Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised before we begin.
Speaker 1: Just a very very exciting announcement. I am so thrilled
Speaker 1: that next July July twenty twenty five, I will be
Speaker 1: leading a pilgrimage to the Cotswalds in England to talk
Speaker 1: about the novel The Remains of the Day by kazu
Speaker 1: Ishi Guru, the Nobel Prize winner. First, if you haven't
Speaker 1: read the novel, it is absolutely one of my favorite
Speaker 1: books and I cannot think of a better way to
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Then get a great group of people together
Speaker 1: talk about the book.
Speaker 2: These pilgrimages are so much fun. We talk about a book,
Speaker 2: there's writing, You go on walks every day, you get
Speaker 2: to explore these amazing tiny towns, stay at beautiful locations.
Speaker 2: This is actually the third program I've done with this company.
Speaker 2: The company is called common Ground. So yeah, if this
Speaker 2: interests you, If you think that next summer you'll want
Speaker 2: to be in a English town talking about a brilliant book,
Speaker 2: working on your own writing, and going on walks, you
Speaker 2: should absolutely sign up. I know there's a few spots
Speaker 2: left register common ground Pilgrimages Remains of the Day Danish Schwartz.
Speaker 2: The website is actually reading and walking with dot com.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put it on my Instagram, so take a look.
Speaker 2: If that excites you, I would just love to be
Speaker 2: there with you. I've had such a good experience doing
Speaker 2: these pilgrimages, leading these tours. They're just so much fun.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite thing to do, to talk about literature,
Speaker 2: to work on writing, to go on beautiful walks. I
Speaker 2: can't think of a better way to spend a few
Speaker 2: days in the summer. So if this interests you, there
Speaker 2: are still spots available for the Remains of the Day
Speaker 2: pilgrimage in the Cotswaltz. Before we begin today's episode one,
Speaker 2: brief content note. This episode mentions references to the murder
Speaker 2: of children if that is especially disturbing for you. Obviously
Speaker 2: it's disturbing for everyone, but if that's an issue that
Speaker 2: requires more sensitivity for you, this might be an episode
Speaker 2: to skip. Mud and wet garbage squashed beneath people's feet
Speaker 2: as everyone wandered slowly through the town of Nant in France.
Speaker 2: It had rained all night, but luckily the rain had
Speaker 2: stopped in time for the day's planned executions. It was
Speaker 2: October twenty seventh, fourteen forty, and three convicted men had
Speaker 2: been sentenced to death just the day before. No one,
Speaker 2: not even the convicts themselves, wished to delay their inevitable fate,
Speaker 2: and so the general public of nant all processed towards
Speaker 2: the scaffolds. With all of the quote, ritual, pomp and
Speaker 2: music that characterized the procession. It would have been hard
Speaker 2: to miss the parade, and before long the number of
Speaker 2: people in the group multiplied, and despite the heinous crimes
Speaker 2: supposedly committed by these men, the townspeople walking to the
Speaker 2: scaffold actually started praying for the leader of the criminals,
Speaker 2: praying for Gille Deray and his salvation. Gille, a baron
Speaker 2: in the region, listened intently to those prayers. He was
Speaker 2: an intensely religious man, and his salvation was the most
Speaker 2: important thing to him. He was only able to calmly
Speaker 2: accept the news because he knew that he had been
Speaker 2: absolved and salvation would be possible. After all, he had
Speaker 2: done everything the courts had asked of him. He had
Speaker 2: confessed to the crimes and made his confession as lurid
Speaker 2: as he could. He even begged forgiveness from the victim's families.
Speaker 2: In response, the Catholic Church had assured him that his
Speaker 2: confession lifted the ban of excommunication that had been placed
Speaker 2: on him. Execution would send him to Heaven, not hell,
Speaker 2: they said, and even though his reputation on earth was
Speaker 2: tarnished beyond repair, Jill knew that God knew the truth.
Speaker 2: After walking for two hours, the swollen crowd reached the
Speaker 2: site of execution. Jill was ushered to stand alongside his
Speaker 2: two servants and alleged partners in crime, and he had
Speaker 2: the noose placed around his neck. Looking out at the
Speaker 2: crowd that had come to watch him hang, he would
Speaker 2: have seen familiar faces. He would have seen people who
Speaker 2: had staffed his homes, who had acted in his pageants
Speaker 2: and plays, and fought under his banner, people he had
Speaker 2: and who had gone on to call for his conviction
Speaker 2: and his death. Jill closed his eyes as he felt
Speaker 2: the rope around his neck titan. The calls of prayer
Speaker 2: and the juxtaposing shouts of excitement for his death faded
Speaker 2: away as Jill turned his mind only toward heaven and
Speaker 2: his eternal reward. With a swift pull, the world went black,
Speaker 2: and Jill Deray the Man died. In that same moment,
Speaker 2: Jill Deray the legend was born. This man's story might
Speaker 2: not sound familiar to you. It probably just sounds like
Speaker 2: a generic tale of medieval execution. But if you've read
Speaker 2: any particularly gruesome Internet listicles, maybe in honor of Halloween
Speaker 2: and spooky season talking about history's scariest figures, you might
Speaker 2: have encountered Gildaurey's's name. His story has been misrepresented knowingly
Speaker 2: or unknowingly by historians across multiple centuries, and in this episode,
Speaker 2: I want to try to talk about what might have
Speaker 2: really happened This man, Gilday's has been labeled for centuries
Speaker 2: as one of the most prolific and sadistic serial killers
Speaker 2: in history. But it's time we take a closer look
Speaker 2: and ask a simple question, was he even guilty? I'm
Speaker 2: Dana Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. Over the past
Speaker 2: five wow years here at Noble Blood, we've covered many
Speaker 2: notorious historical figures, including one Elizabeth Bathory. Across the Internet,
Speaker 2: you will find no shortage of sillacious descriptions of Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Bathory as a ruthless serial killer who would bathe in
Speaker 2: her young victim's blood in order to try to remain youthful.
Speaker 2: But as covered in our episode The Blood Countess, the
Speaker 2: bathing in blood was a complete fabrication, and it's even
Speaker 2: possible that Elizabeth Bathory was entirely framed by political opponents
Speaker 2: threatened by her power. Elizabeth's story and the way it
Speaker 2: became infamous is not too dissimilar from the story of
Speaker 2: the subject of this episode, Jill Deray. As I mentioned
Speaker 2: in the introduction, he's touted across the web as a
Speaker 2: brutal serial killer and pedophile who violated over one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty children in medieval France. It's an astonishing and
Speaker 2: gruesome claim, and it's easy to understand why it attracts
Speaker 2: so much salacious attention. But in the in tyst of
Speaker 2: diving a little deeper, let's go now to northwestern France
Speaker 2: in the fourteen hundreds to examine who Jildray actually was
Speaker 2: and what the circumstances were that led to his long
Speaker 2: legacy of infamy. Gildreys was born in fourteen oh four
Speaker 2: to parents who both descended from great feudal houses, so
Speaker 2: Jill was set up well from birth, with connections to
Speaker 2: powerful and wealthy lineages. In fact, the barony that he
Speaker 2: possessed was reputed to be one of the six oldest
Speaker 2: baronies in the Duchy of Brittany at the time. By
Speaker 2: the time Jeel came of age through inheritance and marriage,
Speaker 2: he controlled a wide swath of land across western France
Speaker 2: and Brittany. In essence, Jil was somebody important in the
Speaker 2: world of feudal lords. Jill was born right in the
Speaker 2: middle of the Hundred Years' War, and given that his
Speaker 2: job as a baron was literally to raise men and fight,
Speaker 2: an important portion of his life, especially early on, was
Speaker 2: dominated by that long lasting conflict. Even though we've covered
Speaker 2: various aspects of the Hundred Years War here on Noble Blood,
Speaker 2: I think we would all benefit from a brief, brief
Speaker 2: summary of the very complicated conflict. In short, between thirteen
Speaker 2: thirty seven and fourteen fifty three, England and France were
Speaker 2: engaged in an enduring battle over who actually ruled France.
Speaker 2: The war was a defining period for both the English
Speaker 2: and the French, who each found people and battles to
Speaker 2: rally behind and identify with. For the English, think of
Speaker 2: the Battle of Agincorps and King Henry the Eighth. For
Speaker 2: the French, one name probably stands above the rest, at
Speaker 2: least in terms of the modern popular imagination. Joan of Arc.
Speaker 2: Joan of Arc, a teenage peasant girl who said that
Speaker 2: she was given divine guidance from archangels to help save
Speaker 2: the French from English domination, helped lead the French army
Speaker 2: to victory in the Siege of Orleans in fourteen twenty nine.
Speaker 2: Now this is where our protagonist, Gill day factors in.
Speaker 2: Jill fought at the Siege of Orleans and then took
Speaker 2: part in the Loire Campaign with Joan of Arc after
Speaker 2: her victory. It was Jill's participation in that campaign that
Speaker 2: led to some of his newly elevated status at court,
Speaker 2: including a new official role carrier of the Holy Water
Speaker 2: in the Coronation of Charles the Seventh. Another component that
Speaker 2: contributed to Jill's status as an important feudal lord was
Speaker 2: surprise surprise, great wealth. Controlling so much land afforded Jill
Speaker 2: a not insubstantial income, and through smart maneuvering and the
Speaker 2: help of his grandfather, Jill was able to grow his
Speaker 2: coffers The biggest move he made was a strategic marriage,
Speaker 2: which allowed him to add substantially to his holdings with
Speaker 2: the holdings that he inherited as well as those he
Speaker 2: acquired through marriage. Jill was arguably one of the wealthiest
Speaker 2: barons in France, and Jill was not afraid to spend
Speaker 2: that fortune. He was known for living lavishly, having extravagant taste,
Speaker 2: and spending wildly. He kept a large entourage wherever he went,
Speaker 2: which included, because Jill was a particular fan of the
Speaker 2: performing arts, a herald choir, and several portable organs. When
Speaker 2: he would set up camp in one place or another,
Speaker 2: he would often sponsor for the local community. The most
Speaker 2: famous of these plays was The Siege of Orleans, which
Speaker 2: he put on in the city of Orleans on the
Speaker 2: sixth anniversary of the battle. More than five hundred actors
Speaker 2: took part in the play, including Jil himself, which depicted
Speaker 2: and celebrated the defeat of the English by Jill's comrade
Speaker 2: in arms, Joan of Arc. In addition to paying all
Speaker 2: of these actors, Jill supplied a never ending buffet of
Speaker 2: food and wine to both the actors and play spectators.
Speaker 2: While he clearly liked to glorify his own past military triumphs.
Speaker 2: Jill's also just certainly liked to engage in opulent displays
Speaker 2: of wealth, and it would turn out to be his
Speaker 2: overspending and his debts that would one day get him
Speaker 2: into trouble. By fourteen twenty nine, Gilldray was a Marshal
Speaker 2: of France. He had achieved a great measure of status
Speaker 2: and money and could retire to his various estates to
Speaker 2: spend his days putting on plays or finding other ways
Speaker 2: to spend his fortune. And if that's all he had done,
Speaker 2: this episode would end here. But as you probably know,
Speaker 2: we've only just begun. As I alluded to, Gill Durray
Speaker 2: had a habit of overspending, and at a certain point
Speaker 2: he started selling off properties to pay off his debts.
Speaker 2: In fourteen forty he decided to sell the castle of
Speaker 2: Saint Etienne de mer Mort in Brittany. The nobleman who
Speaker 2: bought the castle entrusted the keys to his brother, a priest.
Speaker 2: Seems like a normal real estate transaction so far, except
Speaker 2: Jill decided that he actually wanted the castle back so
Speaker 2: that he could sell it to his cousin so on
Speaker 2: a Sunday in early May fourteen forty, Jel and a
Speaker 2: retinue of sixty horsemen stormed into the parish church where
Speaker 2: the key holding priests was leading mass, and he threatened
Speaker 2: to kill the priest if he did not surrender the
Speaker 2: castle to him. The vigilante group, led by Jill dragged
Speaker 2: the priest to the castle gates and forced him to
Speaker 2: open the gates for them. Once the priest opened the
Speaker 2: gates and allowed them to take the castle, they chained
Speaker 2: the priest up in the dungeon and beat him. Now
Speaker 2: this assault was a pretty brazen act, but local authorities
Speaker 2: might have overlooked it given Jils's status. However, he and
Speaker 2: his gang had accosted a priest, and doing so violated
Speaker 2: ecclesiastical immunity, which should have protect did the priest from
Speaker 2: that exact sort of thing from happening. Therefore, the church
Speaker 2: had grounds to bring Jill to court. Now, ecclesiastical courts,
Speaker 2: as well as the local courts or parliament, operated on
Speaker 2: the inquisitorial system at the time, where the judges were
Speaker 2: active fact seekers as opposed to impartial referees. So when
Speaker 2: the Church did indeed decide to charge Shield they began
Speaker 2: an investigation into him. Bishop Jean de Mastrat set off
Speaker 2: on that investigation, beginning in the parish of Notre Dame,
Speaker 2: which was home to Jill's main residence. The bishop spoke
Speaker 2: with a multitude of people in the region during the investigation,
Speaker 2: and in doing so he discovered that there were a
Speaker 2: number of missing children who were almost all rumored to
Speaker 2: have been kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and killed by Jil. Parents
Speaker 2: and acquaintances of these missing children supposedly spoke to the
Speaker 2: bishop and confirmed these rumors had been swirling about for
Speaker 2: some time now. While local townspeople were willing to accuse Jill,
Speaker 2: they weren't necessarily willing to testify in court. The bishop
Speaker 2: was able to overcome that issue once he found former
Speaker 2: servants of Jil's who would testify in court that he
Speaker 2: had indeed murdered hundreds of children. The servants claimed that
Speaker 2: Jil forced them to help him murder and then dispose
Speaker 2: of the bodies in a myriad of ways. Whether these
Speaker 2: servants were compelled to testify against their former employer because
Speaker 2: of a sense of justice for the murdered or because
Speaker 2: of the threat of torture by the bishop we can't
Speaker 2: know for sure. During his investigation, the bishop also found
Speaker 2: a magician whom Jill had allegedly employed, and who would
Speaker 2: testify that he had helped Jill participate in alchemy and
Speaker 2: seances summoning a demon. While unrelated to the murders, using
Speaker 2: alchemy definitely made Jill look all the more guilty. If
Speaker 2: he was willing to transgress against God in one way,
Speaker 2: he probably transgressed in others. With sufficient witnesses now at
Speaker 2: the ready, the bishop brought charges against Jill for not
Speaker 2: only the kidnapping and abuse of a priest, but also
Speaker 2: quote witchcraft, sexual misconduct, and homicide. On September thirteenth, fourteen forty,
Speaker 2: the trial of Jill Day began. Actually, the two trials
Speaker 2: of Jil began. While the church had begun the investigation,
Speaker 2: the civil courts had also elected to charge him with
Speaker 2: murder and kidnapping, so once he was charged by both courts,
Speaker 2: the trials proceeded simultaneously as if they were just one case.
Speaker 2: From the moment the case began, Jill went on the offensive.
Speaker 2: He attacked the judges, calling them simoniacs, an insult back then,
Speaker 2: and questioning their right to try him. The courts did
Speaker 2: not take kindly to those insults, and the church promptly
Speaker 2: excommunicated Gile. Two days later, Gile returned to court and
Speaker 2: made a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn. Now
Speaker 2: he was entirely repentant and apologetic. He accepted the charges,
Speaker 2: but because he had not yet confessed, the case proceeded.
Speaker 2: The bulk of the trial was hearing testimony. All of
Speaker 2: the testimony provided was from former servants of Jil that
Speaker 2: the bishop had identified in his investigation. Over the next
Speaker 2: several days in court, these former servants, some of whom
Speaker 2: were charged as accomplices, detailed Jill's sins, attempted deals with
Speaker 2: demons to avoid prosecution for financial woes, making servants procure
Speaker 2: victims by kidnapping young children from poor families, and finding
Speaker 2: sexual gratification from torturing and killing these children. I won't
Speaker 2: go into further detail about the sexual details of the
Speaker 2: crimes and murders because that seems gratuitous and unnecessary, but
Speaker 2: that's what the testimony laid bare. While the court is
Speaker 2: inconsistent with the numbers, historians agree that Jill was ultimately
Speaker 2: accused of killing more than one hundred and forty children
Speaker 2: in the span of only a couple of years. Finally,
Speaker 2: it came time in the case for the court to
Speaker 2: torture Jill in order to draw out his much desired confession.
Speaker 2: But Jill stepped forward and proclaimed that he would give
Speaker 2: his testimony the unvarnished truth willingly, and so he was
Speaker 2: saved from the type of torture that he was accused
Speaker 2: of enacting on hundreds of children. After providing his testimony
Speaker 2: and confession in the privacy of the court, Jill staged
Speaker 2: a rather over the top public confession in the vernacular
Speaker 2: so that any and everyone could hear and understand it.
Speaker 2: On October twenty second. Jill held nothing back, and he
Speaker 2: told the world that what he had done would be
Speaker 2: enough to convict ten thousand men. He agreed that everything
Speaker 2: people had testified against him was true, and that he
Speaker 2: derived pleasure from all of the sins he committed. He
Speaker 2: finished by asking God and the parents of the murdered
Speaker 2: children to forgive him. His unequivocal confession must have stunned
Speaker 2: the audience. I doubt anyone expected someone to openly admit
Speaker 2: to such depravity. As soon as Jill Darades confessed, his
Speaker 2: trial concluded, and interestingly, his excommunication was rescinded. That's important,
Speaker 2: so we'll be talking a little more about that later.
Speaker 2: Jill and his two accomplices, the two who had actually
Speaker 2: testified against him, were sentenced to be hanged and then
Speaker 2: burned at the stake. As I explored in the opening
Speaker 2: of this episode, the criminals were paraded through not to
Speaker 2: their hanging on October twenty sixth, less than two weeks
Speaker 2: after the trial had begun. With his death, Jill Deurey's
Speaker 2: name went down in infamy. Historians proclaimed him to be
Speaker 2: a violent rapist and sadistic murderer, the likes of who
Speaker 2: could be compared to Jeffrey Dahmer, and his depravity is
Speaker 2: that much more fascinating when juxtaposed with his more youthful
Speaker 2: days spent fighting alongside France's literal patron, Saint Joan of
Speaker 2: arc No wonder Jills invites such fascination and regularly appears
Speaker 2: on lists of the worst serial killers in history. But
Speaker 2: what if I told you Jildreyse was possibly innocent. Gildreyse's
Speaker 2: legacy is still hotly debated, but some historians have argued
Speaker 2: that he was framed by the Church and guilty of
Speaker 2: no wrongdoings at all. In fact, after a French book
Speaker 2: published in nineteen ninety two proclaimed Jills's innocence, a retrial
Speaker 2: was called and the Court of Cassation, the highest court
Speaker 2: of appeals in France, exonerated him. So officially, Jill has
Speaker 2: been cleared of all charges, although scholars called into question
Speaker 2: the accuracy and research that was used in that symbolic proceeding.
Speaker 2: In addition to the lawyers at the retrial, scholars like
Speaker 2: Thomas A. Fuja and Margot K. Juby have pointed out
Speaker 2: a number of issues with the original case against Jill,
Speaker 2: as well as challenges to the historical scholarship surrounding the
Speaker 2: French noble that have been accepted as fact. The biggest
Speaker 2: flaw in the original trial was that there was no
Speaker 2: physical evidence against Jill. His main crime was killing hundreds
Speaker 2: of children, but there were no bodies, skeletons, or bones
Speaker 2: found that pointed toward Jill as a killer. All of
Speaker 2: the evidence leveled against him was circumstantial, entirely testimony from
Speaker 2: people that couldn't be corroborated, so no one even had
Speaker 2: proof that the missing children were actually dead. Now it's
Speaker 2: true that Jill himself did confess to his crimes and
Speaker 2: was quite explicit about the extremely brutal acts he committed
Speaker 2: and the pleasure he allegedly derived from them. So even
Speaker 2: if there were no bodies found, we could believe that
Speaker 2: Jil Deray was a murderer because he admitted it. However,
Speaker 2: Thomas A. Fujay made the argument that we should be
Speaker 2: at least a little skeptical of that confession. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: Jill was an incredibly religious man. Remember how I mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier that Jil spent his money with no sense of limit. Well.
Speaker 2: As part of his expression of his faith, he bankrolled
Speaker 2: a private chapel as well as that chapel's own Dean
Speaker 2: Vicker choir, school of music, archdeacons, curates, treasurer chapter, and
Speaker 2: a schoolmaster. Beyond paying for this expensive display of piety,
Speaker 2: he regularly attended church and showed a devotion to the
Speaker 2: cult of Holy Innocence. So fou Jay hypothesizes that after
Speaker 2: Jil was excommunicated early in the trial, he began to negotiate.
Speaker 2: He was confronted with the fact that he could very
Speaker 2: well be found guilty and if he were killed. At
Speaker 2: that point he would no longer go to heaven in
Speaker 2: order to save his soul. In the two days after
Speaker 2: his excommunication, Jil's agreed to confess if the church would
Speaker 2: vacate his excommunication. The church followed through on that promise,
Speaker 2: and after Jill was found guilty, they rescinded his excommunication
Speaker 2: and Jill could once again be assured of his entrance
Speaker 2: to heaven. Who Jay further argues that Jeals's confession to
Speaker 2: the public was so gratuitous because he was trying to
Speaker 2: make it seem unbelievable. He made such an incredible confession
Speaker 2: that no one should believe it, therefore saving his reputation,
Speaker 2: at least in theory. Unfortunately, we can't know if the
Speaker 2: townspeople at the time would have interpreted his confession that way,
Speaker 2: and if that was Jial's plan, it backfired spectacularly given
Speaker 2: that we've accepted the truth of his confession for hundreds
Speaker 2: of years. The final reason why some historians now believe
Speaker 2: in Jials's possible innocence is that the historical record has
Speaker 2: misrepresented his court case. Margot Kgb, biographer of Jill, found
Speaker 2: multiple accusations, like the murder of the three children of
Speaker 2: Jials's valet that don't exist in the original court transcript.
Speaker 2: Historians have used examples like that for evidence, when in reality,
Speaker 2: a lot of Gills's narrative has become something of a
Speaker 2: historical game of telephone. So was he innocent? Were the
Speaker 2: crimes at least possibly exaggerated? All of that raises the
Speaker 2: question of why why would Gilday's be framed. There's no
Speaker 2: conclusive answer, but people have hypothesized a couple of different reasons. First,
Speaker 2: people love a salacious story, which means that it only
Speaker 2: makes sense that over the centuries, the details of Gille
Speaker 2: Duay's case would become bigger, more exaggerated, and more lurid.
Speaker 2: Aside from that, recall that fewer than ten years before
Speaker 2: Giles's trial, his comrade in arms, Jean of Arc, was
Speaker 2: similarly found guilty and executed on charges of heresy. Some
Speaker 2: scholars have wondered if his association with the future saint
Speaker 2: might have contributed to his downfall. Others have dismissed that idea,
Speaker 2: instead pointing to more selfish reasons. Giles Deray was a
Speaker 2: wealthy man, and if he was found guilty of such
Speaker 2: a terrible crime, his lands would not be passed to
Speaker 2: his heirs, but would instead be forfeited, and who stood
Speaker 2: to benefit from that guilt the very officials who charged him.
Speaker 2: But none of that can be proven, at least not
Speaker 2: with the historical records currently known to us. So unfortunately
Speaker 2: we have to accept that we may never know the
Speaker 2: exact machinations that took down one of the wealthiest lords
Speaker 2: in medieval France. The historians who claim that Gilderray was
Speaker 2: indeed guilty of those heenous crimes aren't purposefully obscuring the past.
Speaker 2: If you looked strictly at what survived in the written record,
Speaker 2: it is extremely easy to come to that conclusion. But
Speaker 2: history is complicated, and who knows what evidence might have
Speaker 2: been lost to the centuries as to the true fate
Speaker 2: of Gialdreys's soul. God only knows. Keep listening after a
Speaker 2: brief sponsor break to hear about the colorful literary figure
Speaker 2: that Gialdreys might have inspired. Considering Gialdurey's's famous and salacious story,
Speaker 2: it's not surprising that he might have inspired a famous
Speaker 2: literary character, blue Beard. Blue Beard isn't the most popular
Speaker 2: fairy tale story, so if you haven't heard of him,
Speaker 2: Blue Beard is a character from a French folk tale
Speaker 2: that follows this general storyline. Blue Beard is a wealthy
Speaker 2: man who murdered his wives, and even when a wife
Speaker 2: found out the sad fate of her six predecessors, she
Speaker 2: was doomed to die just like they did. However, his
Speaker 2: last wife is actually able to thwart blue Beard, and
Speaker 2: after discovering the gruesome remains of his previous wives in
Speaker 2: the dungeon, she's rescued by her family. They kill blue Beard,
Speaker 2: she inherits the castle and lays to rest his murdered wives.
Speaker 2: Although Jill d'erres never murdered his wife, the French baron
Speaker 2: is largely attributed as the inspiration for the myth. The
Speaker 2: tale of blue Beard itself has been referenced in or
Speaker 2: inspired a multitude of literary, theatrical, and amusement park creations.
Speaker 2: The King of Tragedy himself, Shakespeare, quoted the English version
Speaker 2: of the tale titled Mister Fox in the play Much
Speaker 2: Ado About Nothing. Benedict exclaims, like the old tale, my lord,
Speaker 2: it is not so, nor twas not so, but indeed
Speaker 2: God forbid it should be so. The old tale here
Speaker 2: is mister Fox aka blue Beard, a rather small reference,
Speaker 2: but I would be remiss not to call out Shakespeare's
Speaker 2: connection to this episode's subject. Another famous English author used
Speaker 2: Bluebeard as inspiration for a short story published in eighteen sixty.
Speaker 2: Charles Dickens's Captain Murderer told of a relative of Bluebeard
Speaker 2: who took Bluebeard's brutality to the next extreme. Cannibal blue
Speaker 2: Beard has also received the Hollywood treatment, with the basic
Speaker 2: elements of the story inspiring a number of films, from
Speaker 2: Gaslight to ex Machina. My favorite Bluebeard reference, though, can
Speaker 2: be found not in literature or film, but in Orlando, Florida.
Speaker 2: At the exit of Disney World's Haunted Mansion Ride, visitors
Speaker 2: can see Bluebeard's tombstone, which also includes the names of
Speaker 2: his six wives he killed and the seventh one who
Speaker 2: killed him. Interestingly, the date of death on Bluebeard's disney
Speaker 2: World tombstone is fourteen forty, the same year that Gille
Speaker 2: Dray was executed. Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankin. Noble Blood is
Speaker 2: hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching
Speaker 2: by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and
Speaker 2: Armand Cassam. The show is edited and produced by Noemy
Speaker 2: Griffin and rima Il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thain
Speaker 2: and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2: Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.