Elizabeth Bathory the real Vampire

In the last post, we had seen the popular belief and image of Vlad the impaler.

In this post we will have a brief look on the life and story of Elizabeth Bathory. She was born on 7^th August, 1560 and died in the year 1614 on August 21. She was the countess of a kingdom in Hungary. She is considered as one of the most sadist Mass murderer with an account of 650 murders of Young girls.

Again our character did not had a very happy childhood, she suffered from fits and exhibited uncontrolled rages, which proved that she had some brain disorder with a lot of aggression. There are stories of her being Promiscuous, she became pregnant at the age of 14 by a peasant and had to be secluded to avoid scandal during her Betrothal.

She was married to a great warrior Count Ferencz Nadasdy, who spent most of his days away from the family. Thus their marriage united the two strong family whose bloodline is stained with stories of cruelty. The Bathory’s aunt was infamous for being a lesbian(Elizabeth herself was one) and a witch (a crime in those days) and her uncle was an alchemist and a Devil worshipper (crime by some standards) and Bathory’s brother was a reprobate with whom no female or girl child was considered safe. To add more to this the nurse of the Elizabeth was Ilona jone one of those who were captured in 1610 for practicing black magick, her rituals required sacrifices of children.

After moving with her husband she started indulging herself more into torturing people, it is also believed that her husband also taught her few methods of torture and encouraged her activities. There are accounts of Elizabeth writing letter to Nadasdy when he is out for war explaining her new rituals. Since both of them shared similar ideals, her life became easy, this is evident by the mail she sent to her husband. The mail has reference to one of the Mentors of Elizabeth, who taught her rituals , it says "Thurko has taught me a lovely new one. Catch a black hen and beat it to death with a white cane. Keep the blood and smear some on your enemy. If you get no chance to smear it on his body, obtain one of his garments and smear it.". Nadasdy died in 1604, some even say that she poisoned him.

This all happened when accidentally Elizabeth had a smear of blood on her skin, she found that the particular part of skin, which has been covered by blood, seemed to be cosmeticized. She then summoned her witch, and asked her to explain the effect. The witch fearing execution or might be for some other reason made up a theory that the blood of young women is an elixir for skin and increases the youthfulness. This made the queen to get young girls from the country and kill them and take bath in their blood. It seems that she found immense pleasure in torturing these young girls. She used to torture them in many ways most of them cannot be explained here, people interested in it can google it and you will find them easily. Elizqabeth started with the girls from the Aristocrat families then turned towards the poor.

The story came to an end when once one of the aristocratic girls had gone missing from Elizabeth’s castle and later she tried to project it as a suicide. There were already rumors about her going high in the country. So the king who was indebted to her as he had borrowed some money, so he would have considered the option to get rid of that problem. The trial began and all evidences were collected, she was found guilty, but because of her royal background her sentence was postponed indefinitely, meanwhile she has been kept under house arrest. The officials who searched her castle said tht there were lots of bones of human parts all around in the her castle. There dogs were running with human parts in their mouth. Many of the bodies din’t had arms, eyes. Some of the bodies were left half burned, some left half buried.

The workers who helped Elizabeth also came forward and accused her of torturing them and using them for her weird pleasure activities.

Now you may think, why have I written about these two people, Vlad III the impaler and Queen Elizabeth Bathory. The reason is they are the actual character who later became the famous Dracula and Vampires. Vlad’s another name was Dracula, the reason being his father was one of the people who was in the order of dragon. And his father was called Dracul and his son the Dracula. The famous author Bram stoker combined this two characters in his novel Dracula and created the most famous myth of Europe. Many people still believe that Dracula actually exists and there are lots of priests who claim to have seen vampires and killed few. So the vampires and Dracula as we have heard of it never existed except for this two people who framed the image of our present Dracula and Vampires.

Vlad III The Impaler

This Post is about one of the two different people of two different Eras, whose life story(allegedly) is the inspiration for the greatest Victorian period Myths. The story is not very beautiful to be admired but surely is unbelievable and deserves attention, read on your own .

Vlad III the Impaler:

He was the Prince of Wallachia and the Military commander for Wallachia. He reigned Wallachia thrice, 1448, 1456–1462, and 1476, during his period of reign he became famous for his Cruel punishments (Though some say he was not cruel, but a distorted image of his).

He and his Father Vlad II(again disputed, he supposedly joined the turks) were instrumental in fighting the Ottoman empire and saving the Christian rule over the region. Vlad III’s Childhood was not like what other prince’s of his time would have had. But lets not get into the History but to the reasons what forged this image into a popular belief.

Vlad got the title of Impaler because this was his favorite method of killing, the main reason could be because it assures a slow and painful death, his list of killing has all kind of people, merchants, peasants, Ambassador, women, children. He used to impale the stake through bottom till reaches the mouth, but this was not the case always, other body orifices were also used. He used to have Stakes in different geometric patterns around the city in the outskirts. The height of the spear showed the rank of the victim. In 1461, Muhammad II the ruler of Constantinople returned back after seeing the rotting corpse of 20,000 Turkish prisoners on the outskirts of the city.

Tales about Vlad III

Killing of the poor and Sick
Vlad wanted his kingdom to be healthy and rich and took care that everyone contributed to the development of the country. He noticed that the poor and sick were not doing anything but only draining the country’s resources, so he called all the sick and poor for a grand feast. He explained to them that he dint want anyone to sleep hungry and be sad, so he has arranged this feast. After the feast he asked them if they wanted to be without cares and lack nothing in this world, and as they nodded their heads in agreement, he set the room on fire and left. No one escaped the fire, he justified his act to his subject as the cleansing of the city and they will further not be burden on other humans.

Nailing the Hats
It is believed that once a foreign ambassador came to his court, where he disagreed to remove his hats, in the presence of the prince. So Vlad ordered to nail the hat to his head, such that he never has to remove them.

Merchant
Vlad was popular for his insistence of Honesty and truth. He even had a Golden cup open in the city which was never stolen or damaged during his reign. Knowing the honesty of the region once a merchant left his gold laden cart in the streets unguarded for the night. When he turned up the next morning he found that 160 ducats were missing from the bags. He went to Vlad to report of the theft, where he was assured by the king that his money will be returned to him. Vlad then sent a proclamation to city that return the thief or the city will be destroyed. Meanwhile he ordered to place 160 + 1(extra ducat) in the merchant’s cart in the night. When the Merchant found that his money was returned with an extra ducat he went to king to report of the return of the money. By then the thief was caught and stolen money returned and he was impaled. The merchant was told that if he had not returned that extra ducat he would also had been impaled alongside the thief.

St Bartholomew’s Day in 1459

On St Bartholomew’s Day in 1459 Vlad ordered for the impalement of 30000 Transylvanian merchants and noble men just to enjoy his feast among the corpses, he was joined by a noblemen (Identity disputed, some say he was sent to ask the Vlad to spare the cities and its men and some say it was one of his boyars). Whilst the man was appealing Vlad was enjoying his feast and the agony of the dying few on the stakes. After this the story has two versions,

1. The man was holding his nose to alleviate the smell of blood and Emptied bowels. The vlad being unhappy about this ordered for his impalement on the longest stake so that the stench doesn’t reach him.
2. In another version 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.

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.

Polish Nobleman
Benedict de Boithor, a Polish nobleman in the service of the King of Hungary, visited Vlad The Impaler at Tirgoviste in September of 1458. At dinner one evening Vlad ordered a golden spear brought and set up directly in front of the royal envoy. Vlad then asked the envoy if he knew why this spear had been set up. Benedict replied that he imagined some boyar had offended the prince and that Vlad intended to honor him. Vlad responded that the spear had, in fact, been set up in honor of his noble, Polish guest. The Pole then responded that if he had done anything to deserve death that Vlad should do as he thought best. Vlad The Impaler was greatly pleased by this answer, showered him with gifts, and declared that had he answered in any other manner he would have been immediately impaled.

The two monks
There is some discrepancy in the telling of this anecdote. The various sources agree, however, as to the basic story. Two monks from a foreign land came to visit Vlad The Impaler in his palace at Tirgoviste. Curious to see the reaction of the churchmen, Vlad showed them rows of impaled corpses in the courtyard. When asked their opinions, the first monk responded, "You are appointed by God to punish evil-doers." The other monk had the moral courage to condemn the cruel prince. In the version of the story most common in the German pamphlets, Vlad rewarded the sycophantic monk and impaled the honest one. In the version found in Russian pamphlets and in Romanian verbal tradition Vlad rewarded the honest monk for his integrity and courage and impaled the sycophant for his dishonesty.

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.


These were some of the anecdotes about the king. The post is to be continued by the second person's story.

Electronic voice phenomenon

Electonic Voice phenomenon is one of the most intriguing concept which supports the existenc e of supernatural beings. It is believed that the spirits or ghosts tries to contact us and the most viable way is Technology. That is they are trying to communicate to us through the Electronic media.

The idea has been popularised in the media by the movie white noise, but it has been under scanner for more than a century now. The idea came along with the technology to do it. Once thomas alva edison agreed that it is highly likely that the spirits would try to communicate through these electronic devices than table tipping and ouija board, if at all they try to communicate. However it is not clear that if he had ever supported or tried to do any work on these concepts. However lots of research has been going on in this particularly interesting topic, many small groups of people and many psychic organisations and teams have made recordings, which they believe is the voice from the other side.

The internet world itself is flooded with such websites, which say that they have EVP recordings. Most of the time the recording is of a single word or phrase and most of the recordings are done at haunted sites. The whole procedure requires only a recorder and a memory device, the most handy would be a IPOD or similar device withrecording service and this device is now more popular with the new generations of EVP enthusiasts. However the success rate is very less, to get a good EVP it may take many hours of continuous recording and listening to them to get the hidden messages(?)

The main explanationfor the phenomenonis the existence of spirits. The other explanations include the interference of geo magnetic field with the Electronic circuit. Statics from the radio and TV channels. However this does not demotivate the many psychics who work with EVPs.

The best way to do the experiment is to get a RF interference free room and start the recording. The EVPs are generally classed as Class A, Class B, Class C. Class A are the ones which humans can hear using speakers and most people will agree to what has been said by the voice, the Class B Voices ar those, which can be heard on Speakers but not all will agree to whathas been said by the voice. The third class of voices include the ones which can be heard only on Headphones and cannot be identified. And almost all the recordings has to be edited to get any meaningful sound from them. Most of the sites claim that they only do Noise reduction in these editing sessions.

There is no well defined mark which defines what comes under EVP and what not because, the scientific community has completed derided the idea of EVP. Most of the researchers are amateurs or novices and self claimed psychics. The argument by the scientific community is also very strong, the skeptics say that most of the recordings are nothing but noises because of the interference of Radio Frequency from electronic circuits. Humans being a pattern finding animals try to relate the noise with some word or phrase and come with an answer. Almost always the spirit speaks in the language that the listener is familiar with, this itself is a good point which questions the veracity of phenomenon.