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 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 (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.

 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 (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