Bluebeard

Bluebeard, whose edifying history as a stern corrector of conjugal indiscretion has been so useful in guiding children to a perception of moral truth, first appears in his familiar shape as the Chevalier Raoul in Perrault's Contes de Fees (1697). Some have supposed that Henry VIII. or the infamous Gilles de Retz, of Machecoul in Brittany, suggested the leading features of the narrative, but probably it is to be traced to a more remote antiquity in the folk-lore that has been inherited by all races from a primitive age. The tale under various guises appears in Greek, Italian, French, Gaelic, Basque, and several Scandinavian languages, the entry of a forbidden room being a common feature in all cases. Bluebeard has for a century at least been a household word throughout Europe, and his adventures have supplied matter for numberless burlesques, as well as for Gretry's Opera of Raoul and Tieck's Phantasus.