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The Girl Who Was Born with a Snake around Her Neck

If I were asked what was the most unusual tale in the entire collection in Bluebeard Tales From Around the World the answer without a second thought would be "The Girl Who Was Born with a Snake around Her Neck" from a collection of Breton tales from François-Marie Luzel. I had never seen this one in English and so I translated it for the collection and what an adventure it was for it is not a typical Bluebeard fairy tale.

It begins like many other fairy tales, just not like other Bluebeard ones, for it tells of a childless couple hoping and praying for a child. Here is an excerpt a few paragraphs into the tale:

“If he also gave us a child,” said the woman, “even if she was born with toad or a snake, I would be happy!”

One day, nine months later, she gave birth to a little girl. Surprisingly enough, the child was born with a small snake wrapped around her neck. The reptile immediately escaped into the garden where it hid in the grass. However, a red mark remained around the girl’s neck like a necklace, perfectly imitating the snake.

The girl was baptized and received the name of Lévénès due to the joy she had brought her parents. The child grew, full of health and beauty.

One day, when she was twelve years old, she was sitting alone in her father’s garden when she was surprised to hear a little voice next to her saying, “Hello, my sister, my sweet little sister!”

And a gentle snake came out of the bushes, headed right towards her. The child was afraid at first, but the snake said, “Do not worry. I will do you no harm, quite the contrary, because you are my sister, my beloved little sister.”

“Jésus! A snake is my sister!” exclaimed Lévénès.

“Yes, because your mother is also my mother,” replied the snake.

It winds around  a bit more--making it a longish Bluebeard tale--and it eventually turns into a Bluebeard story. Luzel even inserts a footnote: "From here, the original story is lost in another story, a variant of Bluebeard by Charles Perrault." This husband murders his wives when they become pregnant. I don't agree that the story was "lost," I think it may have been transformed by the teller, however. What I love about the story is how the snake ultimately rallies the girl's family and friends and they all rescue the girl, although the snake does the primary work. The snake sister thus saves the human sister, there are no brothers around to do the job.

But the tale has some other ending details that are disturbing and make the tale feel disjointed at least to modern sensibilities, for in this tale, the young wife has given birth to the murderous husband's child. The people destroy the baby as spawn of the man. That is very disturbing and Luzel says so in his own notes.
Also, a disappointing omission is that the snake sister isn't disenchanted which she very much appears to be considering all of her actions. Luzel's comments:

The ending appears to be incomplete and altered. It seems the snake should have been baptized, and then it would have recovered its human form, lost no doubt by the evil spell of some magician. It would have become a beautiful young girl or else a princess. Also, the newborn babe should not have been put to death.

Despite these quirks and perhaps flaws, the tale is unforgettable as a Bluebeard story. And fascinating. And it would be fun to rewrite it into another variant, a modern interpretation with some of the quirks remedied at least slightly.

Bluebeards of Different Hues: Greenbeard

I've already discussed Barbe Rouge and Knight Goldbeard in Bluebeard Tales From Around the World, so today I will end this arc by discussing Greenbeard, a tale from Lithuania.

Greenbeard best falls into the ATU 955 classification. While the previous beard colors--red, gold (blonde), and even blue (so black it's blue)--are more natural hair colors, green isn't. (Especially in the days before chlorinated pools!) This tale is self-aware and even humorous enough to admit this. There is a tongue-in-cheek quality to it as if the teller is quite aware of several Bluebeard type tales and is getting creative with them.

In Greenbeard, our heroine, in the way of many fairy tale heroines, announces her interest  in being wooed by someone with a greenbeard.

IN A town there lived a very rich merchant who had a beautiful daughter who was determined to marry no other than a man with a green beard.

Large forests surrounded the town and in these forests lived together twenty-four robbers. The captain of the robbers, who had heard that this girl would only marry a man with a green beard, asked his people if anyone knew by what means he could dye his beard green. They immediately gave him such a color.

So he dyed his beard green—he was also a handsome man—and he traveled to the town to visit the merchant and woo the daughter.

So, no, it is not a naturally green beard. The tale continues on into a fairly standard Robber Bridegroom formula of the maiden witnessing the murder and ingesting of another woman. This one includes a bird helper and the evidence is a beringed finger. The tale ends with the line: "As for the girl, she henceforth had no preference for green beards." One wonders if she decided to never marry as the arbitrary search for a green bearded man could have originally been a ploy to avoid marriage although she succombed to the robber's charms despite herself.

And, no, beard colors are not often referenced in ATU 955 tales, so this one is rather unique in that respect.

Bluebeards of Different Hues: Knight Goldbeard

Yesterday I began a three day arc of discussing different beard colors in the Bluebeard tales group. I also discussed Barbe Rouge from France. Today is Knight Goldbeard's day and he comes from Switzerland. (Imagine that, a blonde Bluebeard from Switzerland!) This Bluebeard tale has elements that make it primarily ATU 312 although it could fit somewhat into ATU 311 and even ATU 955 quite comfortably.

Goldbeard woos three sisters simultaneously in this one, a rare occurence in these tales in which the women are usually consecutive instead. He woos and flatters and convinces them to keep their "romances" secret. Then within the span of a day, he lures them to a place in the woods and kills each of them, well, the first two that is, not a great loss since the two older sisters are nasty creatures. They are neither rescued nor resurrected. In fact, the final sentence of the tale is: "The next day the slain sisters were buried in the cemetery."

The youngest, who is lovely and is wooed primarily by Goldbeard's singing voice, is ultimately rescued by her brother. She doesn't break any taboo beyond keeping her "romance" with Goldbeard a secret and that taboo isn't implicit anyway. There is a very subtle implication that he needs to kill the three women in one day, but no magical or supernatural reasons are alluded to.

The tale is, of course, available in Bluebeard Tales From Around the World.

Fairy Tale TV Series: Both Picked Up

How about this folks? I am curious about both, of course, and can't wait to try them both. And both have potential to be entertaining...

From ABC Orders Tim Allen Sitcom, 'Charlie's Angels,' 'Good Christian Belles' & More to Series by Chris Harnick:

In the wake of canceling 'V' and 'Brothers & Sisters,' ABC has ordered several new shows to series, including....Jennifer Morrison stars in 'Once Upon a Time' as a woman named Anna who is drawn to a world where fairy tales may be real. 'Big Love' veteran Ginnifer Goodwin also stars.

From NBC Picks Up Playboy Club, Inception-Style Awake, And Fairy Tale Cop Drama Grimm by David Wharton:

The Peacock Network's fall schedule is shaping up to be an interesting and eclectic one, with EW reporting NBC green lights for a period drama set in the infamous Playboy Club, a parallel-lives detective drama, and a gritty spin on Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Finally, Grimm is a cop drama set in a world inspired by Grimm's Fairy Tales. Sounds a lot like Bill Willingham's excellent Fables comic series, which was developed as a series by NBC a few years back but never made it further than a script. This might be one to watch, because the script was written by genre vet David Greenwalt, who has worked on everything from Angel to Eureka.

Thomas Moran Bluebeard's Castle

Today's Bluebeard post is not about something that appears in Bluebeard Tales From Around the World. I really couldn't fit everything in there as much as I wanted to. Today, since I am hoping to attend the Tennessee Renaissance Festival, I had castles on the brain and thought this painting would be a perfect thing to share. (There is a castle at the TN Ren Faire. It's only a few decades old, but it's a castle.)

This painting by Thomas Moran is owned by the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, NY. Once again this demonstrates how much better known Bluebeard was a hundred years ago, thanks in part to all of the plays and operas surrounding it.

From the painting's information page:

Thomas Moran (American, b. England, 1837-1926)
Bluebeard's Castle, 1915
Oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in.
Signed and dated (with artist's thumbprint) at lower right: Moran 1915.
August Heckscher Collection, 1959.117

About This Work

Thomas Moran painted several romantic works based on literary sources. In the 1890's, he painted scenes from The Odyssey and The Arabian Nights, which were well received by critics. Inspired by the 1697 Charles Perrault fairytale about the ogre Bluebeard who killed his wife when her curiosity compelled her to disobey his orders, Bluebeard's Castle bears close resemblance to the scenes of Scottish castles which Moran painted following a 1910 sketching trip to England. They share a romantic approach, depicting an isolated castle enshrouded in an atmospheric haze, recalling the light effects of the English painter J.M.W. Turner.

Would you be willing to marry a man with a blue beard to live there?