diff --git a/src/allmydata/test/test_node.py b/src/allmydata/test/test_node.py
index b771f1cc6..73f7baca2 100644
--- a/src/allmydata/test/test_node.py
+++ b/src/allmydata/test/test_node.py
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+from future.utils import PY2
 from past.builtins import unicode
 
 import base64
@@ -153,8 +154,12 @@ class TestCase(testutil.SignalMixin, unittest.TestCase):
         f.close()
 
         config = read_config(basedir, "")
-        self.failUnlessEqual(config.get_config("node", "nickname").decode('utf-8'),
-                             u"\u2621")
+        # Config returns native strings:
+        expected_nick = u"\u2621"
+        if PY2:
+            expected_nick = expected_nick.encode("utf-8")
+        self.failUnlessEqual(config.get_config("node", "nickname"),
+                             expected_nick)
 
     def test_tahoe_cfg_hash_in_name(self):
         basedir = "test_node/test_cfg_hash_in_name"
diff --git a/src/allmydata/util/configutil.py b/src/allmydata/util/configutil.py
index 1a1a93f18..f85972d8d 100644
--- a/src/allmydata/util/configutil.py
+++ b/src/allmydata/util/configutil.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ from __future__ import division
 from __future__ import print_function
 from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
-from future.utils import PY2
+from future.utils import PY2, PY3
 if PY2:
     # We don't do open(), because we want files to read/write native strs when
     # we do "r" or "w".
@@ -42,11 +42,12 @@ def get_config(tahoe_cfg):
     """
     config = SafeConfigParser()
     with open(tahoe_cfg, "r") as f:
-        # On Python 2, where we read in bytes, skip any initial Byte Order
-        # Mark. Since this is an ordinary file, we don't need to handle
-        # incomplete reads, and can assume seekability.
+        # Skip any initial Byte Order Mark. Since this is an ordinary file, we
+        # don't need to handle incomplete reads, and can assume seekability.
         if PY2 and f.read(3) != b'\xEF\xBB\xBF':
             f.seek(0)
+        if PY3 and f.read(1) != u"\uFEFF":
+            f.seek(0)
         config.readfp(f)
     return config