Dr. C. Taylor thinks Blue Beard is a type of the castle-lords in the days of knight-errantry.  Some say Henry VIII. (the noted wife-killer) was the “academy figure.”  Others think it was Giles de Retz, marquis de Laval, marshal of France in 1429, who (according to Mezeray) murdered six of his seven wives, and was ultimately strangled in 1440.

Another solution is that Blue Beard was count Conomar, and the young wife Triphyna, daughter of count Guerech.  Count Conomar was lieutenant of Brittany in the reign of Childebert.  M. Hippolyte Violeau assures us that in 1850, during the repairs of the chapel of St. Nicolas de Bieuzy, some ancient frescoes were discovered with scenes from the life of St. Triphyna:  (1) The marriage; (2) the husband taking leave of his young wife and entrusting to her a key; (3) a room with an open door, through which are seen the corpses of seven women hanging; (4) the husband threatening his wife, while another female [sister Anne] is looking out of a window above; (5) the husband has placed a halter round the neck of his victim, but the friends, accompanied by St. Gildas, abbot of Rhuys in Brittany, arrive just in time to rescue the future saint.—­Pelerinages de Bretagne.

BLUE KNIGHT (The), sir Persaunt of India, called by Tennyson “Morning Star” or “Phosphorus.”  He was one of the four brothers who kept the passages of Castle Perilous, and was overthrown by sir Gareth.—­Sir T. Malory, History of Prince Arthur, i. 131 (1470); Tennyson, Idylls ("Gareth and Lynette").

[Illustration] It is evidently a blunder in Tennyson to call the Blue Knight “Morning Star,” and the Green Knight “Evening Star.”  The reverse is correct, and in the old romance the combat with the Green Knight was at day-break, and with the Blue Knight at sunset.

BLUE-SKIN, Joseph Blake, an English burglar, so called from his complexion.  He was executed in 1723.

BLUFF (Bachelor), celibate philosopher upon social, domestic, and cognate themes.

“Give me,” he says emphatically, “in our household, color and cheeriness—­not cold art, nor cold pretensions of any kind, but warmth, brightness, animation.  Bring in pleasing colors, choice pictures, bric-a-brac, and what-not.  But let in, also, the sun; light the fires; and have everything for daily use.”—­Oliver Bell Bunce, Bachelor Bluff (1882).

Bluff (Captain Noll), a swaggering bully and boaster.  He says, “I think that fighting for fighting’s sake is sufficient cause for fighting.  Fighting, to me, is religion and the laws.”

“You must know, sir, I was resident in Flanders the last campaign ... there was scarce anything of moment done, but a humble servant of yours ... had the greatest share in’t....  Well, would you think it, in all this time ... that rascally Gazette never so much as once mentioned me?  Not once, by the wars!  Took no more notice of Noll Bluff than if he had not been in the land of the living.”—­Congreve, The Old Bachelor (1693).

BLUFF HAL or BLUFF HARRY, Henry VIII.