Blackbeard often fought wearing a big feathered tricorn hat, and with lots of swords, knives, and pistols. Some pictures show him with lighted rope matches woven into his enormous black beard during battle. The matches burned slowly and gave of lots of smoke. They were designed to make him look frightening. He probably got the idea from seeing the burning rope was used to light the gunpowder in cannons and guns. (These old fashioned guns were called "matchlocks", later a flint was used to make a spark, these were called flintlock guns). No one knows how many wives Blackbeard had. The book "A General History of the Pirates" says that he had as many as fourteen wives, but he was not legally married to most of them.