet who pursue young women at home and

(27:15):
in the streets. And unfortunately it is these gentle wolves
who are the most dangerous ones of.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
All Cheez Louise.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
So yeah, he's really, I think, and something in his
life maybe has like or maybe he just wasn't a
very trusting person or had some experience, but he's It
seems like a lot of his stories have some element
of that don't trust a stranger too.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Specifically women shouldn't trust strangers.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Exactly specifically women. But yeah, he ended up getting married.
In sixteen seventy two, at the age of forty four,
Charles Perrot married nineteen year old Marie Guichan g u
i c h o n, who would later become Charles's
inspiration for Little Red riding Hood. The couple would have
three sons together, but sadly, Murray would die giving birth

(28:02):
to the couple's only daughter in sixteen seventy two, just
six years after they first married. So a lot of
his storytelling and why he after his career kind of
came to a halt. With the Academy, he got really
into promoting his folk stories and writing more folk stories
and that was more for his children. It was like

(28:22):
he was teaching them moral lessons through folk stories with
them in mind, with his kids in mind. He passed away.
Charles Barrow passed away in seventeen oh three, So only
what is that six years after his book came out.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
I wish I knew more about what was going on
in France at the time. Maybe we'll maybe I'll look
up some stuff and post it on the Instagram or
something to give us some historical context.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, because it really seems like there's I mean, just
like we talked about his moral agenda there, it's just
so it's specific, and his career path it seems also
so specific to to facilitate incorporating that into what he
does that I would really love to know what the
average person's life was like in the sixteen.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Hundreds, Not that he was an average person by any means, though, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
That's true. He was, Yeah, was wealthy.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
He was wealthy, noble, you know, well born. I wonder
how weird it was for a forty year old to
marry a nineteen year old, Like maybe he's the wolf
he's warning everybody about, you.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Know, true, So yeah, that could be that. Maybe he
was warning about himself.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
He's probably a weirdo freaking the sheets.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, I'm trying to think of who it was. Was
it our I can't think of his name, but it
was the author who wrote Water of Life. I remember
us finding out that he had like a hand fetish
or something. He was like really into hands.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
I don't remember that, but listeners, if you remember playing.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Hashtag back hand stuff, Hush.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Jake, show me your hands.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
So I'm thinking, I feel like, so we got him
out of the way, and just to prevent any sort
of spoilers for anyone who hasn't heard the story, I
feel like we'll jump let's jump into the story and
then we can really start to dissect all the what
you know, what, I know, what we've that sounds great
come across. So I think, what do you think. Let's
take a break.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Let's take a very quick break, and then we'll come
back and Clayton. You can read the story of.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Bluebeard Excellent blue Beard by Charles Perrot from his book
Stories from Past Times, published in sixteen ninety seven. There

(30:52):
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,

(31:15):
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

(31:38):
and aversion was the fact that he already had been
married to several wives, and nobody knew what had become
of them. Blue Beard, to engage their infection, 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.

(32:01):
The time was filled with parties, hunting, fishing, dancing, mirth
and feasting. Nobody went to bed, but all past the
night and 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

(32:21):
after all, and that he was a mighty civil gentleman.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know what that makes me think of really fast,
is you know, her thinking maybe his beard's not so
blue feels like when you see a red flag in
someone and you go like, nope, bad, don't do that.
That looks bad. I've got a red flag. And then
you like talk yourself out of seeing the red flag,
and you're like, maybe I'm just like overreacting. Maybe it's
just like totally maybe he's just you know, a little weird,

(32:50):
you know what I mean, Because a blue beard seems
like such a specific physical attribute. You know, how did
his beard get blu? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, Like I'm really like why was his blue beard
so disgusting? Like why did everyone's like it's not brown?
Brown is much better?

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Like is it blue like bright blue or is it
like dark blue?

Speaker 2 (33:15):
From every illustration I've seen, it looks like it's like
a pretty powerful royal blue, Like yeah, true bright solid blue. Yeah,
But apparently it was disgusting at the time, and the
red flag for this guy him, yeah, made him ugly.
But then it's like they're also admitting, well, he has

(33:35):
been married a lot. We don't know where his other
wives are, but his beards are our main concern.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
It's mostly the beard.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
It's mostly the beard is putting people off.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
So weird.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah. As soon as they returned home the marriage was concluded.
About a month afterwards, blue Beard 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

(34:09):
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
every day in use. These open my strong boxes, which
hold my money, both gold and silver. These my caskets

(34:31):
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

(34:51):
such a manner that if you happen to open it,
you may expect my just anger and resentment. 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

(35:12):
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

(35:32):
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

(35:53):
had ever seen.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
They seem really stoked just for like a full body mirror,
you know.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, none of them have ever seen their torso and
their legs in the same shot.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
And they're like they have a piece of glass where
you can see your entire body head to foot.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
I don't know if, I don't know if you have
plans this weekend, but we're all going to go over
to her place. And she's got mirrors that are five
foot eight inches long, Like it's crazy wild.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
You really take that for granted these days, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, But we're gonna wait until he's out of town
because he's got this beard that I don't know about it.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
It's all uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
It makes us all incredibly uncomfortable. They cease not to
extol and envy the happiness of their friend, who, in
the meantime in no way diverted herself and looking at
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

(36:50):
her company, she went down a little backstaircase 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. But

(37:10):
the temptation was so strong that she could not overcome it.
She then took the little key and opened it, trembling.
At first, she could not see anything plainly because the
windows were shut. After some moments, she began to perceive
that the floor was all covered over with clotted blood,
on which lay the bodies of several dead women ranged

(37:31):
against the walls.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
It probably smells really bad in there.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that, Like, how does
that I mean? But I will say this if there's
something I do know about castles from ancient times, they reeked.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Because she's used to things smelling bad.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, you have no sewage system, you have no true
you know, trash displacement. It's everything just sits there. And
so a lot of people would leave their castles in
the summertime because the heat would make everything smell extra bad.
So you would be away from your castle in the summer,
come back to it in the winter. After some moments,
she began to perceive that the floor was all covered

(38:13):
over with clotted blood, on which lay the bodies of
several dead women ranged against the walls.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
These were all.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
The wives whom Bluebeard had married and murdered, one after another.
She thought she should have died for fear, and the key,
which she pulled out of the lock, fell out of
her hand. After having somewhat recovered her surprise, she picked
up the key, locked the door, and went upstairs into
her chamber to recover. But she could not, so much

(38:43):
was she frightened. Having observed that the key to the
closet was stained with blood, she tried two or three
times to wipe it off, but the blood would not
come out. In vain did she wash it, and even
rub it with soap and sand. The blood still remained,
for the key was magical, and she could never make
it quite clean. When the blood was gone off from

(39:05):
one side, it came again on the other. Blue Beard
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. His
wife did all she could to convince him that she
was extremely happy about his speedy return. The next morning,

(39:28):
he asked her for the keys, which she gave him,
but with such a trembling hand that he easily guessed
what had happened. What said, he is not the key
of my closet among the rest, I must said, she
have left it upstairs upon the table. Fail not, said
blue Beard, to bring it to me at once. After
several goings backwards and forwards, she was forced to bring

(39:51):
him the key. Blue Beard, having very attentively considered it,
said to his wife, why is there blood on the key?
I do not know? Cried the poor woman, paler than death.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
This is such an intense conversation.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
I mean, could you imagine being like, why would she stay? Like,
once you found the chamber, and with all these dead
ex wives, why would you stick around?

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, it seems like she had an opportunity to make
a run for it that she didn't take, you know.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah. They do mention that he did come back surprisingly early.
He was supposed to be gone longer, and so maybe
that's what caught her off.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Oh yeah, the same evening mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
But I mean as soon as I left that chamber,
I would have been like I would have been like friends,
like there's something down there. We got to get the
hell out of here, like she thought she had.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
She thought she had a minute to figure out what
to do, and then he just showed up, and she
was like, oh my god, yay, you're.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, Oh my god, I'm so happy you're home. That's
so I was just starting to miss you.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
It's scary.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
You do not know, replied blue Beard. I very well
know you went into the closet, did you not? Very well? Madam?
You shall go back and take your place among the
ladies you saw there. Upon this, she threw herself at
husband's feet and begged his pardon with all the signs
of a true repentance, vowing that she would never more

(41:25):
be disobedient. She would have melted a rock, so beautiful
and sorrowful was she. But blue Beard had a heart
harder than any rock. You must die, madam, said he
at once. Since I must die, answered she, looking upon
him with her eyes all bathed in tears. Give me

(41:47):
some little time to say my prayers. I give you,
replied blue Beard. Half a quarter of an hour, but
not one moment.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
So it's like seven and a half minutes.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
So specific like he could have just said I'll give
you a quarter of an hour like that would have
been fine fifteen minutes. But he's like half of a
quarter of an hour of a day of a like
he's just slicing it up. Or it's like he's buying
his own time or biding his own time. When she

(42:27):
was alone, she called out to her sister and said
to her sister Anne, for that was her name, go up,
I beg you to the top of the tower, and look.
If my brothers are not coming. They promised me that
they would come today. And if you see them, give
them a sign to make haste. Her sister Anne went
up to the top of the tower, and the poor

(42:47):
afflicted wife cried out from time to time and sister Anne,
do you see anyone coming? And sister Anne said, I
see nothing but a cloud of dust in the sun
and the green grass in the Meanwhile, blue Beard, holding
a great saber in his hand, cried out as loud
as he could ball to his wife. Come down instantly,

(43:08):
or I shall come up to you one moment longer,
if you please, said his wife, And then she cried
out very softly, Anne, sister Anne, do you see anybody coming,
and sister Anne answered, I see nothing but a cloud
of dust in the sun and the green grass. Come
down quickly, cried blue Beard. Or I will come up

(43:29):
to you. I am coming, answered his wife, And then
she cried, and Sister Anne, do you not see anyone coming?
I see, replied sister Anne, A great cloud of dust
approaching us. Are they my brothers? Alas, no, my dear sister,
I see a flock of sheep.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Honestly, Sister Anne is being kind of an asshole on
this issue.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
He really is, like so may she.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Not understand the gravity of the situation. She's like, are
they coming? I'm about to die? And she's like, my,
I see, like it does just see like the sun
and the grass is like super green and nice. It's
like a really pretty day. Oh oh, someone's going. Oh sorry,
now it's just a sheep.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Like she's the worst.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
She's the worst.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Will you not come down? Cried blue Beard. One moment longer,
said his wife, And then she cried out and Sister Ann,
do you see nobody coming? I see, said she two horsemen,
but they are still a great way off. God be praised,
replied the poor wife joyfully. They are my brothers. I

(44:41):
will make them a sign as well as I can
for them to make haste. Then blue Beard bawled out
so loud that he made the whole house tremble. The
distressed wife came down and threw herself at his feet,
all in tears, with her hair about her shoulders. This
means nothing, said blue Beard, you must die. Then, taking

(45:06):
hold of her hair with one hand and lifting up
the sword with the other, he prepared to strike off
her head. The poor lady, turning about to him and
looking at him with dying eyes, desired him to afford
her one little moment to recollect herself. No, no, said

(45:26):
he commend yourself to God, and was just ready to strike.
At this very instant, there was such a loud knocking
at the gate that blue Beard made a sudden stop.
The gate was opened, and two horsemen entered, drawing their swords.
They ran directly to blue Beard. He knew them to

(45:46):
be his wife's brothers, one a dragoon, the other a musketeer,
so that he ran away immediately to save himself. But
the two brothers were pursued and overtook him before he
could get to the steps of the porch. Then they
ran their swords through his body and left him dead.
The poor wife was almost as dead as her husband

(46:07):
and had not strength enough to rise and welcome her brothers.
Blue Beard had no heirs, and so his wife became
mistress of all his estate. She made use of one
part of it to marry her sister Anne to a
young gentleman who had loved her a long while, another
part to buy Captain's commissions for her brothers, and the
rest to marry herself to a very worthy gentleman who

(46:30):
made her forget the old time she had passed with
blue Beard.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
The end, So she survives.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
She survives thanks to her brothers.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Thanks to her brothers. Yeah, I'm curious. So she's telling
her sister the two that are coming are my brothers,
but her sister doesn't know who those two are. But
I mean, like the caricature we've created of hers, She's like, oh,
I guess I see like the sun, and I see
like trees.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
It's like a cloud that shaped kind of like a leaf.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
She starts talking about the clouds. She's like, there's one
that kind of looks like a worm. It's really interesting.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
It's creepy, weird though, it's.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Super weird, like, but do you see anybody? Is there
anyone there? Yeah, it's so funny. So maybe she's just
maybe Anne is just kind of dense.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
She seems dense, but she also gets a happy ending
at the end. She gets to marry a guy who
was into her, so that's good for her.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really works out for everyone in
the story except for Bluebeard obviously, but she and the
wife inherits all of his stuff and then takes care
of all of her family and friends. Yeah, it's kind
of all right.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Do you think that the other women that he killed
he did the same test too, and they just didn't
have someone to come save them.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
I would assume that would be true for each of
them except the first. What was the test for the
first Do you think it was just don't go in
the chamber at all, like even though there was nothing
in there, because there would be nothing for the first
one to dead wives? Or did he.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Just maybe he just didn't like that one.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Didn't like the first one, and then killed her and
then it became kind of a game after that.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Or maybe he had practiced killing small animals like most
serial killers, and so he had a bunch of dead
animals in that room.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Because originally it was there was much more like a
hunter's lodge. Yeah, don't go in there. And then she did,
and he's like, I can't ever trust you again, so
he killed her just again.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Well, but also maybe he did a different test for
each of the wives. You know, he would put them
all up to a test that he knew they would
fail so that he could kill them as punishment at
the end. You know, he sounds like a power like
a power hungry guy. You know, don't go in this
here's a key, don't go in this room to this key.
I'm going to be gone for six weeks.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
He's really setting her up to fail.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
And also she goes in there immediately and he comes
back immediately, so it's like he knew, he knew what
was going to happen.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Do you think he actually had business or was he
just like hanging out outside, like keeping eyes and just
being like, as soon as she does it, I'm coming back.
I'm going to catch her.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
I think closer to that than real business.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
He just wants to murder.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
I mean, thinking about Charles Purroh, like it seems almost
like he's trying to teach them a.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Lesson, you know, curiosity. Yeah, actually, that's funny you say that.
I'm I'm recalling right now. I read something where he
actually has a quote about how maybe I wrote it down,
but it's basically something like curiosity kills women. Not that specific,
but it's basically that's the gist of what he's saying, Like,
curiosity gets women in trouble, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Because there's like some link between this and like the
story of Eve and the Garden of Eden or something,
you know, the temptation, the curiosity being the downfall, just.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Like and then yeah, to have the quote that we
read that I read earlier about Little Red Riding Hood
where it's about the wolves, it's really like he admits
that there's evil in the world, but that it is
women who walk into it. It seems like, seems to
be his take on it. It's up to women not
to allow it.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, well, there is like that whole you know, you know,
men as stewards of women, old fashioned way of thinking, Like,
you know, I don't feel this way because I don't
trust women. It's because I don't trust men, you know,
men as being like the like you need to protect
women from the evils men. I always assume that men
who feel that way that women need to be protected

(51:04):
are like the creepiest themselves. If you think all men
are like creepy murderer rapists, probably because you're thinking a
lot about murdering and raping, you know.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Yeah, it's it's kind of like people who think that
someone's going to like very jealous partners and things like that.
People who think someone's going to cheat on them. It's
because they're like they're cheaters, you know what I mean.
They think they know it's possible. If I can do it,
you can do it, exactly. But it really stems from
your own desires, you know, your own personality is really
what it comes from. Yeah, so maybe Perro is a

(51:36):
little bit more twisted than we realize or than we know.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
I think he might be, Honestly, I think he might be.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
It's funny that makes me. Nicole actually has a has
a thought on because she cannot watch horror movies at all.
Like I'll watch some scary movies, but then I have
to explain them to her later and she's like, it's
like story time. I tell it, like I explained get
Out to her, and she was like at the end,
she's say, oh my god, that's so that's so good.
But it was just me explaining what happened. But she's

(52:03):
she has asked that question. She's like, how do you
how do people? How does a person come up with
some of these really twisted, very gruesome, tortuous scenes where
they're like very golry. It's like, how is that in
your brain to like do these things? You know? And
so I feel like there's like a similarity with like
Pero being able to write this sort of character and
to have this sort of fascination with like women are

(52:25):
in danger constantly. It's like, h are you the reason
that they? Are you one of those people? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:31):
Well, I mean I think a lot of people, probably
even the majority of people, have a lot of twisted thoughts.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Like there was some podcasts I listened to a while
ago about this guy who started having these like really
vivid like visions of like murdering his girlfriend or something
like that, and he was like totally freaking out about
it because he was a really gentle, friendly guy.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Mm hm.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
But apparently I can't honestly this I'm doing a bad
job of describing this because it was a while ago
that I listened to the podcast. But like, according to
therapists and stuff, most people have violent thoughts. It's just
that some people are better at like brushing them aside,
and some people aren't.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
And some are really good at following through with these
these things in their brain.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Yeah, but like a lot a lot of people have,
you know, violent thoughts. Like I think of violent things
all the time, and like not because I'm gonna do
them or something, but because like it's like a just
like a neuron firing in the brain, you know. It's yeah,
this it's like when you go on a top of
the tall building and you think about jumping off of it.

(53:37):
You know, it's they're automatic. They're automatic thoughts. They're not
for for most people. They're automatic thoughts. Our brains just
go to these weird places, you know. Well, and there
are there are like two historic stories that they think
that Bluebeard is kind of based on, right, m hm,
So what are those?

Speaker 2 (53:56):
One of them? And it's funny because I think this
is the one that Vonnegut actually acknowledges in his book
blue Beard. One of them is a nobleman was a
nobleman named guil de Deray. He was a French nobleman
who fought alongside Joan of Arc and then later dedicated
his life to dark magic. He began kidnapping, molesting, and

(54:18):
killing children in the name of sacrifice. He was eventually
found guilty of one hundred and forty counts of murder
and was executed. And that's probably the most popular belief
is that it's is that it's based on him, but
that other than the murdering, I mean, there's guild Derret
was more children. There's one hundred and forty of them.
There's no wives, Like it doesn't He's just a murderer,

(54:39):
so it doesn't really sync up.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah. And also that guy, it was like they found
they found like sixty or something dead children's bodies, like
in his house or something like that. And then they
when they grabbed him, he said like I've killed twice
this many or something like that.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Let's go at least he.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Was honest, which is wild.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah, all in the name of sacrifice. How bizarre. And
then the other person is Connomer the Cursed his title,
who lived around five hundred a d. So, I mean,
way way, way way before Guilderet or Charles Perrot or anybody,
and Connomer the Curse was a chieftain who had been
married four times before being married to the daughter of

(55:22):
his ally. Connomer's newest bride discovered that Connomer had killed
his previous wives when they became pregnant, and since she
was pregnant at the time, she fled. Connomer eventually found
her and beheaded her. But legend says that her head
was reattached by a saint and she later became a
saint herself. So it definitely makes more sense that that

(55:43):
would be blue Beard, just because of the wife murdering
aspect of it. The number is a little closer.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
But even the beheading, you know, because Bluebeard's about to
be head, I guess you just it's probably just a
common way to kill people. Maybe, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Yeah, that's yeah, So that's that feels like it's probably
more accurate. But it seems like the guild Ray character
has more widely been assumed to be the true blue Beard.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
But even though it's children and not wives.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, yeah, I would, I would probably, I mean I
would lean towards connom Or the Cursed being the more accurate,
But it also five hundred d D to sixteen to
the sixteen hundreds. That's I mean, that's a long time
for a story to survive.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Yeah, it is, and it sounds like it could be
more legend than the story of Gilday is is that
do we know that's true? Like, are there are there records?

Speaker 3 (56:33):
You know?

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Or I believe so records or something, and then Connom
or the cursed are there?

Speaker 2 (56:38):
You know?

Speaker 1 (56:39):
You know, it's like, no, never tell if they're how
like how much we can count on their validity? Yeah, yeah,
no factiness.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
You would have. I'm sorry I jumped in their factiness,
their truthiness, true fleet is Yeah, but I think that's
what I mean. That's something I love about folk tales
is that there's there's always an element that this is
a based on a true story, you know, and then
legend gets added and it gets fabricated in a lot
of ways, but there's always the possibility that it starts

(57:15):
from something true. And because folk tales are so cultural,
it's like a people sharing their stories and what's happened
to the people that came before them. So this story
is of no exception. So the fact that it's even
possible that blue Beard was a real person is interesting.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
There's got to be some moresel of truth in there.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
You know, exactly one of these is just bety. That
is definitely the truest part of the story is that
the sister Anne. So it's like deer, do you want
to know if they're eating or not? Because some of
them are and some of them aren't eating. I will
say this, this was really interesting to me just because

(57:55):
I've actually seen this person. His name was Henri Desiree Landrus.
That's my best shot at his name. He was a
French serial killer nicknamed the Bluebeard of Gambai Gambay, Gombi. Yeah,
and he murdered at least seven women in the village
of Gambay between December nineteen fifteen and January nineteen nineteen.

(58:19):
He was executed by guillotine on February twenty fifth, nineteen
twenty two. This tripped me out. His head is now
on display at the Museum of Death in Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
That's bizarre.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
So I've seen this man's head because I have been
there twice.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Oh really, I've driven past it a number of times
because I used to drive past it on my way
home from work every day.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
It's very unassuming.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
I've never been inside. So you went in there and
you saw the head? What did it look like? Do
you remember?

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Shriveled, brown, little eyeless, mouthless thing.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Do we know which kinds of women he killed? Was
it like a Jack the Ripper kind of sitution where
he was killing you know, prostitutes or you know he.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
I watched a little mini doc on him, and what
he would do was basically like personal ads turn in
the century, like personal ads like man seeking woman who
blah blah blah blah blah. And so he would like
court these women through letters for a long time, and
then once he gained their trust, he would kill them

(59:21):
for their money or whatever property they owned sort of thing.
And I think he killed I think eleven or twelve
people in total, mostly yeah, mostly the women that he
had seduced. And then I think on one occasion he
killed a woman and that woman's son who was like fifteen.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Yeah, And the neighbors complained that he like gross smoke
was always coming out of his chimney and it always
stunk outside of his house, and because that's where.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
He was putting them burning people.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Yeah, he was melting them in his fireplace. Oh gosh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Fun, he want to hear a fun fact or actually
all a fun quiz fact. Do you know what year
the last execution by guillotine happened in France?

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Nineteen seventeen, No, nineteen seventy seven, seventy seven? Oh my god?
Who was it?

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
It was a guy named Hamida jen Dubie. I don't
know what he did. He was Tunisian. Oh, here we go.
He tortured and murdered a twenty two year old woman.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yeah, i'll do it. Seventy seven. That's so crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah, it seems so late, right, like so recent to
be guillotining people.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Yeah, that'd be like you telling me that the last
time someone got killed by a catapult was like nineteen
eighty four, Right, It's like, why are you using such
ancient methods to deal with this?

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Yeah? But I mean, you know, the death penalty in
general is like pretty barbaric.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Yeah, like, even even aside from the electric chair, which
is insane in its in its own right. The injection process.
I didn't know this, but apparently you get injected by
three different things and the first thing that hits you,
you're not numb to anything. You are actually an agonizing pain.
But one of them neutralizes you so you can't.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Move, so you're paralyzed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
You're paralyzed, and then the other two I've heard poison
you and kill you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Yeah, I've heard that. The first shot like people have
compared it to feeling like there's like liquid fire being
pumped through your entire body.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah yeah, why why abolish the death penalty? Yeah? Yeah,
for sure?

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
What about a moral here?

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
So we haven't we have a choice here because, like
we've talked about with pro he is a moral heavy guy.
So we do have a moral that's been included with
our story. Do you want to take a crack at
it and then we can see what he says?

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Sure? So to me, the moral is about curiosity, right?
Or I don't know, Actually I don't know. Why don't
we just look at what the what his moral is
and then let me see if we can pull out
some other morals, because I feel like there's a lot
of potential morals, even though they're maybe not intended.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah yeah, okay, so that's so funny the first word curiosity.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
So wait, but these morals, these are from the Andrew
Lang Fairy book. Right, these are not Paro's morals or
they're pulled from Pero's Mortal.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
What we're reading is Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book text,
but it is pulled from Lang's source, which is Charles
Perrot's La Bob e Blie Blue Bla and what we
have written here, So I would assume this is Perro
because it does seem like Lang tried to stick very
accurately to the original text, so it'd be weird for

(01:02:45):
him to then go and add his own little flare
of This is what I think the moral is, but
you never know. Lang's a wild guy. Curiosity, in spite
of its appeal, often leads to deep regret, to the
displeasure of many a maiden, specifically with women. Again, to
the displeasure of many a maiden. Its enjoyment is short lived.
Once satisfied, it ceases to exist and always costs dearly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Gotcha. So the first moral would be careful women. Mm hmmm,
don't look around too deeply, because.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
You were going to say, don't go chase it. Don't
go chasin waterfalls.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Don't go chasin waterfalls. Stick to the rivers and the
streams that you're used to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Actually, I think that might be the same lesson in
that song right now, I think it is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Yeah, But then they offer a secondary moral.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Apply logic to this grim story, and you will ascertain
that it took place many years ago. So he's even
saying that it's this is this is an old time tale.
No husband of our age would be so terrible as
to demand the impossible of his wife, Nor would he
be such a jealous malcontent for whatever the color of

(01:03:59):
her husband's beard. The wife of today will let him
know who the master is. So it sounds like he's
saying that women of his time are much more empowered
than the woman in this story.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
That is such a weird thing to say, so, but
he's basically saying, no husband of our age would give
that kind of a temptation.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Yeah he's you know, yeah, he read, and no husband
of our age would be so terrible as to demand
the impossible of his wife, which is just saying you
can't do something tempting her curiosity. He's saying that's impossible
for women.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Yeah, there was only one outcome, Yeah, you know, which
is which is funny because that second moral is like
directly contradictory to the first moral, which is the first
moral is resist temptation. And the second moral is it's
impossible to resist a temptation like this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
It is possible that the second moral just because it
is saying and if you read this story with any
sense of logic, you will know that this story was
taken place a long time ago, So it could be
that Lang added that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Yeah, I wonder, And because it is.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
So contradictory to the first thing, it almost seems like
it might be by two different people. So there's that possibility.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
I feel like there's also even though I don't think
it's an intentional moral, I think that there's something to
be said for trusting your gut when you get a
bad feeling from someone.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Yeah, Like everybody was like, this guy's weird. He's got
a blue beard and he's very ugly, and they were like,
Annie's rich, give him a chance, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Yeah, it makes me think of that crazy like romantic
movie trope where they the couple hates each other in
the beginning, but eventually they fall in love. It's like
this is trying to promote the opposite idea where it's like,
don't believe what your gut's telling you, instead of.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
The opposite of don't judge a book by its cover. Yeah,
judge a man by the color of his beard. Don't
judge a man by the color of his beard unless
it's blue, in which case run the other direction as
fast as possible, because he is a murderer.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
The blue or the beard, the more he is weird.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
That's what they said. I've heard that before.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
What they say, what about you?

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Do you feel like there's anything any moral in there
that we haven't covered.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
He's really trying to poke at you know. Don't pursue curiosity,
which I can understand. It's funny. I remember listening to
a radio show years ago where Lemmy from is it
Motorhead Now I'm spacing, But anyway, I was listening to
this radio show and people would call in and ask
them like relationship stuff, and so I'm pretty sure it
was Lemmy, and Lemmy said because the person was like,

(01:06:31):
should I go through my partner's phone? Like I just
have this feeling. I just have this feeling that they're
doing something they shouldn't be doing. And Lemmy was like,
I guarantee you if you do that, you will find
something you don't like, even if it's not the thing
you're looking for and so there's like I agree with
that logic, like if you go looking for something, you

(01:06:53):
will find it. But there's also like, I don't think
curiosity should be broadly punished, you know, I don't, And
it seems like is really against don't be curious.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Yeah, there's a difference between a paranoia and curiosity.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Yeah, but I think that's that's pretty much the gist
of it. It would be like, yeah, curiosity. For some reason,
he thinks that women are easily tempted by it, will
pay the ultimate price for their curiosity.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Except that she didn't. She got saved, right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
That's true. He did reward her in the end, she's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Saved and she gets to marry someone else.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
At the end, she was so wealthy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Think it's a happily ever after and she gets a bunch.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Of money her curiosity. No, that's yeah, that's true. Her
curiosity was totally rewarded. Even though a near death experience,
terrifying as it was, occurred, she still won her curiosity
all she wanted. Because if she I mean, if she
had never looked in that chamber, would he have still
killed her?

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Probably he would have just devised a new test.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Yeah, or maybe he would have just.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
He would have tested her until he had a reason
to kill her.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Yeah, I think so. You know, good on her in
a way for doing that because things played out the
way they did.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
What else do we do we did we? Did we
kill it? Did we do we slay it?

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Think we put it in the chamber? And we put
it in the chamber. How did they say we ranked it?
Was we ranged it? I think we ranged it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
We ranged it. I'd be curious if any of our
listeners have any experience with the story of blue Beard.
How have you come across it in pop buelar culture?
You know, have you read Kurt Vonnegut's book, Have you
read Angela Carter's Book of short Stories? Maybe you've seen
one of the movies. They're a bit of a bunch
of movies. Maybe you've read the end of Saint Malay poem.

(01:08:33):
Maybe you are also a Joanna Newsome fan. You've heard
the song go Long.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
This podcast is very pro Joanna Newsom.

Speaker 1 (01:08:40):
Very pro Joanna Newsome. I'd love to hear listener's responses
to the story of Bluebird.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Blue Beard a blue warbler all blue Bird?

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
I never noticed so close it is in sound to
blue Beard, blue blue Bird, Bluebird.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Yes, yes, let us know what your relationship is with
this story. I feel like it might be one of
the more mainstream ones we've we've done. I know, we
try to go off the beaten path as much as
we can find some more obscure stories when we can,
but this feels like possibly this is a weird one.
This is a worthwhile if you like true crime, I
think this is the episode for you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Yeah, true Thank you for so thanks for listening today
to this production of Folklorica. If you like the episode,
or if you like the podcast, you can like, you
can subscribe, You can leave a rating and a review
you can share with your friends and family. You can
also follow us on Instagram at Folklorica dot pod on Instagram.

(01:09:39):
We are on Twitter at.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Folklorica at Folklorica pod, and you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Can email us Folklorica at strawhab Media.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
That's what it is. Yeah, and then yeah, send us letters.
We love getting letters from people or emails I guess
is what they're called they're called now, yeah, we call it,
we call them emails. Yeah, thank you so much for listening, guys,
and we will see you soon, Glorica, And now for

(01:10:11):
your moment of Michael Jackson. Annie, are you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Okay, okay? Are you okay, okay? Are you okay okay?

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Any? Annie? Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? Any?
Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):
Any? You?

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
You've been, You've been, You've been struck by criminal do