Vampires

by Charlotte Montague

  Vlad the Impaler

  Vlad the Impaler, or Dracula, as he was also known, was a fifteenth-century Romanian prince who has gone down in history as one of the most bloodthirsty rulers of all time. His preferred method of torture was to impale his victims on a sharpened wooden stake, not only ensuring them a slow, agonizing death, but also encouraging onlookers, both soldiers and civilians, to surrender immediately to his troops. He was utterly ruthless in his desire to dominate, and stories of his cruel treatment towards mothers and children, as well as adult men, abound.

  Devil worshipper?

  There is no doubt that Vlad was an extremely barbaric ruler, but some believe that the stories about him being an insane devil worshipper and sadist, who revelled in his bloodthirsty crimes, are exaggerated. It is certainly true that his many enemies, especially those among the supporters of the Ottoman Empire which sought to rule Romania at the time, feared and hated him. He is reputed to have impaled thousands of ordinary men, women and children, in the course of war, or for any kind of resistance to his draconian edicts. However, among his own people, he was revered as a courageous freedom fighter, who for decades defended his country against the Turks. Be that as it may, his reputation as a mass murderer gave rise to many legends and myths, and his name, if not his actual historical existence, inspired Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, written many centuries later.

  The son of the devil

  Vlad the Impaler is thought to have been born in the city of Sighisoara, which is now in Romania but in those days was part of Transylvania. He was the second son of a Wallachian Prince, Vlad ‘Dracul’, who was living there in exile from his native land at the time. Vlad ‘Dracul’ was a warlord who had been initiated into a royal society, the ‘Order of the Dragon’, which accounted for his nickname, ‘Dracul’. Significantly, in medieval times, the dragon was synonymous with the devil, and in the Romanian language, the word ‘Dracul’ also means ‘devil’. Vlad Dracul’s son became known as Dracula, meaning ‘son of the dragon’ – in other words, son of the devil. He certainly lived up to his name, as history recounts.

  Vengeance for the past

  Vlad ‘Dracul’ and his family were being hounded by the Ottoman sultan, forced to work for him as vassals, and to live in exile away from their homeland. In addition, Vlad was made to surrender two of his sons as hostages. Another son, little Vlad’s older brother, was put to death in the most agonizing way, blinded with iron stakes and buried alive by his enemies. Not surprisingly, Vlad the younger grew up with an intense hatred of the Turks, and also of the boyars, high-ranking Russian, Moldavian, and Wallachian aristocrats who were often disloyal and competitive towards Vlad ‘Dracul’ and his family.

  When young Vlad’s father was finally assassinated in 1447, the years of waiting were over, and his turn came to rule. He resolved to do so with a vengeance, paying his enemies back for all the humiliations the family had suffered in the past.

  The impalements begin

  Vlad Dracula assembled an army and fought the Ottomans, invading Wallachia (now Romania) and managing to gain back control there. Despite his hideously barbaric methods of fighting, he was feted by his people, having ousted the Ottomans and once more taken up the throne in his native land. However, he still had a Herculean task to accomplish. After many years of misrule, Wallachia was a miserable, poverty-stricken country where the economy had completely collapsed and crime was endemic. Vlad set about restoring order, which meant, first and foremost, wiping out any possible threats to his power. To curb the boyars, he knighted lowly individuals and appointed them to important positions in the government. He also cut off trade between the boyars and the Saxons who had settled in Transylvania. When the boyars resisted, he responded by having Saxon officials in the city of Kronstadt impaled, as a warning to others not to flout his authority. Vlad was equally hostile towards other royal Romanian clans, capturing and murdering two of their princes, and murdering ordinary citizens who had sheltered them. There were stories that thousands of citizens had been impaled, earning the new ruler the nickname of Vlad Tepes – Vlad the Impaler; but although there was undoubtedly some truth in these accounts, it seems that the numbers were exaggerated by his many enemies.

  Mass murderer

  Whatever the truth of the matter, there is no doubt that by now, Vlad was gaining a reputation as a ruthless, bloodthirsty fighter. In 1461, having made an alliance with the Hungarians, he marched into Ottoman territory south of the Danube and laid waste to the population there. He later boasted that he had killed over 20,000 Turks and Bulgarians, burning them alive in their houses and chopping off their heads.

  Not surprisingly, the Ottoman Sultan responded by sending a huge army of 90,000 men to fight back. Nothing could have prepared the soldiers for what happened when they arrived at the region to do battle. They were greeted by the sight of thousands of dead and dying Turkish prisoners impaled on stakes, ranged across the countryside like a gruesome human forest. Dracula’s reputation as a mass murderer was sealed, and from this time on, he was feared across Europe as a man who would stop at nothing to retain his power and position.

  Vlad’s wife commits suicide

  However, ruthless as he was, Vlad’s army was no match for the might of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks eventually marched into Romania and attacked his castle. During the siege of the castle, his wife threw herself from a tower into the river below, vowing that she would rather have her body rot in the water and be eaten by the fish than fall captive to the Turks. When the castle was taken, the sultan threw Vlad into prison, and put his half-brother, the more compliant Radu the Handsome, on the throne of Wallachia.

  Vlad languished in prison for a time – there is some dispute as to how long for – but, by forging further alliances with the Hungarian crown, he was finally released. He converted to Catholicism and married a Hungarian countess, with whom he had two sons, and set about reconquering his native land, enthusiastically supported by his countrymen. In 1476, he was killed fighting near Bucharest. Afterwards, the Turkish soldiers cut off his head and sent it to the Sultan, who displayed it prominently in Istanbul – fittingly enough, on a stake.

  Reign of terror

  But the legend of Vlad the Impaler lived on. Stories of the atrocities he had committed during his reign of terror, on a hitherto unprecedented scale involving thousands of victims, continued to horrify Western Europe. He was alleged to have killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people during his campaigns, mostly by impaling them, and to have razed whole villages to the ground, burning thousands more innocent victims in their houses. However, in Eastern Europe, particularly in Romania, where he was regarded as a freedom fighter and a hero, these figures were said to be exaggerated.

  Red-hot iron stakes

  The nature of the killings is also under dispute. In Germany, Vlad was alleged to be an insane sadist, whose crimes included burning, skinning, roasting, boiling, and drowning victims; forcing their relatives to eat their flesh; cutting off their limbs; nailing their hats to their heads; and torturing children and babies. He was particularly ferocious towards women, being apparently extremely concerned with female chastity. There are accounts that unmarried or adulterous women had their breasts and sexual organs cut out, and that they were impaled through the vagina with red-hot stakes. Merchants and workmen who cheated their customers, as well as common thieves, were also impaled, their bodies left out in the streets as a warning to others.

  Deranged sadist?

  Today, many historians believe that these accounts were sensationalized. The tales were circulated in manuscript form in the fiftenth century, and with the invention of the printing press, became bestsellers. They undoubtedly had a political purpose, to set the German public against the Romanians. This was not surprising, since Vlad had shown great cruelty towards the Saxons in the past. In addition, the Hungarian king, Corvinus, had reason to blacken Dracula’s name. Corvinus needed to justify his failure to go to war with the Turks, so he accused Vlad of secretly
supporting the Ottoman Sultan, along with many other negative stories, making him a scapegoat for his own cowardice.

  But, as the old saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire. Vlad may not have been quite the deranged sadist that these stories made him out to be, but there is no doubt that he killed a large numbers of victims, often quite unnecessarily, and that impalement, a hideously painful form of torture and murder, was his preferred modus operandi.

  Slow death

  Vlad perfected a method of impalement to create maximum pain before death. A large wooden stake would be sharpened and oiled. It was important not to sharpen the stake too much, otherwise the victim would die of shock immediately after the stake was forced into the body. The stake would then be inserted into the victim’s body through the anus, and forced right through until it came out of the victim’s mouth. In certain cases, the stake would be inserted into other bodily orifices, or pushed through the stomach or chest.

  The victim would then be left outside to die a slow, agonizing death, in full view of passers-by. The process could go on for hours, or even days. Sometimes, the victim would be hung upside down. The height of the stake would indicate the person’s rank, and stakes would also be arranged in patterns, often around a village, town, or city that soldiers were targeting. Once the victim died, the body would be left on the stake, to rot away.

  Count Dracula

  While the bloodthirsty crimes of Vlad the Impaler have gone down in history, there is no suggestion that he himself drank blood, or was thought to be a vampire. However, as Dracula, son of the ferocious Vlad Dracul, he gave his name to the most famous fictional vampire of all time, Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula.

  How did this come about? In the story by Bram Stoker, Count Dracula lives in the ‘cursed land’ of Transylvania. The author’s original intention had, by all accounts, been to set the novel in Styria, a region of Austria. He had been inspired to do so by reading a book about a remote castle in the area, Schloss Hainfeld, or a Winter in Lower Styria by Captain Basil Hall, a noted British naval officer, traveller, and author. However, he then went on to read another book, entitled Transylvanian Superstitions by Emily Gerard, the Scottish wife of a Hungarian cavalryman. This was an account of the folklore of the forests in the region, telling of ruined castles, werewolves, and occult happenings. Gerard reported the local peasants’ belief in Nosferatu, the vampire who returned from the grave to prey on the living, and told of how they tried to ward off evil by hanging garlic over their front doors. This seemed to be fertile territory for a horror story, and thus Stoker decided to change his mind, and set his tale in the remote woodlands of Transylvania.

  Stoker was also influenced by another important work of the period, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia by one William Wilkinson, published in 1820. It is known that Stoker made notes on this book, using it to sketch out the background for his story. In this work, he found out about the principalities of Moldavia, Transylvania, and Wallachia (now Romania) , and came across the story of the notorious fifteenth-century prince, Vlad Dracul, and his son, Vlad Dracula. Stoker may also have heard about Vlad Dracula from his friend Armin Vambery, a Hungarian professor who was familiar with the history of the region. Whatever the case, the story of the crazed, evil Dragon Prince with a lust for blood piqued Stoker’s interest, and the vampire Count Dracula was born.

  The Bloodthirsty Countess

  In recent times, some literary critics have questioned the idea that Stoker based his Count Dracula on Vlad the Impaler. They point instead to the legends surrounding Elizabeth Bàthory, a sixteenth-century Countess who sexually abused, tortured, and murdered scores of young women servants at her remote castle, allegedly bathing in their blood to keep her skin looking young.

  The most likely scenario seems to be that Stoker, like any other fiction writer, drew inspiration from many sources, taking details from both history and legend to create a vivid romance of his own. It seems that he borrowed the name of Count Dracula for his tale, substituting it for the original name he had chosen for his protagonist, Count Wampyr. Other aspects of Dracula’s history, such as his fondness for impaling his victims on stakes, were left out, possibly because Stoker did not know very much about them. Certainly, by choosing to set his story in the remote forests of Transylvania, Stoker mined a rich seam of folklore and peasant superstition in the region.

  Dracula’s castle

  Today, after the fall of Communism in Romania, the connection between Stoker’s Count Dracula and the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler has spawned a burgeoning tourist industry. Visitors from all over the world come to the country to visit Bran Castle, and the vast forests that surround it. Even though it is not known for sure if Vlad ever stayed there, it has become fixed in the public mind as ‘Dracula’s Castle’, its gothic turrets and remote position serving to underscore its legendary status as the home of the most celebrated literary vampire of all time. Recently, the castle hit the headlines after being returned to its owners, the Van Hapsburg family, 60 years after it was seized by the communists, and has now become one of Romania’s top tourist attractions.

  Elizabeth Báthory

  The sixteenth-century Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory has gone down in history as the most prolific serial killer of all time, and some believe that she, alongside Vlad the Impaler and others, were inspiration behind Bram Stocker’s Dracula. Báthory was accused of sexually abusing, torturing, and murdering up to 600 victims at her remote castle, all of them young girls and women, some of them virgins. There were eyewitness accounts of her mutilating the girls’ genitals, and biting the flesh off their arms, legs, and faces. Legend has it that she also bathed in her victims’ blood, in the belief that it would rejuvenate her, but whether or not this is actually true remains a matter of conjecture. Some historians have also argued that the number of her victims was exaggerated. But whatever the exact details of the case, it is clear that Báthory was a monstrously evil madwoman, whose sadistic treatment of her unfortunate maids went far beyond the callous cruelty towards servants considered acceptable by the nobility at the time.

  Madness and incest

  Erzsébet Báthory, to give her Hungarian name, was born in 1560 in Nyirbator, Hungary. Her parents were related. Her father, George Báthory came from the Ecsed line of the Báthory family, while her mother, Anna, came from the Somlyo branch. The Báthorys were a powerful Protestant aristocratic family, whose members included princes, warlords, churchmen, and politicians. One of Elizabeth’s cousins was the King of Poland, and another went on to become Palatine of Hungary. In order to preserve the purity of their heritage, the Báthory family encouraged intermarriage. This may have contributed to Elizabeth’s insanity, which showed itself during her childhood in epileptic fits and uncontrollable rages. Her brother Stephan was also apparently afflicted by mental imbalance, and grew up to be an alcoholic and a notorious sex fiend.

  Horrifying punishments

  As well as this poor genetic inheritance, the young Elizabeth’s sanity may have been affected by witnessing her privileged family’s extreme cruelty towards the ordinary people around them. The Hungarian nobility of the time treated their inferiors like animals and worse, and horrific retribution was meted out to anyone who crossed them. In one instance, Elizabeth witnessed the punishment of a gypsy who had been accused of theft. He was sewn into the belly of a horse, with only his head protruding, and left there to die. With such perverse acts of barbarism going on around her, it was hardly surprising that the young Elizabeth came to regard sadistic treatment of her servants as a normal way of life when she grew up.

  There were, however, more positive aspects to Elizabeth’s experience of childhood. Unlike most other Hungarian aristocrats, some of whom could barely read or write, she received a proper education in Latin and Greek. She was said to have been highly intelligent, and her beauty was also praised.

  Unwanted pregnancy

  While still a child, she was betrothed to Count F
erenc Nàdasdy, a grown man who was renowned as a soldier and athlete. But then, at the age of 14, she became pregnant by one of the peasants on her father’s estate. Elizabeth was sent away to live in the countryside and went on to give birth to a daughter. The child was left with a peasant couple and Elizabeth returned to public life.

  A year later, Elizabeth married Nàdasdy in tremendous style. The Báthorys threw a huge, lavish wedding party with a guest list of 4,500 people. The Holy Roman Emperor himself, Maximillian II, was invited, although he could not attend, citing ‘the dangers of travelling in turbulent times’ as an excuse. Instead, he sent a large delegation and expensive gifts. The event did much to further the prestige and political power of the Báthory family. What happened subsequently, however, did not.

  Satanic rituals

  Elizabeth moved with her new husband to the Nàdasdy estates around Castle Sàrvàr. Here the Nàdasdys had long held a reputation as cruel overlords, and Ferenc was no exception. He introduced his young wife, still an impressionable teenager, to various cruel ways of punishing their servants, encouraging her to treat them without pity or mercy. There were also rumours that the couple became involved in the occult, calling in black arts practitioners, and performing satanic rituals together.