Haint Tales & Other Stories

A Sample: The Ghost of Barbleue

The legend of Bluebeard is a favorite among collectors of Southern folklore. Although the original tale dates back nearly 500 years, the exploits of the infamous (and oft-widowed) pirate continue to fuel new fires among classic storytellers. The version detailed here was told by an elderly woman who grew up in Charleston’s Harleston Village. Her tale features a main character named Barbleue, roughly “Barbe Bleue,” which is French for “blue beard.”

Back when Charleston was little more than a crossroads, there lived a young man with the family name of Barbleue. Born on a farm in the Low Country, he showed very little talent for tending the earth. He served for a year or two upon a merchant ship, but he found days on the sea to be far too taxing. In the end, he decided that his life was best spent in the pursuit of the pleasures derived from material things. Unable to afford such finery himself, M. Barbleue set about securing a wife who could provide for him in a way he saw fitting.

He found just such a patron in the person of the elderly Widow Grevens. She was an established matron of the town’s elite and easily taken by a handsome face or a bit of idle flattery. The two were introduced at a New Year’s Eve ball by a mutual acquaintance, and by Epiphany, they were inseparable. The widow was drawn to Barbleue’s fine features and boyish smile. He was drawn to the old woman’s wealth and fine home in Charleston’s French Quarter, both of which she had inherited from her first husband, Gregory Grevens.

In short order, Barbleue had moved into both the old woman’s heart and the guest home adjacent to Grevens Hall. For a short time, Charleston’s social firmament was rocked by the scandal such an arrangement caused—a woman of her standing providing favors to a man of such low status, handsome though he might be. In time, the wagging tongues grew still, eventually finding something far more interesting to discuss when Reverend Longfellow was caught in the arms of the very married Danielle Peck.

While their spotlight faded, Widow Grevens and M. Barbleue retreated to a life of quiet and, as they were soon married, marital bliss. She spent her days doing needlework and hosting teas while he managed the great house and looked for ways to deal with rats that lived in the old cellars.

Their happiness, however, wasn’t meant to last as the old woman died in her sleep before their first anniversary. While some hinted that her death may have been the result of the hemlock seed or arsenic spread around the cellar, others merely shrugged their shoulders. At a certain age, they’d say, such a thing simply happens. In his grief, Barbleue arranged for a short, very private viewing of his late wife’s body. Within two nights, she was buried in the Grevens Hall garden where she had spent so many afternoons enjoying tea.

The next Spring, the young widower was seen enjoying the charms of one Marie Annette Abadie, the daughter of a prosperous merchant from New Orleans. After a whirlwind romance, the beautiful Marie was brought home to the newly christened Barbleue Hall as the wife of the master of the house. Some suggested that perchance the young woman had found herself with child while still early in the couple’s courtship, necessitating a speedy marriage to avoid scandal. Most, however, recognized that any man would be lucky to have wed such a stunning figure of womanhood.

Pregnant or not, Marie’s state would never be known as she drowned in her bath on only the second night in her new home. Her grief-stricken husband buried his wife next to his first wife in the Barbleue garden.

Unable to manage such an expansive—and expensive—home by himself, the Widower Barbleue soon found love a third time in the charms of Miss Jennifer Alden. The spinster is the only child of Savannah Alden’s family, and she was delighted to have found true love at the advanced age of 32. Her oft-widowed new husband was delighted, no doubt, by the substantial dowry his wedding would ensure to help support his extravagant lifestyle.

Barbleue’s awful luck continued unabated when, following an evening of drinking and revelry, the new lady of the house got tangled in her own undergarments while undressing for bed. As her husband slept soundly in the next room, poor and very intoxicated Jennifer Barbleue strangled herself to death while trying to remove her stay over her head. She was quickly buried in the home’s ever-growing garden.

The following year, M. Barbleue found time between days spent gambling and nights mired in debauchery to marry Miss Lizabetta Farebrother. The society gossips noted that while this newest prospect lacked the beauty of his departed Annette or the social standing of his departed Jennifer, she certainly had the financial assets the widower found attractive in a wife.

Regardless, Barbleue’s neighbors and cohorts wished the couple well, praying that this time he had found true love at last. Their prayers, however, went unanswered as poor Lizabetta was shot one night by a burglar who stole nothing and then disappeared into the cold, dark Charleston air. After a quick inquest and private service, the dead woman joined her three predecessors in the garden of the great home.

That April, Lizabetta was followed in quick succession by the young widow Charlotte Herridge (alleged to have choked to death on a peach pit), unlucky sisters Paulina and Regina Millbrock (head injury and unfortunate hunting accident, respectively), and poor Daphne Orford (fell seven times on a paring knife while cutting a piece of fruit). Although each was buried in the Barbleue Hall gardens, neighbors noted that the plot was big enough for only four, perhaps five, proper graves. The groundskeeper’s wife gossiped that the eight wives had to be dug up and reburied as deep as three times in places.

M. Barbleue’s luck would change when he met lovely and eligible Olive Ingham. At this point, marriage to the once-wealthy Barbleue was seen as a one-way ticket to an early grave. Miss Ingham’s stepfather, however, was more than happy to take that chance. With Olive out of the picture, he and the young woman’s mother could enjoy life together without the cost or hindrance of an unmarried child. Olive’s mother was not as enthusiastic, though. She prayed for her daughter’s health and happiness as the wedding date drew near.

On Christmas morning, M. Barbleue and young Olive were married in a simple ceremony among the graves in the gardens of the great house. As fate would have it, the union wouldn’t even last until the new year, as only four days later, the young bride, while exploring the home’s expansive attic, slipped from a dormer window and fell thirty feet to the cobblestone streets below. As the sun rose on New Year’s Eve, Olive was buried with Barbleue’s other eight wives among the hydrangeas and bougainvilleas that circled the garden. While her daughter’s casket was covered with earth, the dead bride’s mother silently cursed the Barbleue name and prayed for vengeance in her daughter’s memory.

That evening, the master of the house eschewed his usual schedule of parties and engagements to drink quietly at home. As the sun fell, he complained of a headache, sending away the servants and locking himself in behind the great doors at Barbleue Hall.

As midnight approached, neighbors grew fearful of the sounds they heard coming from within the walls of the house. Some claimed to hear the man crying in fear or, perhaps, in pain. While merrymakers thronged the streets to welcome the new year, the cries grew in both volume and intensity. Barbleue was heard running through the house, screaming in terror and begging an unknown assailant for mercy. The police were summoned, but they found the doors locked tight, and any attempt to call out to the man in the house yielded only further cries of terror from within.

As clocks around the city struck midnight and the gathered crowds began to cheer, a keening wail was heard high above Barbleue Hall. Revelers on the street below looked up in astonishment to see a man’s figure fly from the uppermost window and crash to the street below. The wretch breathed once, then twice, then died in broken torment as the crowd looked on.

Later, the coroner would note that M. Barbleue’s body was covered in scores, if not hundreds, of cuts and bruises. More astonishing, he identified dozens of bites taken from his arms, neck, and legs, attributed to perhaps eight or more different sets of unknown teeth. For their part, when police were finally able to break into the great hall, they found the place in shambles but uninhabited by any living soul.

Barbleue Hall didn’t last much longer than its master. That spring, the great house caught fire, eventually reduced to nothing more than smoking ashes and a pair of brick chimneys. In time, the land was rebuilt with a different master and a different name. That wasn’t the end of the story, though.

To this day, M. Barbleue can be heard at night, crying and running through the halls of the place on Meeting Street where the old manse once stood. Witnesses say the wails grow throughout the year, reaching a horrible crescendo as the old year gives way to the new. And if you happen to be outside on Meeting Street at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, you just might see his ghostly form fly through the air with a shriek of otherworldly terror before it disappears onto the pavement below.