Vampire + Vlad Dracula = Bram Stokers "Dracula"?

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Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen.

This thread began a few months ago out of a basic question. That question was, “If Vampires drink blood, and Vampire hunters Impale the Vampires, How then can Vlad ‘the Impaler’ Dracula logically be A, much less, the FIRST Vampire and couldn’t he have been a Vampire hunter instead?”. The idea of Vlad Dracula being a Vampire has been accepted in modern times due to the novel “Dracula” written by Bram Stoker. So I decided to research how this came to be. First I researched the ancient and modern understandings of what a Vampire was/is. Then I researched Vlad Dracula (his life, as it turns out, if you overlook his atrocities, reads like an exceptional Adventure movie, imo. And there is no mention of him singling out Vampires) Then I looked at the evidence for and against the case of “Dracula” actually being based on Dracula. I therefore submit my findings in all three categories and leave the evidence to you to decide for yourself.

Part 1

Vampires: A Basic History

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Stories of the undead drinking the blood or eating the flesh of living beings have been found in nearly every culture around the world for many centuries. Almost every culture has associated blood drinking with some kind of deity or demon. Today we consider them as vampires, but in ancient times, the term vampire did not exist, in fact it was not coined until the early 18th century(somewhere between 1725 and 1732CE) in a variety of spellings(vampire, Vampir (вампир), upír, wąpierz, upiór, упир (upyr)) and it may have come from the Turkic term ubyr which means "witch" (which becomes important when I cover Vlad the Impaler a little later). Blood drinking and similar activities were attributed to demons or spirits who would eat flesh and drink blood and even the devil was considered a vampire.

The oldest known written reference, I have been able to find, of a vampire type being is a 2400BCE tablet known as "The Sumerian King List". It is a list of all the kings of Sumer, the years of their rule and their lineage. One specific entry is for the famous King Gilgamesh and that his father was a Lillu. According to Sumerian myth, there were several beings who, like the incubi and succubi come to sleeping individuals in order to mate with them. Lillu is one of the incubi (male). One of the succubi (female) was Lilake (some claim to be a forerunner of Lilith). Ancient Babylonia had stories of the mythical Lilitu as well. She was considered a demon who sustained herself on the blood of babies, however her Jewish counterpart(Lilith) was said to feed on men, women, and newborns. Sumer is the first civilization to develop cuneiform, therefore there is no written histories prior to Sumer, so we must look to the mythologies around the world to go any further.


The Ancient Indian deity Kali a.k.a. Kālikā has fangs, a necklace of skulls and she was linked with drinking blood. Her name comes from Kala, which means black, time, or death. Within the Kathasaritsagara(basically a collection of books) stories of vetalas, which are ghosts or spirits that inhabit a persons body, can be found in the Baital Pachisi a.k.a. Vetala Panchavimshati("Twenty five tales of Baital"), also, in another section there are stories of King Vikramāditya, basically the first Vampire hunter, as he went out each night in the attempt to catch pishacha (the spirits of evil-doers or those who died insane who have returned and inhabit bodies who also have vampiric attributes).


Egypt had its blood-drinking goddess Sekhmet. As the story goes, Ra, the King of the Gods, became angry with Mankind and in his wrath he ripped out his own eye and threw it at Mankind(which brings in a whole other conversation of the all seeing eye, but that is a conversation for another thread). That eye became the Goddess Sekhmet(the lion headed goddess), who in the form of a lioness, began slaughtering humans and drinking their blood.

There are reports of Persian pottery shards that have depictions of demons attempting to drink blood from men but I have been unable to locate any definitive examples (maybe some of you may have better luck).The Mesopotamian region is rich with these stories and can be classified as one of, if not the, oldest reference to what we would call Vampires.

In ancient Greek mythology there is Empusa, the beautiful daughter of the goddess Hecate and the spirit Mormo, who would feast on blood by seducing young men and feeding as they slept. Lamia, a beautiful queen of Libya who became a demon, she would suck the blood of children in their sleep(her name later became used for any creature that would drink blood or feast on the flesh of Mankind), and Striges a.k.a. the Strix of Roman mythology were described as a kind of nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood.

The legend of vampires was, and still is, deeply set in the Balkan region, however the vampire, as we know them today, for the most part, began in Eastern Europe in the late 17th century and continuing through the 18th century. As reports of Vampires began to skyrocket the stories began to spread west into Italy, Germany, France, Spain and England. This spreading has caused the interest in Vampires that we see today and in turn further defined the vision of the Vampire in the Balkans. It was at this time that Father Abbot Dom Antoine Augustin Calmet wrote his famous "Dissertations sur les apparitions, des anges, des démons et des esprits, et sur les revenants et vampires de Hongrie, de Boheme, de Moravie et de Silésie", published as a 2 volume set in 1751(there is a translated version printed in 1850 titled “The phantom world: the history and philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c., &c) hinting at the possibility of the existence of Vampires and how to kill them, although not stating it outright. It was also during this period that authors and playwrights first began to explore the vampire myth(or is it?)

Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula” was simply a conglomeration of a long series of works that were inspired by the reports coming from the region. There is no surprise that Bram Stoker chose the Balkans as the setting for his famous Vampire because the Balkans where, basically, still medieval at the time he wrote his novel and the superstitions of the Dark Ages were still prevalent. For now I am going to put Bram Stoker and his novel "Dracula" on hold and give a history of the area of the Balkans and the man that is presumed to be his insperation.

Part 2

Vlad Dracula: An Overview

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This section of the thread will be about the area of Wallachia, a section of the Balkans which is modern day Southern Romania, Vlad II(Dracul), Vlad III(the Impaler a.k.a. Dracula) and their struggles with the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century CE.Constantinople had been, for almost a thousand years, the protector of the Byzantine Empire (East Roman Empire). It blocked Islam’s access to Europe and Christendom was allowed to thrive, but in 1453, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror brought Constantinople down and Europe was, for the first time, threatened by the Ottoman Turks. The Hungarian Kingdom reached its apex at this same time and assumed the responsibility as the defender of Christendom. Wallachia was then forced to play a delicate game in order to survive. They made alliances with both sides in order to achieve their interests.


King Sigismund of Hungary, who became the Holy Roman Emperor in 1410, began a secret fraternal order called the Order of the Dragon. Their main purpose was to uphold Christianity and defend the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. Its emblem was a dragon, wings extended, hanging on a cross. Vlad II was admitted to the Order around 1431 because of his bravery in fighting the Turks. From 1431 onward Vlad II wore the emblem of the order. The word for dragon in Romanian is "drac" and "ul" is considered the definitive article. Vlad II thus came to be known as "Vlad Dracul," or "Vlad the dragon." Vlad III was born in late 1431 and because the Romanian suffix –ulea means “the son of” he became known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad Son of the Dragon. Incidentally in Romanian the word Drac also means Devil giving their name a double meaning for their enemies. Although there is a lot of back and forth between Hungary, Wallachia, and the Turks we jump to 1444 with a slight mention of 1442. In 1442 Vlad Dracul attempted to remain neutral when the Turks invaded Transylvania. When the Hungarians prevailed, he was forced to flee with his family, due to possible retribution for not taking Hungary’s side, but retook the throne with the support of the Turks conditionally. The condition was that Vlad Dracul was to send a contingent each year of boys from Wallachia to join the Sultans Janissaries. In 1444 Vlad dracul, in the attempt to please the Sultan further, sent his 2 younger sons, Vlad Dracula and Radu cel Frumos(Radu the Fair) to Vilayet of Adrianople as hostages.

*On a side note, I personaly think it was specifically due to him knowing what was coming next because later that year Hungary broke the peace and launched the Varna Campaign.

The Battle of Varna was led by John Hunyadi and was basically an effort to drive the Turks out of Europe. John Hunyadi demanded Vlad Dracul fulfill his oath to the Order of the Dragon and join the battle. Instead, Vlad Dracul sent his eldest son, Mircea. The Battle of Varna ended in a massive defeat of the Christian army and as a result Hunyadi held a grudge against Vlad Dracul and his son Mircea. In 1447 he sent assassins to kill Vlad Dracul and his oldest son. The Boyars and merchants of Tirgoviste apparently buried Mircea alive. Hunyadi then appointed his own candidate, a member of the Danesti clan, to the throne of Wallachia. Upon hearing this the Turks freed Vlad Dracula so that he may reclaim his throne which he did in 1448 for a brief period of time.

After only 2 months Hunyadi forced Vlad Dracula to run to his cousin, Bogdan II, the Prince of Moldavia. As fate would have it the successor that Hunyadi put in place, Vladislov II immediately turned pro-Turkish and it angered Hunyadi greatly. Vlad Dracula was then forced to form an allegiance with Hungary to retake the throne by force. Vlad Dracula received the Transylvanian duchies once ruled by his Father and remained there until the time to strike had come to regain the throne of Wallachia. In 1453 a shock went through the Christian world as Constantinople had its final fall to the Ottoman Turks. In 1456 Hunyadi invaded Turkish Serbia in the Battle of Belgrade and simultaneously, Vlad Dracula, having been trained by an elderly boyar who had fought against the Turks at the Battle of Nicopolis and therefor all the skills of war and peace that were deemed necessary for a Christian knight, took back Wallachia killing Vladialv II. Hunyadi failed and was killed in the battle and his army was defeated. Once back in power he installed Tirgoviste as the capital city and began building his castle in the mountains near the Arges River. Vlad Dracula ruled Wallachia from 1456-1462, this is the period in which he installed strict policies, stood up against the Turks, and began his reign of terror by way of impalement.

[color=#ff4343]**In this section I will be describing what impalement is. In order to give an idea of what people went through during this process I cannot maintain a PG13 rating and therefore am giving this warning. I have made the text for this description the same color as the page for those that wish to skip it. Most people understand that impalement is driving a stake through the human body but the techniques he used are unique. If you wish to skip this section please just scroll down to where the text returns to the normal color, for those that wish to read it simply highlight the empty space by left click and hold until the whole area is highlighted and release the left click. To remove the highlight simply click anywhere on the page.**


[color=#484848]Of everything that Vlad Dracula did it was his cruelty that he is most known for. Impalement was his execution of choice and it was quite possibly the most gruesome way to die as it was, by his methods, typically slow and extremely painful. He would typically attach a horse to each leg and would slowly drag the body of the victim onto the pole. Care was taken that the pole was oiled and not too sharp as a dull point would push the organs to the side rather than puncture them. It was driven through the body and out the sternum so the chin could rest on the point stopping the body from sliding further when it was stood up unless he just didn’t care how long they suffered and then it would exit through the mouth. It is said that he is responsible for the deaths of between 40,000 to 100,000 people this way. Normally the pole was inserted through the buttocks or in the case of females through the vagina but records show that sometimes he cut the skin in front of the anus and inserted it there. Some were impaled upside down beginning in the mouth and a few others were impaled pretty much anywhere he said to insert it. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake that exited through their mother’s chests.

Although impalement was his favorite form of torture, it was not his only method. The list of tortures he used reads like a demons torture manual in hell: cutting off of limbs, cutting off of noses and ears, blinding, strangulation, burning, nails in heads, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to wild animals, and burning alive. He apparently was quite concerned with female chastity. Maidens who lost their virginity, adulterous wives and unchaste widows were all targets of Vlad’s cruelty. He often had their sexual organs cut out or their breasts cut off, and were often impaled through the vagina on red-hot stakes. One report tells of the execution of an unfaithful wife. Vlad had the woman’s breasts cut off, then she was skinned and impaled in a square in Tirgoviste with her skin lying on a nearby table.



Vlad Dracula would create geometric patterns with the poles. His most common choice was concentric circles. He would place them in the outskirts of his target cities. He did show respect of sorts to the higher ranked victims as they were given taller poles, the taller the pole the higher the rank. The bodies were usually left up for months at a time and it was reported that an invading Turkish army was turned back in fright when the encountered thousands of impaled bodies on the banks of the Danube. On St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1459, 30,000 merchants and boyars were impaled outside Brasov, Transylvania. 10,000 were impaled in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in 1460. Mehmed II returned to Constantinople after being sickened by the sight of 20,000 impaled Turkish prisoners(known in the history books as "the Forest of the Impaled.") outside the city of Tirgoviste in 1461. No one was safe from his attentions. His victims included women, children, peasants, merchants, great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers. However, the vast majority of his victims came from the merchants and boyars of Transylvania and his own Wallachia.

Although his reasoning for killing his enemies was sound his desire to cause pain and suffering went, in many peoples opinion, beyond insanity. His motivations included revenge on those that conspired in the assassination of his Father, protecting his people from the Turks, Hungarians, German Saxons(seen as parasites), “out of town” merchants, protecting his political interests from competitors, nationalism and his own Wallachians that broke the law. Although the laws of his rule were extremely strict his people truly loved him for the relatively short period of time he ruled. They understood the reasoning behind the strict moral code and that all Vlad really wanted was people to be honest and work hard. Merchants who cheated their customers found themselves on a stake beside common thieves.

An example of his revenge happened early in his reign. He gave a feast for Easter and invited his boyars and their families. He was very much aware than many of these nobles were part of the plot against this father and older brother as well as many that were involved in overthrowing many Wallachian princes. Once the feast is underway he asked the boyars present how many Wallachian princes had ruled in their lifetime. All those present had outlived no less than 7 princes. Vlad immediately had them all arrested and those that were older boyars and their families were impaled right there in the courtyard. The rest he sent off to repair the ruins of his castle in the mountains above the Arges River by using materials from another nearby ruin. According to the reports they worked until their clothes fell off and then were forced to continue working naked. Very few survived this ordeal. Throughout his reign Vlad continued to systematically eradicate the old boyar class of Wallachia. Apparently Vlad was determined that his own power be on a modern and thoroughly secure footing. In the place of the executed boyars Vlad promoted new men from among the free peasantry and middle class; men who would be loyal only to their prince.

In 1462 the Turks threatened Wallachia. With no support from Hungary and dwindling resources Vlad was forced to flee the attack. It is said that his wife jumped from the castle into the icy waters of the Arges river, committing suicide rather than becoming a prisoner to the Turks. Vlad escaped through a secret passage and fled into Transylvania seeking asylum from the Hungarian King Mathias Corvinus(Those of you that familiar with Crypto lore may recognize this person but that is another thread all together). Vlad was immediately arrested and imprisoned in the royal tower. There is debate as to how long he was actually imprisoned but by best guess he was only imprisoned until 1466. Most scholars will say he was imprisoned until 1476 however if you take into account that he married a member of the royal court(quite possibly the sister of Corvinus) and had a child, who was 10 in 1476, and the fact that a prisoner was most likely not allowed to marry a royal family member than we can safely assume he was released in 1466 but stayed in Transylvania.


During his imprisonment, The Turks appointed Vlads own brother Radu to the throne of Wallachia and is quite possibly what changed Vlads thinking. By the time he was released and left Transyvania his brother had died and was once again replaced with a member of the Danesti clan, Basarab Laiota. With the help of Prince Stephen Bathory of Transylvania(yep there is another name that rings bells, but again for another thread) Vlad and a small army made a bid to retake Wallachia. Upon seeing Vlads army approaching Basarab fled allowing Vlad to retake the throne unhindered. Soon after, Prince Bathory and his portion of the army returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad with fewer men and little resources. Before he could gather what he needed, a large Turkish army attacked, and in December of 1476, in a nearby town called Bucharest, Vlad Dracula met his end. There are a few different stories as to how it actually happened. For instance, one says he was killed at the moment of success by a non-loyal boyar. Another says he fell in defeat. Yet another says , at the moment of victory he was accidentally killed by one of his own men, but either way he was beheaded and his head was sent to Constantinople where it was displayed on a pike. He was reportedly buried at Snagov, an island monastery located near Bucharest. He was succeded by his brother Vlad IV Călugărul or Vlad the Monk

There are many other stories about his life and deeds that I have left out of this little narritive but they all basically deal with how he dealt with his moral code and his fairness in judgement or acts for the greater good of his people. Was he a brutal man? Yes for sure. His practices and punnishment were to the extreme and many report show that he really enjoyed what he was doing Was he fair and just? Yes for the most part he cared and looked out for his people. Had he not done things the way he did the European Union could, quite possibly, be Islamic based rather than Christian based today. Was he a Vampire? Although there are reports and even pictures(see above) of him eating near, around, or within the impaled, there are no credible sources that say he drank the blood or ate the flesh of anyone. Therefore it is my opinion that No he was not nor did he attempt to show himself as such.

Part 3

Bram Stoker and the character “Dracula”

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It is commonly accepted, even among scholars, that Bram Stoker based his fictional character Dracula on Vlad Dracula. There are some evidence that shows he could have and some that shows he didn’t. I would like to take this section to give you both sides of debate so you can make the decision for yourself.

First the Pro:

1. Both the fictional character and the real man have the same name.

2. Bram Stoker researched prior to writing his novel. Some of this research was done at the library of Whitby and the British museum, therefore it is possible he found references and information on Vlad Dracula.

3. Stoker met with his friend and Hungarian professor, Armin Vambery, on multiple occasions and it is possible that he was given information on the historical Dracula.

4. The descriptions within the novel dealing with fighting off the Turks and Vlad Draculas general description are very similar.

5. During his imprisonment Vlad Dracula denounced the Orthodox Church and embraced Christianity. It is possible that Stoker derived his characters distaste for religious objects from this action.

Next the Con:

1. Stoker kept meticulous notes in regards to his references while creating Dracula, and none of the references have specific details about Vlad Dracula in life or actions. The only reference in Stokers notes is a book he checked out by William Wilkinson called “An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia” (1820). It contains a reference to "Voivode Dracula" (who attacked Turkish troops) not Vlad and it is marked in the footnotes of the book that “Dracula” means Devil, and the only known source for Stokers information is The Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.

2. Stokers notes only document 2 meatings with Vambery and no evedence of a conversation regarding Vlad Dracula, Vampires, or Transylvania.

3. In regards to the similarities in discription it is possible that Stoker took ques from earlier literature villians or even his own boss Henry Irving.

4. It is fairly safe to say that had Stoker known about Vlad Draculas attrocities he commited against his enemies they surly would have played a role in the novel.

So there you have it. A history of Vampires and Vampire type creatures through multiple cultures and mythologies, A history of Vlad Dracula and how he chose to rule and protect his lands and people, and both pros and cons as to whether or not Bram Stoker based his character "Dracula" on Vlad Dracula. The decisions are now up to you to find, Was Vlad dracula a Vampire or even the first? Was Vlad dracula even the inspiration for Bram Stokers novel other than coinsidence?

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your replies.



Further references:
The Vampire: A Case Book
www.thaliatook.com...
Stokers hand writen notes
spookylandcrypt.webs.com...
www.bramstoker.org...
www.ucs.mun.ca...
www.geocities.com...
www.mediaport.org...
www.eskimo.com...
www.ucs.mun.ca...

Ouch,

I thought vlad was the person - not vampire - who had such a blood lust (death, impaling and that good stuff) that the legend was born out of his reign. Not because he actually flew around and sucked on virgins necks.

He let one person go who spread the tales of his barbarity.

I dunno, but you got some grey on grey text in there, and wow I need more than this coffee to read it.

vampires dont really exist.

Hello,

I've always been fascinated with tales of Vampires and of Vlad the impaler...Very well thought out, and interesting read, thanks agarta.


SS

I can't believe I read the whole thing! I did a researh paper on Vlad Dracul long ago, so I already knew this stuff, but I just could not believe your topic focus here- I kept thinking I must be misunderstanding something.

The whole problem starts with this assertion of yours-

The idea of Vlad Dracula being a Vampire has been accepted in modern times due to the novel “Dracula” written by Bram Stoker.

This is not true. It has been traditionally accepted that Stokers character was loosely based upon, or inspired by, Vlad Dracul......but the book is fiction- Vampires do not exist. I have never met anyone who believed they exist and that Vlad Dracul (the historical person) was one!

Originally posted by Agarta
Vlad escaped through a secret passage and fled into Transylvania seeking asylum from the Hungarian King Mathias Corvinus(Those of you that familiar with Crypto lore may recognize this person but that is another thread all together). Vlad was immediately arrested and imprisoned in the royal tower.

A bit of travel trivia...
When imprisoned by Corvinus, wikipedia speaks of some places where he was held captive, and finishes with "Then he was imprisoned in Buda."

As it happens, if one visits Budapest today, you can walk through the great underground labyrinth system of caves under Buda hill. There, the signs will tell you that Vlad was kept prisoner for a time in these caves.

The cave parts that are open to the public are filled with all sorts of strange objects and mannequins to give a "historic" and "unsettlingly weird" feeling to the place, but in one part you can see a grave, on which is engraved...



DRACULA

So between the real and fictional, the Hungarian tourist industry likes the connection.

reply to post by Bluesma


I do not disagree with you one bit. This is based on so many idiotic web sites that I have run into that show that people actually believe it to be true. The purpose of the thread is to break the connections and open the debate as to whether or not Stoker modeled his character after Vlad or not. That's all. thank you for reading it and posting.

reply to post by alfa1


That is awesome you posted this thank you. The last picture in the Vlad Dracula section is supposed to be where they found his body buried and he was moved. If this is true I wonder if he was moved to your posted location.

I see you have missed the possible reptilian connection
both drink blood and can survive thousand of yrs
the reptilian had to come up with some cover up so people

Reptilian Hybrids of the Illuminati

About Vlad:

Vlad III Dracul (Vlad The Impaler) himself, who was apart of our Reptilian/human hybrid bloodlines. The legends of vampires say that a vampire can shapeshift into a bat, this is a misinterpretation of how some of us hybrids and fullblood Draco have wings. The Sirians eventually helped us yet again by creating a hybrid animal that contained human genetics, which we could eat; holding us off temporarily until we could get around to sacrificing a human in Satanic ritual ceremony. The Sirians chose the wild boar and mixed it's genetics with human genetics to create the domesticated pig, which is why pigs are used in the medical field because it is the most compatible with humans, since the pig is a human/wild boar hybrid. The Ancient Hebrews would not eat pork for this reason

Great thread Agarta SNF
maybe one day we will discover the big truth
did they exist ? do they still exist in the dark ?
all legend must come from somewhere and have a few pieces of some truth

one thing we know is that Vlad have a direct connection with prince Charle
the royal reptilian familly that many suspect to be

I think that Stoker obviously knew about good ol' Vlad for sure. The gory details such as the impailments would
have been left out of the novel as it would have been improper for the day, as far as publishing a book goes.
Even in the format the book was published in, was concidered controversial for those times not just for the horror but also the erotica side too.

Originally posted by Agarta
I wonder if he was moved to your posted location.

No, the "DRACULA" grave in the labyrinth is just one of the many props used to give a spooky feeling to the caves.
There's a plaque on the wall that mentions he spent some time in the caves as a prisoner (and thats the only connection), but there's no reason to suspect he ever returned, dead, undead or alive.

Great read Thanks for making time at my desk job go by much quicker
I find this topic really intriguing, the fact that so many cultures had their own understanding of these myths is bone chilling.

Too bad glittering Twilight "vampires" have become such a spot lighted trend

Sorry, but I think it's fairly obvious that the vampire and Dracula stories were based on Vlad, but obviously the stories got greatly exaggerated. He apparently dipped his bread in his victims blood and the things he did were totally horrific, the scale to which he impaled was crazy, but many people throughout history did similar things, even on larger scales.

Vlad was probably used as a basis as his name alone conjured up immense fear so any character related to him in any way is going to be a lot more terrifying. I must confess I did no have time to read the entire thing, but I believe the story if Dracula was written a very long time afterwards. O think the blood drinking thing or dipping his bread in blood was more of an intimidation thing as during these mass killing the smell was overpowering and many people were repulsed by it. By dipping his bread in blood it was almost like saying hey I don't mind at all, I love it in fact!' so even his men who were just as vicious in some cases and in others disgusted by him were still terrified of him because I'm sure that he feared assassination from his own men after having such a high victim count. Apparently he wasn't too unpopular like you might think though and was even praised as a liberator also a hero by some in his realm.

It is a fascinating subject, but also sickening as well. Stories like the ones surrounding Vlad make me loose faith in humanity unfortunately I have to say. Roasting infants alive and forcing the parents to eat their children, we wonder how anyone could be capable of this. Yet in Libya the rebels that our governments supported filmed themselves feeding captive soldiers the flesh of their comrades so we can't forget that horrific acts like this still go on.

Those numbers of 20,000 and 30,000 impaled sounded so high to me that I had to go look up some stats on how many US troops have died in various wars. I found a nice summary on Wikipedia here.

No wonder those numbers sounded high when you look at the number of troops that died in Iraq and Afghanistan - "only" around 48,430 between the two since 2001 - over more than a decade. I guess we just aren't used to so many dying in our current wars as we apparently were in the past. Look how many died during the Vietnam war, World War I and II and the Civil War! So I guess back then, twenty or thirty thousand dead in one conflict must not have been so unusual, although dead + impaled seems to have been worth noting!

Just a quick word.

Well Vlad Tepes was not the first vampire in "fantasy" and not in history (folklore). (he was not "dracula" he was Draculea - son of Dracul - or "son of the dragon") and he was a very particular guy. I studied him a lot and... the more you read on him the more you become torn on your opinion because its not the brutal way he did things but the reason why he did it. While he does seem like a psychopath from a modern day view specially in stories like "once a guy was upset and vlad asked him what was wrong and the guy said the smell from the rotting impaled corpses was unbearable so he had the guy's nose cut off and impaled on the tallest stake saying - there now you dont have to put up with the smell and laughed" - ok this is pretty brutal but I never found anything that actually proved this to be a fact. And also that story about how a venetian merchant didnt take off his hat in his greeting to vlad so he stuck a nail into the merchants head with the hat ... well... none of these I could come to a factual conclusion. Its stuff that legends are made of. Truth is tho, without him there would be no Romania and while brutal, his methods were... effective. In both fact and "aura", truth is the "legend preceded him" even at that time, and that helped a lot.

Well enough of this... I have an extremely thorough investigation about our friend there if anyone wants to read something really boring that took years lol... anyway...

The first vampire in... well... "fantasy" (and I know some of you will consider this offensive because of its source) was Lilith.

The first vampire in history can be traced back as far as folklore from Mesopotamia. - this is interesting because noone really knows why they had the need for that "legend". Why did they "create" a creature like a vampire still riddles every historian today - ok, so people actually dont care all that much, but for those who care, its an unsolved mystery and it will stay like that. But its damn interesting that they already had the "concept" of a vampire... after that, everyone has vampires in their lore, one way or another with or without physical evidence (like the exhumed corpses with blood etc etc).

Originally posted by gwynnhwyfar
although dead + impaled seems to have been worth noting!

Well... actual "reports" say it was one hell of a sight!

This is an amazingly well done post. All the links and pictures and such! Nice work! I wish everyone would make posts like this.

However...I've never met one person ever that thought Vlad was really a vampire.

reply to post by Agarta


well done agarta. i enjoyed the read. don't really know what to think about vlad other than the person and the myth are probably exaggerated much the same as other historical accounts are. veiled in truth but embellished to some degree. i do think there have been some societies throughout time that have succumbed to drinking the blood of others either for ritual or they believed they would gain strength or eternal life from doing so. vampires? i guess it is possible they exist. bram stroker was very talented and had a vivid imagination. it is possible he used vlad and the stories of his empire to form his character. i am dumber than dirt. but i enjoyed your presentation.

thanks, star and flag.

Loved your thread!
I went to Romania a year ago and got to visit Brams Castle. Talk about beautiful and easy to get lost in the time period. I have lots of pictures, so Ill post a few.
It's funny though, half the country doesn't believe in Vampires, but half still do. And they still hang garlic.
I also got to hike the Transylvania alps.... Eerie beautiful.

Oh, and if you even mention to the locals that Vlad was a vampire, they get pretty upset about it. He was a hero.

Not taking from the thread to post "vacation pics" - promise. Just want everyone interested to see modern photos of Brams Castle, and the area that contributed in a huge way to it all.




(yes that is me...with my creepy friend behind me)
(Our Hike up the Carpathian Mountains, part of the Transylvania Alps)


The whole area has a quietness about it that is hard to describe. All of my senses were heightened while I was there. Mostly while we were hiking.
So now you have a few photos from a fellow ATSer who has been there and can tell you first hand how exquisite it is.

hi

it very nice and knowledgeable information in Dracula