Bluebeard

Dear Baba,
Who was Bluebeard?  I've heard some stories about him, and I'm not sure I really understand what they are meant to tell me.  Can you enlighten me?
~Lucy

Dearest Lucy,
My brothers Grimm, Perrault, Pourrat, and many of my sisters, especially from France, tell many tales about Bluebeard.  There are also stories told about him by my American, Magyar, and Asian cousins.  I will try to put it all together for you, but you will have to make your own understanding.

This is not the compete story, and many of the details in the various versions differ, but the gist of the story is this:

Bluebeard was a wealthy man who was very appealing in many ways, but he had a beard that was so black it glinted blue which gave him a frightening appearance.  This beard was so ugly, all the young women were terrified of him.  Besides wealth, Bluebeard had great power.  He however was not successful in marriage.  He married many times, but each time, a few months after the wedding, his wife died.  No-one really knew the cause of each young woman's death, but it was thought to be of various kinds of common illnesses.

One day Bluebeard courted three sisters.  It was the youngest who fell for his charms and agreed to marry him.  A few months after the wedding Bluebeard went on a trip.  He asked his young wife to take care of the estate while he was away and gave her a large set of keys which provided access to all the rooms in the castle.  She could invite friends and family to stay with her.  She could do anything she liked, except to enter one room.  She promised she would not enter that room.

The key to the forbidden room was gold and was the smallest one on the ring of keys.  She was greatly intrigued by it.  After the young wife had explored all the estate, she thought why should I not look inside this one room?  She was very curious.

One evening when her sisters were with her, she took the golden key and unlocked the door to the forbidden room.  To her horror, she discovered the corpses and skeletons of Bluebeard's former wives.  Although Bluebeard's wife and her sisters quickly fled the room, and shut and locked the door, the young wife discovered the little golden key was now stained w/ blood.  No matter how many times she wiped it, the blood remained.

When Bluebeard returned to the castle, he asked his wife about the estate, questioning her about each room.  When she replied that all was well, he asked her to return the keys.  She did so, minus the smallest key.  Immediately Bluebeard noticed it was missing and asked her for it.  After making various excuses, she went to her room to retrieve it where she had hidden it.  Bluebeard went w/ her and saw the bloodstains on the key.  He realized she had been in the forbidden room and went into a rage, saying "Now it is your turn!

But Bluebeard's wife begged him for a brief amount of time to pray and prepare for her death.  She and her sisters went to her chambers and locked the door where they peered through the windows hoping to see the arrival of their brothers who had promised to come for a visit that day.  Just as they were losing hope, and Bluebeard was beating down the door to kill his wife, the brothers arrived and killed Bluebeard.

This, dear Lucy, is the horrific story of Bluebeard.
What do you make of it?

~Baba