| Abstract: | In 1997, Daniela Hempen published a short research paper in Folklore (108:45-8) about a somewhat unexpected character in some Bluebeard stories. Hempen calls her Bluebeard's female helper. An old woman employed in Bluebeard's home in two tales in the first edition of the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812), she is found by the newlywed or newly betrothed heroine already at her grisly work: in The Castle of Murder ( Das Mordschloss ) (no. 73) scrubbing the intestines of a former victim; in The Robber Bridegroom ( Der Räuberbräutigam ) (no. 40) with water on to boil, ready to cook the chopped-up corpse of the heroine. To discover the meanings of this odd character, help cannot be sought from the scholarship of the past for, as Hempen remarks, the female helper has been constantly overlooked in 'Bluebeard' criticism. The present essay seeks to rectify this neglect. |
