phrases. From the fact of various parties, political and other, having adopted the colour blue as their badge, various classes of people have come to be known as “blue” or “blues”; thus “true blue” meant originally a staunch Presbyterian, the Covenanters having adopted blue as their colour as opposed to red, the royal colour; similarly, in the navy, there was in the 18th century a “Blue Squadron,” Nelson being at one time “Rear-Admiral of the Blue”; again, in 1690, the Royal Horse Guards were called the “Blues” from their blue uniforms, or, from their leader, the earl of Oxford, the “Oxford Blues”; also, from the blue ribbon worn by the knights of the Garter comes the use of the phrase as the highest mark of distinction that can be worn, especially applied on the turf to the winning of the Derby. The “blue Peter” is a rectangular blue flag, with a white square in the centre, hoisted at the top of the foremast as a signal that a vessel is about to leave port. At Oxford and Cambridge a man who represents his university in certain athletic sports is called a “blue” from the “colours” he is then entitled to wear, dark blue for Oxford and light blue for Cambridge.
BLUEBEARD, the monster of Charles Perrault’s tale of Barbe Bleue, who murdered his wives and hid their bodies in a locked room. Perrault’s tale was first printed in his Histoires et contes du temps passé (1697). The essentials of the story—Bluebeard’s
prohibition to his wife to open a certain door during his absence,
her disobedience, her discovery of a gruesome secret, and her
timely rescue from death—are to be found in other folklore
stories, none of which, however, has attained the fame of
Bluebeard. A close parallel exists in an Esthonian legend of a
husband who had already killed eleven wives, and was prevented
from killing the twelfth, who had opened a secret room, by a
gooseherd, the friend of her childhood. In “The Feather Bird”
of Grimm’s Hausmärchen, three sisters are the victims, the third
being rescued by her brothers. Bluebeard, though Perrault
does not state the number of his crimes, is generally credited
with the murder of seven wives. His history belongs to the
common stock of folklore, and has even been ingeniously fitted
with a mythical interpretation. In France the Bluebeard legend
has its local habitation in Brittany, but whether the existing
traditions connecting him with Gilles de Rais (q.v.) or Comorre
the Cursed, a Breton chief of the 6th century, were anterior
to Perrault’s time, we have no means of determining. The
identification of Bluebeard with Gilles de Rais, the bête d’extermination
of Michelet’s forcible language, persists locally in the
neighbourhood of the various castles of the baron, especially at
Machecoul and Tiffauges, the chief scenes of his infamous crimes.
Gilles de Rais, however, had only one wife, who survived him,
and his victims were in the majority of cases young boys. The
traditional connexion may arise simply from the not improbable
association of two monstrous tales. The less widespread identification
of Bluebeard with Comorre is supported by a series of
frescoes dating only a few years later than the publication of
Perrault’s story, in a chapel at St Nicolas de Bieuzy dedicated
to St Tryphine, in which the tale of Bluebeard is depicted as
the story of the saint, who in history was the wife of Comorre.
Comorre or Conomor had his original headquarters at Carhaix,
in Finistère. He extended his authority by marriage with the
widow of Iona, chief of Domnonia, and attempted the life of
his stepson Judwal, who fled to the Frankish court. About 547
or 548 he obtained in marriage, through the intercession of
St Gildas, Tryphine, daughter of Weroc, count of Vannes. The
pair lived in peace at Castel Finans for some time, but Comorre,
disappointed in his ambitions in the Vannetais, presently
threatened Tryphine. She took flight, but her husband found
her hiding in a wood, when he gave her a wound on the skull and
left her for dead. She was tended and restored to health by
St Gildas, and after the birth of her son retired to a convent of
her own foundation. Eventually Comorre was defeated and
slain by Judwal. In legend St Tryphine was decapitated and
miraculously restored to life by Gildas. Alain Bouchard (Grandes
croniques, Nantes, 1531) asserts that Comorre had already put
several wives to death before he married Tryphine. In the
Légendes bretonnes of the count d’Amezeuil the church legend
becomes a charming fairy tale.
See also E. A. Vizetelly, Bluebeard (1902); E. Sidney Hartland, “The Forbidden Chamber,” in Folklore, vol. iii. (1885); and the editions of the Contes of Charles Perrault (q.v.). Cf. A. France, Les Sept Femmes de Barbe Bleue (1909).
BLUE-BOOK, the general name given to the reports and
other documents printed by order of the parliament of the
United Kingdom, so called from their being usually covered
with blue paper, though some are bound in drab and others have
white covers. The printing of its proceedings was first adopted
by the House of Commons in 1681, and in 1836 was commenced
the practice of selling parliamentary papers to the public. All
notices of questions, resolutions, votes and proceedings in both
Houses of Parliament are issued each day during the session;
other publications include the various papers issued by the
different government departments, the reports of committees
and commissions of inquiry, public bills, as well as returns,
correspondence, &c., specially ordered to be printed by either
house. The papers of each session are so arranged as to admit
of being bound up in regular order, and are well indexed. The
terms upon which blue-books, single papers, &c., are issued
to the general public are one halfpenny per sheet of four pages,
but for an annual subscription of £20 all the parliamentary
publications of the year may be obtained; but subscriptions can
be arranged so that almost any particular class of publication
can be obtained—for example, the daily votes and proceedings
can be obtained for an annual subscription of £3, the House
of Lords papers for £10, or the House of Commons papers for
£15. Any publication can also be purchased separately.
Most foreign countries have a distinctive colour for the binding of their official publications. That of the United States varies, but foreign diplomatic correspondence is bound in red. The United States government publications are not only on sale (as a rule) but are widely supplied gratis, with the result that important publications soon get out of print, and it is difficult to obtain access to many valuable reports or other information, except at a public library. German official publications are bound in white; French, in yellow; Austrian, in red; Portuguese, in white; Italian, in green; Spanish, in red; Mexican, in green; Japanese, in grey; Chinese, in yellow.
BLUESTOCKING, a derisive name for a literary woman.
The term originated in or about 1750, when Mrs Elizabeth Montagu
(q.v.) made a determined effort to introduce into
society a healthier and more intellectual tone, by holding
assemblies at which literary conversation and discussions were
to take the place of cards and gossip. Most of those attending
were conspicuous by the plainness of their dress, and a Mr
Benjamin Stillingfleet specially caused comment by always
wearing blue or worsted stockings instead of the usual black
silk. It was in special reference to him that Mrs Montagu’s
friends were called the Bluestocking Society or Club, and the
women frequenting her house in Hill Street came to be known
as the “Bluestocking Ladies” or simply “bluestockings.” As
an alternative explanation, the origin of the name is attributed
to Mrs Montagu’s deliberate adoption of blue stockings (in
which fashion she was followed by all her women friends) as
the badge of the society she wished to form. She is said to have
obtained the idea from Paris, where in the 17th century there
was a revival of a social reunion in 1590 on the lines of that
formed in 1400 at Venice, the ladies and men of which wore
blue stockings. The term had been applied in England as early
as 1653 to the Little Parliament, in allusion to the puritanically
plain and coarse dress of the members.
BLUFF (a word of uncertain origin; possibly connected with
an obsolete Dutch word, blaf, broad), an adjective used of a
ship, meaning broad and nearly vertical in the bows; similarly,
of a cliff or shore, presenting a bold and nearly perpendicular
front; of a person, good-natured and frank, with a rough or
abrupt manner. Another word “bluff,” perhaps connected
with German verblüffen, to baffle, meant originally a horse’s
blinker, the corresponding verb meaning to blindfold; it survives
