The vampire is truly a global creature, with myths related to the dead which rise to drink the blood of the living coming out of cultures all around the world. The victims of a vampire either dies or becomes a vampire. Vampires could also be made in a variety of ways: a child born under certain omens, a cat or other animal jumping over a dead body, someone who committed suicide, and practicing witchcraft are some activities thought to be the cause of vampirism. In order to protect yourself from a vampire, there are a few things that can be helpful: garlic, silver cross, sunlight or fire, cross or crucifix, holy water, mountain ash (rowan). It is believed that it is possible to become a vampire if: you are born the 7th son of the 7th son, if a dead body has been reflected in a mirror or a child who dies unbaptized (known as “moroi”).

Vampires are usually “night people” on a biochemical level. They have inverted circadian rhythms, with body cycles such as temperature peaks, menstrual onset, and the production of sleep hormones in the brain occurring at the opposite time of day from most people. They have difficulty adjusting to daytime schedules and frequently work nights. They tend to be photosensitive, avoiding sunlight, sun burning easily, and having excellent night vision. Their vitality ranges widely, and they can be vigorous and active one day, depressed and languorous the next.

There have been many recent movies about vampires: “Dracula” (”Bram Stoker’s Dracula” - complete title), directed by Francis Ford Coppola made from the legend of count Dracula a modern masterpiece, “Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles” starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas, is another impressive movie, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar has been a real success.

The stories of vampires date back to thousands of years ago. Each country has its own spin on the legend of the vampire.

The first documentary attestation of Bran Castle is the letter written in 1377 by the Hungarian Ludovic I D’Anjou, giving the inhabitants of Brasov some privileges. At the end of the 14th century, king Sigismund gave up the leadership of Bran Fortress in favor of Mircea cel Batran. The royal domain had been given to the Hungarian aristocracy, while the Fortress passed under the rule of Mircea’s faithful boyards. Few years later, the Hungarian king got back the Fortress. Bran Fortress was subordinated to the authority of Szeklers Committee. The Fortress had an essential part in protecting the Hungarian king from the Ottomans invasion, coming from Wallachia through Rucar Pass. That’s the reason why the inhabitants of Brasov built the Castle on their own work and expenses. Iancu de Hunedoara fortified Transylvania’s borders and also the towers of the Bran Castle. He made sure the rights of the paysans were respected by the boyards who ruled the Fortress.

The castle had a protective and commercial purpose. The defense position had two rows of walls closing the passing towards South. They were made in stone and brick. Only few traces of the initial defense position still exist. The undersized building of the ancient Post Office had a pit with 6-8 rooms and a cellar also used as prison. It hasn’t been preserved. At that time the fortress comprised the exterior wall, the donjon, the round tower and the gate’s tower. The wall was built in stone blocks and bricks and had rectangular fire holes as had all Transylvanian fortresses. The donjon was located on the North side and comprised four floors and only two chambers. On the top there was an observation point. Since 1593 the round tower has a circular section. At its pit the ancient inhabitants used to deposit the gun powder. The first and the second floor comprised few chambers. Initially the gate’s tower was round, but it was rebuilt in 1625 in rectangular form. The gate was blocked with beams. The only way of reaching this entrance was by climbing up a ladder. Inside the courtyard you can still see the initial well (57 m high).

While centuries passed by changes have been made to the castle. In the 16th century the wax-paper from the windows was replaced with glass and the shingle from the roof with tile. Many of the changes and reparations have been made by the prince Gabriel Bethlen. He added another rectangular tower, a square tower with two floors and the actual gate. The old observatory tower, dated 1622, shows the Romanian architectural style. At that time the villagers’s houses were located on the North side of the castle. On the first floor there was a vestibule, a big dinning room, a kitchen and under the stairs a small room where they kept the gun powder. The second level comprised also a vestibule, a small chamber with a door towards the new tower, a room with short beams, a small room and a corridor made in wood (the exit towards the courtyard).

THE GOLDEN CUP

Vlad was generally known as a fierce and honest leader. Vlad was said to have been so confident that no thief would dare challenge him knowing they would be brutally killed that he placed a golden cup on display in the central square of Tirgoviste. The cup was never stolen and remained where it was untouched throughout Vlad’s reign.

I have heard another version of this story that he had a fountain in a far off place with pure and cold water that travellers visited often to drink from. The gold cup was placed at the fountain for any who chose to drink from it. It was also never stolen and always returned back to its place at the fountain.

THE STORY OF THE FOREIGN MERCHANT

A foreign merchant from Hungary visited the capital of Tirgoviste. Vlad ordered him to leave his wagon of gold in the street overnight obviously to show off how his people would not steal. However the merchant was surprised to find 160 gold florins missing in the morning. Vlad then told the merchant “Go now; and tonight you shall have your gold back”. He put forward orders for his men to find the thief in the city saying also that if the burglar was not found that he would personally throw one of the hugest tantrums anyone had ever seen and destroy the city.

Dracula then put his own money in the wagon overnight adding one florin to the original sum.

The next morning the Merchant was astonished to find his florins returned with one extra. He went to Vlad and said of his findings. Vlad had by then been brought the thief and had him impaled (probably whilst enjoying breakfast off to the side). He announced to the Merchant “walk in peace now; but if you had not told me about that one florin, I would have had you impaled together with this thief!”.

THE VISITING MONKS

A difficult story is this one as there is quite a few variations surrounding different details.

The basics of the story are that 2 monks visited Vlad in his palace at Tirgoviste.

Vlad was curious to see the reactions of two monks regarding his impaling and atrocities. He led them to the rows of corpses in his courtyard and asked their opinions. One of the monks responded saying “You are appointed by God to punish evil doers”. The other monk obviously more horrified at what he saw and was honest enough to express himself truly and condemned Vlad for his actions.

The German stories tell of Vlad impaling the second monk and rewarding the first but the Russian story tells of Vlad impaling the first for dishonesty and rewarding the second monk for his honesty. Whichever he impaled you can be assured that Vlad being the lover of impalement wouldn’t of missed and opportunity like that and most probably impaled both just to have something to enjoy lunch by.

THE NAILING OF THE HATS

Another story that there are a few different versions of.

Foreign Ambassadors were at Vlad’s court at Tirgoviste. They were granted an audience with the prince and refused to remove their hats which at the time was the custom when in the presence of a prince in Wallachia. Vlad was angered and instead of immediately impaling them he had their hats nailed to their heads so that they could never remove them.

Another version:
The envoys were Turkish. They refused to remove their Phrygian caps. When questioned why they said it was not the custom of their fathers to do so. Vlad ordered their hats nailed to their heads with three nails so that they might never break such and excellent tradition.

THE MISTRESS

Vlad kept a mistress in the back streets of Tirgoviste. The woman was madly in love with the prince and would do anything for him. One day Vlad came to her depressed and to cheer him up and claimed to be pregnant with his child (she did this knowing full well how upset he got over dishonesty). Vlad warned her that she should not joke over a matter so serious but she stuck with her lie. Vlad then ordered her to be examined by the bath matrons to determine if she was telling the truth or not. He was soon informed of her lie and then slit the poor woman open from her groin to her breasts leaving her to die a slow horrible death and wishing for his people to see what happens to a liar.

BURNING OF UNFORTUNATE ONES

Vlad got upset at the increase of cripples, beggars, poor and vagrants upon his land. He was very obsessive regarding that all worked and contributed equally. So he offered up a great feast in a great hall in Tirgoviste, saying that no one should go hungry in his land.

The people who were made up of those unfortunate souls that were poor and crippled ate and drank late into the night when suddenly Vlad made an appearance. He asked them “What else do you desire? Do you want to be without cares and lacking nothing in this world?”. The crowd were fooled by his question and rose up and answered that they did indeed. Vlad then ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. No one escaped. Vlad explained his actions saying he did it “in order that they represent no further burden to other men so that no one will be poor in my realm”. I think Vlad was reincarnated later as Hitler.

WHAT TO DO WITH A LAZY WOMAN

Vlad pointed out a man working in a field who was wearing a too short caftan. The prince stopped and asked if the man had a wife. He replied “yes”. Vlad ordered the wife be brought before him and asked her how she spent her days. The terrified woman answered that she spent her days washing, baking and sewing. Vlad pointed out to her the husbands short caftan as evidence of her laziness and dishonesty and ordered the poor woman impaled despite her husband’s protest that he was well satisfied with his wife and she certainly was not lazy. The woman was not spared and Vlad ordered another woman to marry the peasant warning her to work hard or she would suffer the same fate.

NEVER HOLD YOUR NOSE IN FRONT OF VLAD

In 1459 on St. Bartholomew’s Day, Vlad had 30,000 of the merchants and nobles of the Transylvanian city of Brasov to be impaled. In order to enjoy the entire experience (as we know that it’s a full day’s entertainment for him!) he commanded that his table be set up and that his boyars join him for a feast amongst the forest of impaled corpses. Whilst dining, Vlad noticed that one of his boyars was holding his nose in an effort to try and avoid some of the smell of blood and emptied bowls of the surrounding bodies. Vlad took it upon himself to impale the man higher than all the rest so that he might be above the stench.

Another version has the man as a nobleman, an envoy of the Transylvanian cities of Brasov and Sibiu sent to appeal to Vlad to spare those cities. Whilst hearing the man’s appeals Vlad took great enjoyment walking amongst the stakes with some of the bodies still alive. The nobleman was almost overcome by the ordeal and so Vlad asked him if he found the stench oppressive. The nobleman, seeing an opportunity to get on Vlad’s side of things responded that his only concern was for the health and welfare of the prince. Vlad was then angered at the nobleman’s dishonesty and of course (I bet you’ve guessed already) had him impaled once again high above the stench.

According to legend, Walachia was founded in 1290 by a Transylvanian named Radu Negru, or Rudolph the Black. Dracula’s grandfather, Prince Mircea the Old, reigned from 1386 to 1418. He fought to keep Walachia independent from the Turks but was forced to pay tribute to them. He and his descendants continued to rule Walachia, but under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey).

The throne of Walachia was not necessarily passed from father to son. The prince was elected by the country’s boyars, or land-owning nobles. This caused fighting among family members, assassinations, and other unpleasantness. Eventually the royal House of Basarab was split into two factions — Mircea’s descendants, and the descendants of another prince named Dan II. Dan’s descendants were called the Danesti.

Mircea had an illegitimate son, Vlad, born around 1390. He grew up in the court of King Sigismund of Hungary, first probably as a hostage and later as a page. Sigismund, who became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1410, founded a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon to uphold Catholicism and fight Turkey. Vlad was admitted to the Order, probably in 1431. The boyars of Walachia started to call him Dracul, meaning “dragon.” Vlad’s second son would be known as Dracula, or “son of the dragon.” Dracul also meant “devil.” So some of Dracula’s enemies called him “son of the devil.”

Sigismund made Vlad the military governor of Transylvania, a post he held from 1431 to 1435. During that time he lived in the town of Sighisoara or Schassburg. You can still visit the citadel there and even the house where Vlad’s son Dracula was born. Today there’s a restaurant on the second floor. There’s also a mural in the house that may depict Vlad Dracul.

Young Dracula

Dracula was born in November or December of 1431. His given name was Vlad. He had an older brother, Mircea, and a younger brother, Radu the Handsome. Their mother may have been a Moldavian princess or a Tranyslvanian noble. It is said that she educated Dracula in his early years. Later he was trained for knighthood by an old boyar who had fought the Turks.

Dracula’s father was not content to remain a mere governor forever. During his years in Transyvlania, he gathered supporters for his plan to seize Walachia’s throne from its current occupant, a Danesti prince named Alexandru I. In late 1436 or early 1437 Vlad Dracul killed Alexandru and became Prince Vlad II.

Vlad was a vassal of Hungary and also had to pay tribute to Hungary’s enemy, Turkey. In 1442 Turkey invaded Transylvania. Vlad tried to stay neutral, but Hungary’s rulers blamed him and drove him and his family out of Walachia. A Hungarian general, Janos Hunyadi (who may have been the illegitimate son of Emperor Sigismund) made a Danesti named Basarab II the prince of Walachia.

The following year Vlad regained the throne with the help of the sultan of Turkey. In 1444 he sent his two younger sons to Turkey to prove his loyalty. Dracula was about 13. He spent the next four years in Adrianople, Turkey as a hostage.

In 1444 Hungary went to war with Turkey and demanded that Vlad join the crusade. As a member of the Order of the Dragon, Vlad was sworn to obey this summons. But he didn’t want to anger the Turks, so he sent his eldest son, Mircea, in his place. The Christian army was demolished at the Battle of Varna, and Vlad and Mircea blamed Janos Hunyadi.

In 1447 Vlad and Mircea were murdered. Mircea was killed by the boyars and merchants of the Walachian city Tirgoviste. There are different stories about how he died - he may have been tortured and burned, or buried alive. Apparently his father died at the same time. Some say that the assassinations were organized by Hunyadi.

Since Vlad and Mircea were dead, and Dracula and Radu were still in Turkey, Hunyadi was able to put a member of the Danesti clan, Vladislav II, on the Walachian throne. The Turks didn’t like having a Hungarian puppet in charge of Walachia, so in 1448 they freed Dracula and gave him an army. He was seventeen years old.

It seems that Dracula’s little brother Radu chose to remain in Turkey. He had grown up there, and apparently remained loyal to the sultan.

Dracula’s Reign

With the help of his Turkish army, Dracula seized the Walachian throne. However, he only ruled for two months before Hunyadi forced him into exile in Moldavia. Again Vladislav II became Walachia’s prince.

Three years later Prince Bogdan of Moldavia was assassinated and Dracula fled the country. By now Vladislav II had become a supporter of Turkey, and Hunyadi was sorry he had put him on the throne. Everyone switched sides - Dracula became Hunyadi’s vassal, and Hunyadi now supported Dracula’s attempt to regain his throne. In 1456 Hunyadi invaded Turkish Serbia while Dracula invaded Walachia. Hunyadi became sick and died, but Dracula killed Vladislav II and took back his throne.

He established his capital at Tirgoviste - you can still see the ruins of his palace there. And nearby a statue of Vlad Tepes still stands. He is considered an important figure in Romanian history because he unified Walachia and resisted the influence of foreigners.

But it’s Dracula’s cruelty that most non-Romanians remember. After becoming prince, Dracula supposedly invited many beggars and other old, sick and poor people to a banquet at his castle. When his guests had finished eating their meal and drinking a toast to him, Dracula asked them, “Would you like to be without cares, lacking nothing in this world?”

Yes, they said enthusiastically.

So Dracula had the castle boarded up and set it on fire. Nobody made it out alive - and that was the end of their problems, as he had promised. “I did this so that no one will be poor in my realm,” he said.

According to another story, he invited 500 boyars to a banquet and asked them how many princes had ruled in their lifetimes. They said they had lived through many reigns. Shouting that this was their fault because of their plotting, Dracula had them all arrested on the spot. The older ones were impaled; the others were marched 50 miles to Poenari where they were forced to build a mountaintop fortress. They worked a long time; when their clothes fell off, they worked naked. Most of them died, of course. And of course Dracula seized the boyars’ property and passed it out to his supporters. In that way he created a new nobility, loyal to him.

(The ruins of the Poenari fortress can still be seen. You have to climb nearly 1,500 steps and cross a little bridge to reach it. It’s now called Castle Dracula, but several places are called that. Another “Castle Dracula” is Bran Castle, near the town of Brasov. Although Dracula may have stayed there occasionally, it certainly wasn’t his home.)

Dracula liked to set up a banquet table and dine while he watched people die. His favorite form of execution was impalement. It was slow; people could take days to die. He liked to impale many people at once, arranging the stakes in fancy designs. Nothing was too brutal for Dracula - he enjoyed having people skinned, boiled alive, etc. He prided himself on making the punishment (supposedly) fit the crime.

By 1462, when he was deposed, he had killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people, possibly more. He always thought up some excuse for these executions. He killed merchants who cheated their customers. He killed women who had affairs. Supposedly he had one woman impaled because her husband’s shirt was too short. He didn’t mind impaling children, either. Afterwards he would display the corpses in public so everyone would learn a lesson. It’s said that there were over 20,000 bodies hanging outside his capital city. Of course, the stories about Dracula’s cruelty might have been exaggerated by his enemies.

Despite all this, Dracula’s subjects respected him for fighting the Turks and being a strong ruler. He’s remembered today as a patriotic hero who stood up to Turkey and Hungary. He was the last Walachian prince to remain independent from the Ottoman Empire. He was so scornful of other nations that when two foreign ambassadors refused to doff their hats to him, he had the hats nailed to their heads. He was opposed to the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches because he thought foreigners, operating through the churches, had too much power in Walachia. He tried to prevent foreign merchants from taking business away from his citizens. If merchants disobeyed his trade laws, they were, of course, impaled.

Dracula created a very severe moral code for the citizens of Walachia. You can guess what happened to anyone who broke the code. Thieves were impaled, even liars were impaled. Naturally there wasn’t a lot of crime in Walachia during his reign.

To prove how well his laws worked, Dracula had a gold cup placed in a public square. Anyone who wanted to could drink from the cup, but no one was allowed to take it out of the square. No one did.

A visiting merchant once left his money outside all night, thinking that it would be safe because of Dracula’s strict policies. To his surprise, some of his coins were stolen. He complained to Dracula, who promptly issued a proclamation that the money must be returned or the city would be destroyed. That night Dracula secretly had the missing money, plus one extra coin, returned to the merchant. The next morning the merchant counted the money and found it had been returned. He told Dracula about this, and mentioned the extra coin. Dracula replied that the thief had been caught and would be impaled. And if the merchant hadn’t mentioned the extra coin, he would have been impaled, too.

Dracula Overthrown

In 1462 Dracula attacked the Turks to drive them out of the Danube River valley. Sultan Mehmed II retaliated by invading Walachia with an army three times larger than Dracula’s. Dracula was forced to retreat to his capital, Tirgoviste. He burned his own villages and poisoned wells on the way so that the Turkish army wouldn’t have any food or water.

When the sultan reached Tirgoviste, he saw a terrifying scene, remembered in history as “the Forest of the Impaled.” There, outside the city, were 20,000 Turkish prisoners, all impaled. The sultan’s officers were too scared to go on - Dracula had won again.

Although the sultan retreated, Dracula’s little brother Radu did not. The Turks had provided him with an army in hopes that he could seize Dracula’s throne. Many of Dracula’s boyars abandoned him to join Radu. Radu’s army pursued Dracula to his fortress at Poenari. Dracula’s wife was so frightened that she threw herself from the upper battlements. The Turks seized the castle, but Dracula managed to escape through a secret tunnel. There were still some peasants around he hadn’t impaled, and they helped him flee from Walachia.

He went to the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus, for help. Instead the king had him imprisoned in a tower. Dracula remained in Hungary while Radu ruled Walachia as a puppet for the Turks. After the first four years he was allowed to move into a house. He became a Catholic to please the Catholic Hungarians. He ingratiated himself with the Hungarian royal family, and even married one of its members (possibly the king’s cousin).

But he was still the same old Dracula. He impaled rats and birds for fun. Once a thief broke into his house and a Hungarian captain followed him to arrest him. Dracula didn’t kill the thief - he killed the officer. Why? Because the officer was a gentleman, and should have known not to enter a house uninvited.

The Death of Dracula

In 1473, Dracula’s brother Radu lost the Walachian throne to a member of the Danesti clan, Basarab the Old. Radu died of syphilis in January of 1475, and in 1476 Dracula invaded Walachia with the help of Moldavia and Transylvania. They drove Basarab out of the country, and Dracula again became Walachia’s prince. Most of Dracula’s army then went home to Transylvania.

The Turks attacked a few months later. Dracula was killed while fighting near Bucharest in December 1476. Some say he died at the hands of a Turkish assassin posing as a servant, or that he was accidentally killed on the battlefield by his own men because he had disguised himself as a Turk to confuse the enemy. The sultan displayed Dracula’s head on a pike in Constantinople to prove that he was dead. His body was buried at the island monastery of Snagov, which he had patronized. But excavations in 1931 failed to turn up any sign of his coffin!

And that is the story of the real Prince Dracula.

• Dracula’s cape may have been based on the red and black cape worn by members of the Order of the Dragon.
• Killing a vampire by driving a stake through his heart is reminiscent of Impalements.
• Vlad the Impaler was Transylvanian, as is Stoker’s character.
• Vlad the Impaler lived in a castle, which is also known as castle Dracula, and currently a tourists attraction (although the real castle Dracula lies buried beneath is structure)
• While imprisoned, Vlad the Impaler tortured and impaled rodents and insects. Count Dracula’s lackey, Renfield, devours insects in his cell while imprisoned in an insane asylum.
• Vlad the Impaler is said to have consumed human flesh, and to have drunk human blood. Some also speculate that he suffered from a rare allergy that made him lose control when exposed to blood, as well as crave it.
• While Vlad the Impaler may not have been one of the living dead, it is believed his allergy to blood caused him to have very pale and swollen face.
• Although most movie versions of the Dracula character were without facial hair, Stoker’s character was a tall man with aquiline features, sporting a long white mustache, an elderly version of what the real Dracula would have looked like.
• Harker recalls a conversation with Count Dracula: “In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke
  as if he had been present at them all.”
• In that same exchange, Dracula explains the origins of his race: “What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” He held up his arms. “Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race, that we were proud, that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back?”
• Count Dracula alsop ststes that: “Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube
  and beat the Turk on his own ground?”
• Van Helsing explains that another way to insure a vampire will not return is to cut off its head. Vlad the Impaler was rumored to have been decapitated.
• Van Helsing also theorizes that: “He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk.”
• In Francis Ford Coppola’s feature film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, actor Gary Oldman is shown wearing an armor sporting the “Order of the Dragon” insignia, and a fair amount of background is given on the Character which was not in the book but is based on the historical Vlad Dracula.
• Again, In Coppola’s adaptation, Prince Vlad Dracula’s wife Elisabeta is shown committing suicide to avoid capture in exactly the same manner as Vlad the Impaler’s wife during the capture of his castle by the Turks.

While growing up with such a name would normally present problems for most of us, Vlad certainly did not seem to mind, as he really did live up to his title; but before we look upon the exploits of the son, let us learn a bit more about the father. In 1436, Vlad Dracul took over the throne of Wallachia, taking up residence in the palace of Tirgoviste. It was there young Vlad Dracula would get his first taste of the opulent lifestyle, and perhaps also where the beast within would begin to grow. Merely two years later, in a strange turn of events, Vlad II betrayed the Order of the Dracul, forming an alliance with the Turks. He even went as far as allowing Sultan Murad II to keep his two sons, Vlad Dracula, and his younger brother Radu, as “insurance” that he would not plan to strike against the Turks.

In the winter of 1447, Vlad Dracul was assassinated in a coup orchestrated by one of his relatives, John Hunyadi, who had devoted his life to fighting the Ottoman Turks, and did not approve of Vlad Dracul’s pro-Turkish policy. Vlad Dracula was granted his freedom following his father’s death, but Radu decided to stay behind. In addition to learning of his father’s demise, Vlad was also told his older brother, Mircea had had his eyes gouged out, and been buried alive by the boyars of Tirgoviste. While in captivity, Vlad had grown resentful, and vowed to have his revenge.

The throne of Wallachia, which would have normally been reserved for Vlad Dracula, was now occupied by the boyars. The still teenaged Vlad Dracula, with the help of Pasha Mustafa Hassan’ Turkish cavalry, defeated the boyars, reclaiming the throne for a very short period of time, as Hunyadi would soon thereafter appoint Vladislav II to the post. Vlad Dracula formed an alliance with Hunyadi, in the hopes of persuading him he was the rightful heir to the throne, but it wasn’t until 1456, that Vlad Dracula would make his move, killing his father’s murderer, and defeating Vladislav II, to take over as the new ruler of Wallachia. In 1569, following an Easter Sunday feast, Vlad Dracula had all the boyar families who had been attending arrested. Those who were in good health were condemned to a life of slavery, and put to work on the construction of his Poenari Castle on the Arges river. Those who were old and weak were impaled for all to see. Thus began Vlad the Impaler’s reign of blood and terror.

Construction of the castle was difficult work, and many of the slaves died in the process. Many were forced to work naked, for their clothes had fallen off from wear. Needless to say, Vlad Dracula in no way considered these people human beings, and he treated them worse than animals, severely punishing and torturing his captives, whether or not they had done anything to provoke him. He abhorred weakness of any kind, and was determined to be the ruler of a Kingdom which would only be host to the rich and powerful.

One day, Vlad Dracula decided to cleanse his Kingdom of those he considered to be lazy and unproductive, those who suffered from illness, a handicap, or were simply born in poverty. He decreed that no one should go hungry in his Kingdom, and invited all the poor, unfortunate souls who tainted his concept of what society should be to a banquet in the great hall in Tirgoviste. Once he felt his “guests” had been well fed, not to mention drunk and complacent, Vlad made his appearance, asking them how they would enjoy never having to feel the pain of hunger ever again, or if they wished to never have to worry about anything ever again, to be without a care in the world.

Of course, their reply was enthusiastic, so he obliged, ordering his men to board up the hall, which was then set ablaze. No one escaped. Vlad Dracula’s treatment of his own subjects paled in comparison to the atrocities he committed against his enemies, and any who opposed him. On St. Bartholomew’s Day, he impaled 30,000 merchants for disobeying trade laws, having their bodies left to rot outside the city walls as a reminder of what would happen to any who disobeyed him.

Rumours abound that Vlad also ate the flesh, and drank the blood of his enemies, often holding dinner parties next to the freshly impaled. He was very proud of his work, and anyone who showed disdain while looking upon the thousands of putrefying corpses would soon suffer the same fate. Vlad liked to arrange the impaled in circular patterns, the length of the stakes determined by the victim’s rank; this way, wealthy, or powerful opponents would plainly see they were not above the law. Impalements were carried out in a variety of ways,

During his reign, Vlad Dracula also had people decapitated, had their eyes gouged out, had them skinned alive, boiled, burnt, dismembered, eviscerated, or sometimes just physically disfigured for his own amusement. In one particular incident, Turkish ambassadors who had refused to remove their Phrygian caps in his presence were asked why they insulted him in such a manner. When they replied it was because their hats had to remain on their heads according to custom, he graciously honored their tradition by ordering their hats permanently nailed to their heads, never to be removed again.

Vlad Dracula’s tyranny was such that none dared break any laws in his land, for fear of being punished or killed. He even had his mistress disemboweled publicly for having lied about being pregnant with his child. Vlad enjoyed torturing and killing women, often mutilating their breasts and sexual organs in the process. He is even rumored to have forced mothers to eat their own babies. In order to impress visiting dignitaries with the efficiency of his methods at promoting order, he had a gold cup placed on display in the center of central square of Tirgoviste, unguarded from any thief that would fancy stealing it during the night. The cup remained, as no one would have been so foolish as to risk impalement for being caught stealing.

Impalement was a particularly horrible way to die, Victims were either impaled from the anus or in the case of women, the vagina, but rarely from the mouth, as this usually meant a quicker death. The impaled would then be hoisted up, their own weight dragging them down upon the thick stakes, the process sometimes taking several hours. Vlad Dracula was only referred to as the Impaler sometime after his death, a “title” he would have probably liked to have held during his six year reign, for the number of those who suffered this cruel fate at his hands may number well into the hundreds of thousands.

Vlad may have been a fearsome conqueror, but he was not infallible. In 1461, he took on the Turks from the Danube River Valley, but ultimately failed to subdue them, outnumbered by Sultan Mehmed II’s army. Determined to kill the Sultan, Vlad Dracula staged a nightly raid on his settlement, but he attacked the wrong tent, leaving the Sultan enraged, and vowing revenge. He ordered his men to invade Wallachia, forcing Dracula’s army to retreat towards Tirgoviste. Not wanting to leave anything for the Sultan and his army, Vlad destroyed his Kingdom village by village, burning them to the ground, and poisoning their wells. Furthermore, when the Sultan arrived at Wallachia, he was shocked by finding a virtual forest of the impaled, thousands of dead Turkish prisoners whose bodies were slowly decomposing in the sun, the stench of it all permeating the air.

Vlad’s time-tested scare tactics had a profound effect on the tired and hungry Sultan and his army. He abandoned the campaign, but he would later retaliate by sending Vlad Dracula’s own brother to pick up where he left off. Radu and his men pursued Vlad to Poenari Castle on the Arges river. Dracula’s wife, fearful of being captured by the Turks, jumped to her death from one of the battlement towers. Dracula himself fled through a secret passageway, which he used to get to the mountains. Seeking refuge in Transylvania, Vlad met with King Matthias Corvinus, but the latter had heard of Vlad’s wicked ways, and had him imprisoned at Visegrad, the Hungarian capital.

Eventually, Vlad Dracula was allowed to come and go as he pleased, since there had been no definite terms for his imprisonment, and so long as he would report to King Matthias on a regular basis. He was also given his own dwellings in the palace, far from the musty dungeons. But Vlad continued to secretly indulge his hunger for blood, and occasionally, one would find small animals such as rats, cats, and even insects, impaled on sticks. But Vlad had managed to gain the King’s confidence, and he was often a guest at the various banquets and social functions at the palace. He even got married to the King’s cousin, Countess Ilona Szilagy, with whom he had two children.

For over nine years, Vlad had more or less remained in King Matthias’ custody, while his brother Radu occupied the throne of Wallachia. But contrary to what one might assume, Vlad Dracula was still somewhat respected by some of his former subjects; after all, he had successfully defeated the Turks on many occasions, and had managed to create an orderly society, free of crime. Radu on the other hand, had lost favor with the Boyars for his concessions to the Ottoman Turks, not to mention King Matthias himself, and his treachery to the Order of the Dracul. The time had come for Vlad to reclaim his throne, and King Matthias, along with Prince Stefan Bathory of Transylvania, would join forces with Vlad to overthrow Radu, and more importantly, to defeat the Turks.

After months of successful attacks on Turkish settlements from Dracula and his 5000 man strong Christian Army, Sultan Mehmed II’s forces were sufficiently weakened, but Vlad never had the satisfaction of personally dethroning his brother, for the latter had died of syphilis, and been replaced by Prince Basarab the Old, two years ealier. After having subdued, burnt, and of course, impaled thousands of Turks, Vlad and his men returned to Romania. It is interesting to note that this time around, Vlad’s favorite method of killing was officially sanctioned by the Vatican, as he was, after all, impaling the foes of the Catholic Church in the name of God.

Once again, Vlad Dracula occupied the throne of Wallachia, but things would never be the same. Even if he was officially sanctioned by King Matthias and the Church, many of the Boyars had not forgotten his ruthless ways. Sultan Mehmed II was restless in his determination to regain power over Wallachia and return Basarab to the throne. The Boyars, knowing the possible pitfalls of living under Dracula’s rule, were perhaps more open to the idea of Basarab’s return than they should have been. Word that Sultan Mehmed was organizing his forces in Bucharest reached Prince Stefan’s ears, and he asked Vlad Dracula to organize an army to defeat the Sultan’s, but of the Boyars joined him, and he found himself in a precarious position he had never been in before, undermanned, and expected by the enemy.

Without the element of surprise on his side, Vlad knew the battle ahead would be difficult. Furthermore, additional troops promised to him by Prince Stefan failed to show, and Vlad was left with just a few thousand men to combat the Sultan’s army, which had grown quite considerably large. Vlad Dracula, ever the fearless warrior, fought against overwhelming odds, refusing to accept defeat, but the reality of it all was that they were outnumbered, and would eventually meet their doom. There is much speculation as to what happened to Vlad the Impaler in his final battle. Some say he died at the hands of his own men, as he was mistaken for a Turk while disguised in one of their uniforms, while others say he was killed, and decapitated, his dead body only recognizable by the vestments and medallions he was wearing.

http://www.vladtepes.info/files/Stoker_Bram_Dracula.pdf

Or you can read online from here:

http://www.vladtepes.info/ebooks/Bram_Stoker_Dracula

Dracula’s (Vlad Tepes) Human Years
Text provided by Prof. Matthew Baugh, with notes provided by Prof. Dennis Power.

Dracula’s older brother Prince Mircea is born

Dracula’s father Vlad is inducted into the Order of the Dragon which is a Catholic order of knights. To acknowledge this honor, his supporters begin to refer to him as Vlad the Dragon or Vlad Dracul. Later that year Vlad Dracula (Son of the Dragon) is born. New information, brought to my attention by Prof. Power, shows that Vlad’s mother was a gypsy woman, and not Princess Cneajna. Vlad’s real mother not only had Gypsy blood, but was also a witch. She was burned to death for revealing to Vlad that she was indeed his true mother.

Dracula’s younger brother Radu the Handsome is born

Vlad Dracula becomes Voivode (Prince) of Wallachia

A gypsy girl visits young Vlad in his dreams and tells him that she will one day become his bride.

Vlad Dracul and his sons Radu and Vlad Dracula visit Gallipoli to pay tribute to the Ottoman Sultan Murad. The Sultan seizes them. Prince Mircea rules Wallachia in his father’s absence.

Dracul is released but his sons remain hostages.

Dracul participates in an anti-Turkish crusade alongside the Hungarian, John Hunyadi. Against expectations the Sultan allows Dracula and Radu to live.

Radu succumbs to the Sultan’s heir Muhmed and becomes his minion and lover. November Hunyadi forms an alliance with Vladislav II, a member of the Danesti clan who are Draculs enemies. Mircea is tortured and buried alive and Vlad is killed attempting to escape his capital city.

Murad releases Dracula and gives him the support he needs to rule Wallachia as the Sultans minion. Dracula rules for two months but is forced to flee the country when Hunyadi regains the advantage.

Dracula spends several years living in Moldavia.

Sultan Murad dies and is succeeded by the much more militant Mehmed.

Mehmed’s forces sack Constantinople bringing the Byzantine Empire to an end.

Fearing the Sultan will invade Hungary next, Hunyadi allows Dracula to come out of exile as his vassal. Dracula’s knowledge of the Turks proves invaluable but Hunyadi dies of illness during the campaign. Dracula avenges himself on Vladislav II (now an ally of the Turks.) By August 22 Dracula is again Prince of Wallachia.

Dracula seized all the nobles who collaborated in the death of his father and brother. The strong he presses into brutal forced labor in building the walls of Castle Dracula, the infirm he has impaled This is Dracula’s favorite form of execution and it earns him the name Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler). New information from Prof. Power reveals that when Vlad took over Wallachia, he heard tales that his father and brother had been cursed by gypsies to wander the world as the undead. He believed the story when Vlad Dracul returned to drink his son’s blood. Vlad was rescued by the young Gypsy woman of his dreams. According to this report, witches have power to control vampires or just certain types of vampires. She summons a Strigoi, a demon or gargoyle that carried Vlad Dracul, Mircea and Mircea’s wife to Scholomance. Tzigane, the young gypsy woman became Vlad’s lover and his teacher in occult matters. She told him that Witches worship the Devil, who is not evil but is rather the savior of mankind, it is the so called False God that will lead mankind to ruination. This must be the event where Vlad is introduced to Rasalom. Rasalom is Satan or at least is whom Vlad refers to as Satan. Rasalom is merely one of the many beings who pretended to be the Devil using their occult powers to attract deluded worshippers. While still pretending to be the Devil, Rasalom would also pretend to be one of Vlad’s vassals. Vlad Dracula means son of the Dragon; it also means Son of the Devil. Vlad is prophesied to be Satan’s King on Earth meaning Rasalom’s chief agent in Earthly matters.

Dracula consolidates his power by wholesale executions of nobles, towns or villages suspected of disloyalty.

In his best known retributive action Dracula sets up a table near the base of Timpu Hill and dines as he watches thousands of people impaled or otherwise tortured to death. He is said to have dipped his bread in the blood of his victims, believing it would give him vitality.

Dracula responds to Pope Pius II’s call for a crusade. He also overcomes another rival for power named Dan III and personally beheads him.

Dracula wins an impressive string of victories over the Turks.

Sultan Mehmed and Radu the Handsome invade Wallachia with an army three times the size of Dracula’s. Dracula fights a defensive war using scorched earth and guerrilla tactics. On June 17, he leads a daring raid that almost succeeds in killing the Sultan. When Mehmed’s army gives chase they run into a psychological warfare surprise. Dracula has set up a veritable forest of stakes on which he has impaled 20,000 prisoners. The Sultan eventually withdraws, having failed to capture Wallachia. However Prince Radu incited the people and nobles to rebel against Dracula. They do and he is forced to flee to Hungary, where he is promptly arrested by King Matthias and held for a number of years in a comfortable house arrest. Having no real power, Dracula amuses himself during these years by torturing and impaling mice and small birds. Radu becomes Prince of Wallachia with Mehmed’s backing. * At Scholomance, Tzigane reveals that she is going to become a vampire. Vlad balks at first but eventually goes along with the ceremony. She is able to use her increased powers to enhance his occult teachings. After leaving Scholomance and traveling to Moldavia, they approach the ancient castle built for Satan’s King on Earth, it is known as Castle Dracula. It is here that Vlad accepts his destiny to be Satan’s Heir and takes the dark kiss from Tzigane so that should he fall in battle or die of disease he will become a vampire. * New information shows that when Vladislav or Hunyadi returns to Wallachia, Tzigane and Vlad flee, going to the Vale of Flowers and Fog wherein lies the Scholomance (Devil’s School).Tzigane reveals that the valley had been formed upon the Devil’s (Rasalom) arrival on Earth. According to this source, the Devil had originally come to earth on a falling star (meteorite). Prof. Power adds…… “Rasalom may have borrowed this origin story as well as his identity as the Devil. Inside the valley was a lake wherein lives a dragon, it only appears every once in a while and appears when Vlad stands near the lake. The valley was also inhabited by vampires. There are apparently two types of vampires. The first type are nearly mindless predators caring about little but their own appetites, these are those made into vampires without any previous training. The second type of vampire are those who receive occult training and mental preparations prior to becoming vampires. Once they become a vampire they have vast powers” For more theories by my esteemed colleague, Professor Dennis Power on the malevolent creatures known as Vampires click here

Radu dies of syphilis. Dracula demonstrates that he is now loyal to Matthias by converting to Catholicism and marrying the Hungarian princess Ilona Szigali.

Dracula is appointed one of the captains of an anti-Turkish crusade and uses his tactics of terror to reclaim Wallachia. By November he is again the regions ruler. One of his first actions is to hide a vast treasure in a river and have all laborers and other witnesses to this act impaled. According to the notes of Prof. Damien Harmon, as edited by Robert Lory, the true reason Vlad was amassing this horde of gold was for a time when this gold would be used as a weapon against the Old Ones. Whether or not this was speaking of a battle alongside or against Rasalom, Prof. Harmon was never able to ascertain. Research conducted as a collaboration between members of MONSTAAH and the Wilmarth Foundation have been unable to find any new clues in this matter.

]]> http://www.vladtepes.info/vlad-tepes-draculas-human-years.html/feed http://www.vladtepes.info/radu-the-handsome-brother-of-vlad-tepes.html http://www.vladtepes.info/radu-the-handsome-brother-of-vlad-tepes.html#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:17:40 +0000 admin http://www.vladtepes.info/?p=37 Radu cel Frumos (Radu the Handsome), (c. 1437/1439 – 1475), was the younger brother of Vlad Tepeş (Dracula) and voivode (prince) of the principality of Wallachia. They were both sons of Vlad II Dracul (Dracul : the dragon or devil), but by different mothers. They had two older brothers, Mircea II and Vlad Calugarul, both of whom would also rule Wallachia for a short period.

Life with the Ottomans
In 1444 Radu went with his father and elder brother Vlad Tepes to visit the Ottoman Sultan Murad in Adrianople, where they were kept as hostages as a part of a treaty signed by their father, while Mircea II ruled the kingdom in their absence. However, when Hungarian hero John Hunyadi defeated the Ottomans in battle, he replaced Mircea II and his father with Basarab II, son to Dan II of Wallachia.

The boys were taken to be held in the fortress at Egrigoz, but were not actually confined in a cell. However, it was still a delicate and potentially dangerous situation. Three years earlier, the sons of Serbian noble Durad Brankovic had their eyes burned out for being suspected of plotting an escape. The two brothers were later taken to be educated in logic, the Kuran and the Turkish language. They were also trained in warfare and riding horses. The boys father, Vlad Dracul, was released quickly, in 1443, and with the support of the Ottomans he returned to Wallachia and took back his throne from Basarab II.

Struggles for the rule of Wallachia
Radu’s older brother Mircea II, an able military commander, had recaptured the fortress at Giurgiu in 1445, having the Ottoman prisoners executed by hacking them to death. Vlad Dracul did not take part in this campaign against the Ottomans so that he might retain the throne, but he was aware of it and had allowed his son Mircea II to lead the Wallachian forces. Later, Vlad Dracul had to sign yet another treaty with the Ottomans in which he had to return the fortress to the Ottomans in an effort to continue his rule as well as keep his captive sons safe.

In November, 1447, John Hunyadi launched an attack against Wallachia due to its being allied with the Ottomans by the treaties signed by Vlad Dracul. Radu’s father fled, but Mircea II was captured by boyars from Tirgoviste, and had his eyes burned out and was buried alive. A short time after their father was captured and killed. Vlad Tepeş was released in 1448, and was the Turks’ candidate for the throne of Wallachia, the first of a succession of times he would hold the throne, holding it this first time for only a matter of months. Radu, however, fell to the seductions of the Ottoman court, and remained with the Turks for the moment, apparently of his own volition, and willingly converted to Islam. There is evidence supporting the speculation that he had become the lover of the Sultan’s heir, the later Mehmed II.

Radu’s brother Vlad Tepes later went on to take the throne from Vladislav II in 1456, and began his reign of terror for which he would become best known following this period. Like his older brother Mircea II, Vlad Tepes was an able military commander, and now found himself opposing the Ottomans, but fought successfully against them for a number of years. This was due in part to the fact that the Ottomans feared him due to his brutal tactics. However, in 1462 a massive Ottoman army marched against Wallachia, and Vlad Tepes fled to Transylvania. During his departure, he practiced a scorched earth policy, leaving nothing of importance to be used by the pursuing Ottoman army. When the Ottoman forces approached Tirgoviste, it was said that thousands of men and women were found to have been impaled along the roadside.

Vlad then went into a guerilla campaign mode, destroying an Ottoman force commanded by Great Vizier Mahmed-Pasha in May, 1462, pursuing them in their retreat as far as the Danube. On June 16th and 17th, he again defeats a sizeable Ottoman force in what has become known as The Night Attack, which resulted in heavy casualties to the Ottoman army, as well as logistical losses. Until this time, Radu, by then 26 years of age, had been living in relative comfort in the Ottoman court.

The Ottomans placed Radu on the throne, and Vlad Tepes, with whom Radu was now an enemy, soon after began successful guerilla attacks against Radu’s armies, launched from Vlad’s mountain stronghold on the Arges River. Radu ruled from 1462 until 1473, with little to show for his reign. In 1473, Basarab Laiota cel Batrân (Basarab Laiota the Old) took over the throne for a year; in the same year Radu regained the throne and retained it until the following year. During the course of 1474 Radu was Prince three times, and Basarab twice; by the end of that year Radu was Prince once more, and remained so until the following year when he died of unknown causes, and was naturally succeeded by Basarab. Vlad Tepes would take the throne one last time, for a period of only a month, in 1476. Radu left a daughter, Maria Mangop Voichita, who afterwards became the wife of Stephen III of Moldavia.

Lived early childhood (bed-ridden) at 15 Marino Crescent

1860’s Attended Trinity College (Dublin)

Awarded University Athletics Championship

Served as President of Philosophical Society

1871 Graduated with Honours in science (Pure Mathematics)

Took job with civil service at Dublin Castle

Started five year stint as theatre reviewer in Dublin (unpaid)

1876 Reviewed Henry Irving’s performance in “Hamlet”

Met the actor and close friendship began

1878 Accepted offer to become acting manager at Irving’s Lyceum Theatre

Moved to London with wife, Florence (Balcombe)

First book The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland published

1882 Under the Sunset, a collection of short stories, published

1890 Began working on vampire novel (as yet untitled)

Spent summer in Whitby where he came across the name “Dracula”

1891 First novel, The Snake’s Pass, published

1897 Publication (26 May) of Dracula

1903 Publication of The Jewel of Seven Stars

1905 Death of Henry Irving

1906 Published Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving

1911 Published The Lair of the White Worm, his last novel

1912 Died on April 20 in London

1922 First movie based on Dracula (”Nosferatu”) released in Germany

For more details on the life of Bram Stoker, see the following books:

Paul Murray, From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker
Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker: A Biography of the Author of Dracula
Daniel Farson, The Man Who Wrote Dracula: A Biography of Bram Stoker
Harry Ludlam, A Biography of Dracula: The Life Story of Bram Stoker

In less than two years from now the Count will celebrate his 100th birthday, and many Dracula enthusiasts from all around the world intend to underline this event. Of course, almost everybody has heard about this nosferatu: through movies featuring Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee or Gary Oldman; in several books - among which the recent Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice; or even in bedtime stories told to us in our childhood. We all have an idea of who or what the Count is. However, on the other hand, Vlad Tepes Dracula, the historical figure who inspired Bram Stoker for his novel, is definitely less known. The centennial of the gothic masterpiece provides us with a good pretext to dive back into the life of this machiavellian fifteenth century leader - an initiative that will enable us to better appreciate the work of Stoker.

Vlad Tepes was born in November or December 1431, in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. His father, Vlad Dracul, at that time appointed military governor of Transylvania by the emperor Sigismund, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before. The order - which could be compared to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John or even to the Teutonic Order of Knights - was a semimilitary and religious society, originally created in 1387 by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Barbara Cilli. The main goals of such a secret fraternal order of knights was mainly to protect the interests of Catholicism, and to crusade against the Turks. There are different reasons why this society is so important to us. First, it provides an explanation for the name “Dracula;” “Dracul,” in Romanian language, means “Dragon”, and the boyars of Romania, who knew of Vlad Tepes’ father induction into the Order of the Dragon, decided to call him “Dracul.” “Dracula,” a diminutive which means “the son of Dracul,” was a surname to be used ultimately by Vlad Tepes. A second major role of this Order as a source of inspiration for Stoker’s evil character is the Order’s official dress - a black cape over a red garment - to be worn only on Fridays or during the commemoration of Christ’s Passion.

In the winter of 1436-1437, Dracul became prince of Wallachia (one of the three Romanian provinces) and took up residence at the palace of Tirgoviste, the princely capital. Vlad Tepes followed his father and lived six years at the princely court. In 1442, for political reasons, Dracula and his younger brother Radu were taken hostage by the Sultan Murad II; Dracula was held in Turkey until 1448, while his brother Radu decided to stay there until 1462. This Turkish captivity surely played an important role in Dracula’s upbringing; it must be at this period that he adopted a very pessimistic view of life. Indeed, the Turks set him free after informing him of his father’s assassination in 1447 - organized by Vladislav II. He also learned about his older brother’s death - Mircea was the eldest legitimate son of Dracul - and how he had been tortured and buried alive by the boyars of Tirgoviste.

At 17 years old, Vlad Tepes Dracula, supported by a force of Turkish cavalry and a contingent of troops lent to him by pasha Mustafa Hassan, made his first major move toward seizing the Wallachian throne. But another claimant, no other than Vladislav II himself, defeated him only two months later. In order to secure his second and major reign over Wallachia, Dracula had to wait until July of 1456, when he had the satisfaction of killing his mortal enemy and his father’s assassin. Vlad then began his longest reign - 6 years - during which he committed many cruelties, and hence established his controversed reputation.

His first major act of revenge was aimed at the boyars of Tirgoviste for the killing of his father and his brother Mircea. On Easter Sunday of what we believe to be 1459, he arrested all the boyar families who had participated to the princely feast. He impaled the older ones on stakes while forcing the others to march from the capital to the town of Poenari. This fifty-mile trek was quite grueling, and those who survived were not permitted to rest until they reached destination. Dracula then ordered them to build him a fortress on the ruins of an older outpost overlooking the Arges river. Many died in the process, and Dracula therefore succeeded in creating a new nobility and obtaining a fortress for future emergencies. What is left today of the building is identified as Castle Dracula.

Vlad became quite known for his brutal punishment techniques; he often ordered people to be skinned, boiled, decapitated, blinded, strangled, hanged, burned, roasted, hacked, nailed, buried alive, stabbed, etc. He also liked to cut off noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. But his favorite method was impalement on stakes, hence the surname “Tepes” which means “The Impaler” in the Romanian language. Even the Turks referred to him as “Kaziglu Bey,” meaning “The Impaler Prince.” It is this technique he used in 1457, 1459 and 1460 against Transylvanian merchants who had ignored his trade laws. The raids he led against the German Saxons of Transylvania were also acts of proto-nationalism in order to protect and favour the Wallachian commerce activities.

There are many anecdotes about the philosophy of Vlad Tepes Dracula. He was for instance particularly known throughout his land for his fierce insistence on honesty and order. Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to killing, could be punished by impalement. Being so confident in the effectiveness of his law, Dracula placed a golden cup on display in the central square of Tirgoviste. The cup could be used by thirsty travelers, but had to remain on the square. According to the available historic sources, it was never stolen and remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad’s reign. Dracula was also very concerned that all his subjects work and be productive to the community. He looked upon the poor, vagrants and beggars as thieves. Consequently, he invited all the poor and sick of Wallachia to his princely court in Tirgoviste for a great feast. After the guests ate and drank, Dracula ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. No one survived.

In the beginning of 1462, Vlad launched a campaign against the Turks along the Danube river. It was quite risky, the military force of Sultan Mehmed II being by far more powerful than the Wallachian army. However, during the winter of 1462, Vlad was very successful and managed to gain many victories. To punish Dracula, the Sultan decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Wallachia. Of course, his other goal was to transform this land into a Turkish province and he entered Wallachia with an army three times larger than Dracula’s. Finding himself without allies, Vlad, forced to retreat towards Tirgoviste, burned his own villages and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army would find nothing to eat or drink. Moreover, when the Sultan, exhausted, finally reached the capital city, he was confronted by a most gruesome sight: thousands of stakes held the remaining carcasses of some 20,000 Turkish captives, a horror scene which was ultimately nicknamed the “Forest of the Impaled.” This terror tactic deliberately stage-managed by Dracula was definitely successful; the scene had a strong effect on Mehmed’s most stout-hearted officers, and the Sultan, tired and hungry, admitted defeat (it is worth mentioning that even Victor Hugo, in his Legende des Siecles, recalls this particular incident). Nevertheless, following his retreat from Wallachian territory, Mehmed left the next phase of the battle to Vlad’s younger brother Radu, the Turkish favorite for the Wallachian throne. At the head of a Turkish army and joined by Vlad’s detractors, Radu pursued his brother to Poenari castle on the Arges river.

According to the legend, this is when Dracula’s wife, in order to escape Turkish capture, committed suicide by hurling herself from the upper battlements, her body falling down the precipice into the river below - a scene exploited by Francis Ford Coppola’s production. Vlad, who was definitely not the kind of man to kill himself, managed to escape the siege of his fortress by using a secret passage into the mountain. Helped by some peasants of the Arefu village, he was able to reach Transylvania where he met the new king of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus. However, instead of providing some help, Matthias arrested Dracula and imprisoned him at the Hungarian capital of Visegrad. It was not until 1475 that Vlad was again recognized as the prince of Wallachia, enjoying a very short third reign. In fact, he was assassinated toward the end of December 1476.

We do not know exactly why Bram Stoker chose this fifteenth century Romanian prince as a model for his fictional character. Some scholars have proposed that Stoker had a friendly relationship with a Hungarian professor from the University of Budapest, Arminius Vambery (Hermann Vamberger) , and it is likely that this man gave Stoker some information about Vlad Tepes Dracula. Moreover, the fact that Dr. Abraham Van Helsing mentions his “friend Arminius” in the 1897 novel as the source of his knowledge on Vlad seems to support this hypothesis. It should also be kept in mind that the only real link between the historical Dracula (1431-1476) and the modern literary myth of the vampire is in fact the 1897 novel; Stoker made use of folkloric sources, historic references and some of his own life experiences to create his composite creature. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that Vlad Dracula’s political detractors - mainly German Saxons - made use of the other meaning of the Romanian word “Dracul” - “Devil” - in order to blacken the prince’s reputation. Could the association of the words “Dragon” and “Devil” in Romanian language explain an earlier link between Vlad Tepes and vampirism?

Today, as Romania opens itself to the tourism industry, many “Dracula Tours” are being offered throughout the country. Two months ago, the author of this article attended one of them, organized by Bravo Group and designed by the Transylvanian Society of Dracula. This particular Tour includes the most important historical places related with Vlad Tepes, such as 15th century town of Sighisoara - Vlad’s birth place; the Snagov Monastery - where, according to legend, Vlad is said to have been buried after his assassination; Castle Bran - which has been in the past erroneously described by officials of the Romanian Tourist Ministry as Castle Dracula; the Poenari fortress; the village of Arefu - where many Dracula legends are still told; the city of Brasov - where Vlad led raids against the German Saxons; and, of course, Curtea Domneasca - Dracula’s palace in Bucharest. The Tour also covers the folklorical aspects of the fictional Dracula. For instance, one will find oneself eating the meal Jonathan Harker ate at The Golden Crown in Bistrita, and sleeping at Castle Dracula Hotel - built no so long ago on the Borgo Pass, approximately where the fictional castle of the Count is supposed to be. If you have another trip to the Bahamas planned for next Christmas and are a fan of Stoker’s literary work, maybe should you reconsider your decision?

As for the 100th birthday of the novel, may you celebrate “freely and of your own will!”

Further reading

Florescu, Radu, and Raymond T. McNally. Dracula: A Biography of Vlad the Impaler, 1431-1476. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973. 239 pp.

_________. Dracula: Prince of Many Faces; His Life and His Times. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989, 261 pp.

Giurescu, Constantin C. The Life and Deeds of Vlad the Impaler. Dracula. New York: Romanian Library, 1969.

McNally, Raymond T., and Radu Florescu. In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires Completely Revised. 1972. Reprint. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994, 297 pp.

Stoicescu, Nicolae. Vlad the Impaler. Translated by Cristina Krikorian. Bucharest: Romanian Academy, 1978.

Treptow, Kurt W., ed. Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad Tepes. East European Monographs, no. 323, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. 336 pp.

The Transylvanian Society of Dracula
47 Primaverii blvd.
Buccuresti 1
ROMANIA
tel.: 401-6666195
fax: 401-3123056

His literary career began as early as 1871 and in that year he took up a post as the unpaid drama critic for the “Evening Mail,” while at the same time writing short stories. His first literary “success” came a year later when, in 1872, The London Society published his short story “The Crystal Cup.” As early as 1875 Stoker’s unique brand of fiction had come to the forefront. In a four part serial called the “Chain of Destiny,” were themes that would become Stoker’s trademark: horror mixed with romance, nightmares and curses.

Stoker encountered Henry Irving again, this time in the role of Hamlet, 10 years after Stoker’s Trinity days. Stoker, still very much the critic (and still holding his civil service position), gave Irving’s performance a favorable review. Impressed with Stoker’s review, Irving invited Stoker back stage and the resultant friendship lasted until Irving’s death in 1905.

The Stoker/Irving partnership solidified around the year 1878. During this time Henry Irving had taken over his own theater company called the London Lyceum, but he didn’t like the management, and therefore approached Stoker to handle business, at which point Stoker gave up his government job and became the acting manager of the theater. A short time after Stoker began his new career, the publishing house of Sampson, Lowe contacted him expressing interest in a collection of Stoker’s stories.

“Under the Sunset” was published in 1891 and was well received by some of the critics, but others thought the book too terrifying for children. Stoker was already fascinated with the notion of the “boundaries of life and death” (Leatherdale, p.63) which made this book too terrifying for children at least in some of the reviewer’s minds. By the time Stoker had received favorable reviews for his romance novel “The Snake’s Pass” (1890), he was already making notes for a novel with a vampire theme, and by 1894 he was back to macabre themes. It seemed only a natural consequence that “Dracula” would follow and was published in June 1897.

Reviews on “Dracula” were mixed, and the book never yielded much money for Stoker. In a favorable review the “Daily Mail” compared it with “Frankenstein” and Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” “The Bookman” found it likeable in spots but commented that the “descriptions were hideous and repulsive.” (Leatherdale, p.68)

For the next few years after “Dracula’s” publication, events took a downward spiral for both Irving and Stoker. There were troubles with Irving’s establishment and a fire destroyed part of the theater (including some important scenery) and Irving eventually sold it. Stoker did manage however to publish “The Jewel of the 7 Stars” in 1903, and it was a novel based on the information given to Stoker by an Egyptologist. In 1905 Henry Irving died, leaving the aging Stoker without a steady jot for the first time in his life. A year after Irving’s death Stoker wrote “Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving.” Stoker managed to write other novels after this point until the time of his death in 1912 at the age of 64.

In 1431, Sigismund summoned to the city of Nuremberg a number of princes and vassals that he considered useful for both political and military alliances. His primary objective was to initiate the group into the Order of the Dragon. One of these was Vlad (father of Vlad the Impaler), a claimant for the throne of the principality of Wallachia (now part of modern Romania), who was at the time serving in Sighisoara as frontier commander guarding the mountain passes from Transylvania into Wallachia from enemy incursion. While at Nuremberg, Vlad also received Sigismund’s pledge to support his claim to the throne of Wallachia. But it would be another five years before that ambition could be realized.

The Order of the Dragon adopted as its symbol in 1408 the image of a circular dragon with its tail coiled around its neck. On its back, from the base of its neck to its tail, was the red cross of St George on the background of a silver field. With the expansion of the Order, other symbols were adopted, all variations on the theme of dragon and cross. For example, one class of the Order used a dragon being strangled with a cross draped across its back; another presents a cross perpendicular to a coiled-up dragon with an inscription “O quam misericors est Deus” (vertical) and “Justus et paciens” (horizontal). Other emblems of the Order included a necklace and a seal, each with a variant form of the dragon motif.

Vlad was obviously proud of this achievement. Later he had coins minted which show on one side a winged dragon. His personal coat-of-arms also incorporated a dragon. In all of these cases, the dragon was intended to convey a favourable image drawn from medieval iconography in which the dragon represents the Beast of Revelation (Satan) who is slain by the forces of good (Christianity). Vlad took on the nickname “Dracul” in reference to his induction into the order. The word “dracul” has its origins in the Latin “draco” meaning “the dragon”.

His son Vlad (better known as Vlad the Impaler) used the sobriquet “Dracula”in the context of “son of Dracul” or “son of he who was a member of the Order of the Dragon”. Once again it was used as a term of honour. On a number of occasions, Vlad (the Impaler) signed documents using the name. The word “dracul”, however, took on a second meaning (”the devil”) which was applied to members of the Dracula family by their enemies and possibly also by superstitious peasants. It was this second meaning that found its way into William Wilkinson’s An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), the book in which Bram Stoker found the name “Dracula”. There is no evidence whatsoever that Stoker knew about the Order of the Dragon.

After the death of Sigismund in 1437, the Order of the Dragon lost much of its prominence, though its iconography was retained on the coats-of-arms of several noble families.

For further information on the Order of the Dragon:

Radu Florescu & Raymond McNally, Dracula: Prince of Many Faces (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), pp 40-42.

Constantin Rezachevici, “From the Order of the Dragon to Dracula.” Journal of Dracula Studies (Number 1, 1999), pp 3-7.