A Charles Perrault Fairy Tale

There was once a man who had everything—money, land, a mansion full of treasures. The only problem was his beard. It was blue. Not a little blue, not a subtle blue-tinted black, but blue blue. The kind of blue that made people uncomfortable. The kind of blue that made mothers pull their daughters a little closer when he walked by.

This man had been married before. Several times, actually. No one knew what had happened to his wives. They’d just… disappeared. Moved away, people said. Gone to live with relatives. Found better opportunities elsewhere.

The man decided he wanted to marry again. He set his sights on the two daughters of a wealthy neighbor. Both girls were horrified at the prospect—not just because of the beard, but because of those mysteriously vanished wives.

But Bluebeard was persistent. He threw elaborate parties, took the family on luxurious trips to his country estates, displayed all his wealth and charm. Eventually, the younger daughter started to think maybe he wasn’t so bad. Maybe the beard was just unfortunate genetics. Maybe the disappeared wives really had just moved away.

She married him.

For the first month, everything was perfect. Bluebeard was attentive, generous, kind. Then one day he announced he had to leave on a business trip.

“You have free run of the entire house,” he told his young wife, handing her a ring of keys. “This one opens the wine cellar, this one the treasury, this one the rooms upstairs. Go anywhere you like. Enjoy yourself.”

Then he held up one small key, different from all the others.

“This key opens the little room at the end of the corridor on the ground floor. You may open every other door in this house, but not that one. I absolutely forbid it.”

His wife took the keys. “Of course,” she said. “I understand.”

She didn’t ask why. She should have asked why.

Bluebeard kissed her goodbye and left. His wife immediately invited her friends over to admire the house—the tapestries, the jewels, the gold. They explored every room, marveling at the wealth.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about that forbidden room.

Her friends left. The house fell quiet. The small key felt heavy in her hand.

What harm could it do? she thought. Just a quick look. He’ll never know.

She walked down to the ground floor corridor. Her hand was shaking as she put the key in the lock. The door opened with a sound like a sigh.

At first, she couldn’t process what she was seeing. The floor was slick with something dark. The walls were stained. And there, arranged along the walls like terrible decorations, were the bodies of Bluebeard’s previous wives. All of them. Throats cut, eyes staring at nothing.

She screamed. Stumbled backward. The key slipped from her fingers and fell into the pool of blood on the floor.

She snatched it up, slammed the door, and ran. In her room, she tried to clean the key, scrubbing desperately. The blood wouldn’t come off. She tried water, soap, even sand. The stain remained, a permanent accusation.

That night, Bluebeard came home early.

“I’ve completed my business sooner than expected,” he said pleasantly. “I trust you enjoyed yourself in my absence?”

“Very much,” she managed.

“Excellent. I’ll need my keys back now.”

She handed him the ring with shaking hands, the small key hidden at the bottom.

He looked through them slowly, deliberately. “Where is the key to the little room?”

“I… I must have left it upstairs.”

“Then fetch it.”

She brought it to him, the bloodstain dark against the metal.

Bluebeard’s face changed completely. The pleasant mask fell away, revealing something cold and ancient underneath.

“You went into the room,” he said quietly. “After I specifically forbade it. You know what this means.”

“Please—”

“You’ll join the others. You wanted to know the secret so badly? Now you’ll be part of it.”

She fell to her knees. “Give me just a few minutes. Let me say my prayers.”

He checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes. No more.”

She ran upstairs to her room and locked the door. Her sister Anne was visiting—she called to her frantically through the window.

“Anne! Sister Anne! Climb to the tower and see if our brothers are coming! I sent for them this morning!”

Minutes ticked by. Bluebeard’s voice echoed up the stairs: “Come down now, or I’m coming up.”

“Just one more minute!” she called back. Then, desperately: “Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?”

“I see nothing but dust on the road and the sun making heat.”

“COME DOWN NOW!” Bluebeard roared.

“Sister Anne, please—do you see anyone?”

“I see… yes! Two riders! They’re coming fast!”

But not fast enough. Bluebeard was climbing the stairs, his sword scraping against the wall with each step.

The young wife pressed herself against the door. She could hear him breathing on the other side.

“I’m coming in,” he said.

The door shook with the first blow.

Then she heard something else—hoofbeats, pounding up the drive. Voices shouting. The front door crashing open.

Her brothers burst into the house—one a dragoon, the other a musketeer. They’d ridden all night after receiving her desperate message that morning. They found Bluebeard on the stairs and ran him through with their swords before he could reach their sister’s door.

The wife inherited everything—the mansion, the gold, the lands. She used part of the fortune as her dowry to marry a good man who helped her forget the horrors she’d seen. She used more to fund her brothers’ military careers. The rest she gave to her sister Anne, as thanks for watching the road.

As for that small room at the end of the corridor, she had it sealed up with bricks and mortar, so that no one would ever have to see what she had seen again.

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About This Tale:

“Bluebeard” was published by Charles Perrault in 1697 in his collection Tales of Mother Goose. It’s one of the darkest fairy tales in the Western canon, with no magical elements—just human cruelty and the consequences of curiosity.

The key elements that appear in every version:

• The mysterious wealthy man with the disturbing blue beard
• The forbidden room and the warning not to enter it
• The magical key that retains bloodstains as evidence of disobedience
• The discovery of the murdered previous wives
• The near-death experience and last-minute rescue by the heroine’s brothers
• The inheritance that rewards the survivor

The tale is classified as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 312 (“Maiden-Killer” or “Bluebeard”). Similar stories appear across cultures—from “Fitcher’s Bird” in Germany to “Mr. Fox” in England.

Modern interpretations wrestle with the story’s central tension: Is this a tale warning against female curiosity and disobedience? Or is it about a woman who discovers a terrible truth and barely survives to tell about it? The forbidden room test could be read as a controlling husband’s trap, or as the young wife’s salvation—after all, knowing what’s in that room is what saves her life. She sees the danger clearly and sends for help.

Unlike many fairy tales, “Bluebeard” doesn’t feature magic or supernatural intervention. The horror is entirely human. The rescue comes not from fairy godmothers or magic spells, but from family members who arrive with swords and determination.

The story has inspired countless adaptations and retellings, from Gothic novels to psychological thrillers. The “Bluebeard chamber”—a forbidden space containing horrific secrets—has become a staple of horror fiction. The tale resonates because it speaks to a fear that transcends time: What if the person you married is hiding something unspeakable?

Perrault’s original moral was straightforward and deeply problematic by modern standards—essentially warning women that curiosity is dangerous. But the story itself is more complex than its moral, which is perhaps why it continues to fascinate readers over three centuries later.