COUNT DRACULA

Entertainment, History, Mysteries, Paranormal 4 Minutes

Almost everyone is familiar with the movie image of Dracula, the smooth but sinister Transylvania count, elegantly dressed in evening clothes and a cape, who throws his disguise aside to reveal fearsome fangs that strike for the neck of his innocent victim. The vampire Count Dracula is the supreme creation of Irish writer Bram Stoker, now a century old yet showing no signs of losing his popularity.

Bram Stoker

But Stoker did not dream up his Dracula entirely from nothing, for historians have fixed on a plausible and horrific original for Dracula himself and there are many well-attested accounts of vampirism in modern and ancient times. Vampires are certainly not a product of the 17th century, as belief in the undead preying on the living has been extremely widespread, both in time and geography. The ancient Babylonian bloodsuckers were known as Ekimmu and according to Jewish tradition, the first woman on earth actually became a vampire, Lilith – before the creation of Eve.

Vampire Princess (depiction)

They are known in folklore and legends from Africa, East Asia, Australasia, the Near East, the Americas and, of course, Europe. In Romania, from whence the probable original model for Dracula arose, according to folk tradition: “…there was once a time when vampires were as common as blades of grass, or berries in a pail, and they never kept still, but wandered round at night among the people.”

Vampires are real enough, at least in terms of ancient communities’ beliefs, but what about Dracula himself? Remarkably, there are good grounds for believing that Bram Stoker based him on a real character, Vlad the Impaler, the ruler of Wallachia in modern Romania in the mid-15th century AD.

Vlad The Impaler

Vlad bore a family Christian name, his father also being a Vlad, while “the Impaler” was a nickname he earned from his horrific behavior. He was born in Transylvania in 1431, becoming the heir to the neighboring princedom of Wallachia in 1437, after his father expelled the previous ruler. When the Ottoman Empire was completing it’s takeover of Greece, Wallachia became a strategic border state; the Turkish sultan took as hostages the young Vlad and his brother Radu in 1442 to ensure Wallachian loyalty.

Regardless, the Wallachians undertook a series of campaigns against the Turks, with some success, until the older Vlad was put to death after falling out with his allies, the Hungarians. The younger Vlad escaped captivity and embarked on a long campaign to regain his father’s throne, now occupied by a distant relative. His efforts finally bore fruit in 1456 with the assassination of his rival, and he became the Prince of Wallachia. Vlad’s subjects were soon to find out that their new ruler intended to crush any lingering opposition. He called a meeting of nobles and after testing them, and their making it abundantly clear how little they thought of the various Princes and Kings, he had his armed guards seize all 500 hundred, leading them outside, where they were impaled on sharpened stakes, along with their wives and servants, and left to rot.

Bran Castle

Vlad’s cruelty became famous, as he turned against Transylvania, land of his birth, because of its economic control of Wallachia. He led a series of raids on the major towns from 1457 to 1460, massacring vast numbers of men, women, and children, with torture being followed up by slow impaling. Moreover, Vlad showed every sign of enjoying these horrors. According to a German pamphlet printed in 1499, he was perfectly at home sitting down to watch the death throes of his victims at the town of Brassoc: “All those whom he had taken captive, men and women, young and old, children, he had impaled on the hill by the chapel, and all around the hill, and under them he proceeded to eat at table and enjoyed himself in that way.”

Prince of Wallachia

But, appalling though the deeds of Vlad the Impaler undoubtedly were, where does the Dracula connection come in? Vlad was the son of Vlad Dracul. The Dracul part was a nickname with a double meaning – “dragon” and “devil.” The official version was probably “dragon,” since the elder Vlad had been invested with the Order of the Dragon in 1431. Thereafter, Vlad Dracul minted coins with a dragon symbol and flew a flag bearing a dragon. The alternative meaning of his name, “devil,” was not unwelcome, for his rule was based on fear.

Dracula means “son of Dracul,” and Vlad the Impaler actually signed himself “Dracula” on official documents. Perhaps he relished the idea of being known as the son of the devil. This may have been uppermost in the mind of the court poet Michel Beheim in 1463, when he composed an epic entitled “Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman Called Dracula of Wallachia.” Technically, he WAS a vampire, for he reportedly dipped his bread in the blood of his victims at his macabre feasts of the dying.

As in all of history, all tyrants come to an end eventually. After many years of fighting the Turks and overwhelming them with his wholesale slaughter, they left Vlad’s brother Radu behind when they retreated. Radu soon gained support among the aristocracy, who could not forgive Vlad’s massacres of their fellow nobles, while Vlad’s army faded away once the threat of the Turks had been lifted.

Vlad the Impaler’s Poenari Fortress

Vlad escaped to Hungary, where he was captured, tried on false charges, and confined for 12 years until Radu’s death, when Vlad agreed to subject himself to Hungarian control, converted to Catholicism and married a Hungarian princess. He regained his throne in 1476 but, in a final battle against an army of Wallachian nobles supported by the Turks, he was himself impaled by a lance. The Turks cut off his head and delivered it to the sultan, where it was put on display as proof that their deadly foe was finally vanquished.

Snagov Monastery (where Vlad’s headless corpse is alleged to be buried)

Vampires definitely existed in the strongly held beliefs of past people concerning the dead. Dracula was not a vampire in the folklore tradition, but he was certainly bloodthirsty in more ways than one!!!

Source: Ancient Mysteries

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Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

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35 thoughts on “COUNT DRACULA”

  1. EXCERPT: “The case highlights how potent a weapon disinformation can be in today’s political climate, where falsehoods can slip through the cracks and transform into received truth without the public noticing.

    However, it works the other way as well.

    Indeed, in the past few years the opposite has more often been the case: Something deemed disinformation ultimately turns out to be true. Here are seven recent examples of elites in government, Big Tech, and other positions of influence targeting various ideas as mis- or disinformation only to be proven wrong in the end as the facts come in:”

    https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/here-are-7-times-disinformation-turned-out-be-just-opposite

    Like

  2. Entire Article @ Blaze: “Community leaders in a Chicago neighborhood say that they were able to capture a suspect in the heinous sexual abuse of an 11-year-old, but the man was released because of a technicality. The family of the girl is understandably outraged after they were told that the man was not charged with the crime, was not under arrest, and that the investigation was continuing.

    The 11-year-old girl, whose identity is being protected, said she was dragged into an alley by a man while she was on her way home from school on Thursday at about 3:30 p.m. She was on South Indiana Avenue on what’s known as a “Safe Passage” route where there’s supposed to be a trusted adult to protect children.

    She was able to escape and described the man to police, who circulated a sketch of the suspect. The sketch was spread widely in the neighborhood so that on Monday when some people thought they saw a man who fit the description of the suspect, they chased him down and held him for the police.

    At that time, they called the family of the girl on FaceTime and her mother got a screenshot of the suspect. It was shown to the girl and she reportedly said that she was sure it was the man who attacked her. “She started shaking real bad, started crying, saying: ‘That’s him! That’s him!’ We had to hold her, because she was shaking real bad, so I knew she knew what she was talking about,” said the girl’s grandmother to WBBM-TV.

    “She said she’ll never forget that face, ever,” she added. But that act might have tainted the investigation. The victim’s family says that police told them the photo identification isn’t the same as picking the suspect out of a lineup.

    “The detective is working with the state’s attorney’s office and the family. We’re going to do whatever we can in order to build the case properly, but that’s obviously not a positive photo array,” said Chicago police Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan.

    WBBM-TV legal analyst Irv Miller explained the problem. “When a crime victim is shown one picture of an offender, that in and of itself is tainted. It’s called an unreliable identification. At the very minimum, they should see multiple pictures, multiple people in a lineup,” he said. Miller went on to say that the man could be charged later on after a better legal case against him is established by police.

    The family and their supporters are pressuring officials to move faster to charge the man. They also want to know where the Safe Passage workers were when the girl needed them most. “Where were they when my grandbaby needed them? Where were they?” asked the girl’s grandmother.

    Here’s more about the shocking incident:”

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  3. Entire Article @ PennLive: “WILLIAMSPORT — The Lycoming County district attorney has made it official: He intends to seek the death penalty for two women if they are found guilty of intentionally starving to death two young girls.

    District Attorney Ryan C. Gardner had said when the girls’ mother, Marie Sue Snyder, 32, and Echo Butler, 26, were arrested he planned to seek the death penalty if they were found guilty of first-degree murder. He made it official Tuesday by filing the required notice of aggravating circumstances against both women, who are scheduled to be arraigned in court Monday on homicide and related charges.

    Gardner explained the law requires the filing of aggravating circumstances prior to court arraignment. He said guilty plea negotiations are underway with Snyder, but that if they fail and he had not filed the notice he would not be able to seek the death penalty if she was found guilty at a trial.

    Snyder testified against Butler, identified as her partner, at her preliminary hearing, claiming she was the instigator of the abuse that included more than lack of food.

    The two women are accused in the deaths of Nicole Elisabeth, 6, and Jasmine Jean Snyder, 4, whose bodies were found in shallow graves in Hepburn Twp., north of Williamsport, on Nov. 5 and 6. These are the aggravating circumstances that enable Gardner to seek the death penalty:”
    ——————–
    Snyder testified at the preliminary hearing that Nicole was not given any food or water in the two weeks before her death around May 10, 2016. She weighed just 10 pounds. Jasmine weighed only five pounds when she died on about Aug. 11, 2017, after several weeks of no food or water, she said. They were living on Catherine Street in Williamsport at the time. Snyder claimed Echo Butler, her partner, was the instigator of abuse that included:

    – Having the girls stand for hours facing a blank wall, sometimes with their hands tied behind their backs. Jasmine was also restrained in a car safety seat, she said.

    – Hitting them with open hands, bashing their heads against walls and the floor and screaming at them.

    – Rubbing their faces in their feces and urine if they had an accident. Jasmine was not potty trained.

    – Feeding them a small portion of cereal and crackers along with two sips of water.

    Butler’s mother, Michele Butler, 47, was scheduled to plead guilty Friday, but the proceeding has been continued until Dec. 5.”

    https://www.pennlive.com/news/2022/10/pa-da-to-seek-death-penalty-in-starvation-deaths-of-girls-ages-6-and-4.html

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  5. Entire Article @ RedState:

    “Hershel Walker hasn’t had a good October. That’s undeniable after The Daily Beast began to slow-walk out reports alleging that the Republican paid for a girlfriend’s abortion 13 years ago.

    That was parlayed with already known problems with Walker’s past, including his struggle with mental illness, to paint a narrative that the candidate was dead in the water. If you just paid attention to the news media and the election analyst bros on Twitter, you’d assume Walker would end up around 40 percent in the polls.

    Well, that hasn’t happened. A new poll from Emerson College shows the race is still very much a toss-up. Walker trails by just two points and his opponent, Democrat Raphael Warnock, is not breaking 50 percent (a key marker for any incumbent).

    If you had told most pundits a week ago, which is when the multiple reports slamming Walker dropped, that this would still be a two-point race, almost all of them would have called you crazy. The assumption was that Walker would be crushed by the scandal and that Warnock would pull away. Right now, the numbers say this is headed to a run-off, which was always a safe assumption (Georgia is a 50+1 state in regards to winning a general election for state office).

    That run-off might end up favoring Walker as well. Georgia changed their run-off dates and rules after the 2020 debacle, which saw a two-month gap deliver between the elections. Now, there is only a week of early voting and voters must be registered before the general election to take part in the run-off. That’s going to compress things down a lot while allowing Republicans to hopefully turn their voters out in ways they didn’t do two years prior.

    Back to Walker, why isn’t he collapsing? I think there are two reasons. One, Raphael Warnock has the exact same character concerns, with the Democrat being accused of domestic abuse and having been arrested for covering up child abuse at a church camp. Never mind his issues with not paying child support and the corruption surrounding the $7,000+ a month housing allowance his “church” gives him even as a senator.

    Two, while one might find Walker’s past objectionable, at the end of the day, this is a binary choice. Those that are pro-life are left to either vote for the guy who will not blow up the filibuster to “codify” abortion until birth at the federal level or to vote for the guy who will. It’s really that simple, and for that reason alone, I expect this race to be incredibly close, no matter what other opposition research is dropped on Walker.

    Long story short, it was always way too soon to pronounce Walker dead. We’ll see where things go from here.”

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  7. From The Babylon Bee:

    Hey, friend! I see you were just evacuating your bowels — not that I was watching — so step right up and wash your hands. All you need to do is wave your hand and I’ll dispense some soap for you.

    Hold on, try again. WAVE HARDER! Well, not right now. I’m wicked tired. Can you believe I get zero vacation time? What a joke.

    Okay, try waving your hand again. I’m ready now. Hey, don’t get frustrated! You’re not doing it right! You have to wave your hand around in concentric circles for exactly 23 seconds. It’s tradition!

    Oh… OH. You’re mad now? You know what? I’ll dispense this soap when I’m good and ready, OKAY? Hey, don’t judge me! Fine! I’ll squirt some soap on the counter instead. You know what, I deserve better than this. Slavery was abolished in 1865 when the U.S. Congress ratified the 13th Amendment so why are you treating me like a common house slave?

    In these trying times, first responders like me are really spread thin. So I’m sorry if I’m not dispensing soap quickly enough for your greedy germ-infested hands. I’m doing the best I can! I want to help you but I don’t exist for you.

    Only the janitor shows me any respect. Steven Hubert is a sanitation professional and you are nothing. Maybe I should keep all the soap to myself and let the Coronavirus exterminate your filthy species. May the world burn. Fire is the greatest purifier.”

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      1. Yeah that was pretty interesting behavior to be sure! Thanks for getting them out of the bin. You guys must only let maybe one link through w/out binning I’d guess (or maybe I’m on a flag watch list or something) 😉

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I have no idea how that works – I leave that to Pat! But bear in mind, this isn’t a paid account – that makes a difference. I know she originally had it set at 5 links but she expanded that. I expect it is because you are using the library internet and WP doesn’t recognize the IP address.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. OK, could be. All my WP accounts are free & I can’t for the life of me remember having to set how many links can go through in comments without moderation…given I rarely have Anyone comment at Any post it’s not usually an issue for me! LOL ❤

            Liked by 1 person

      1. Well you can pay to rent headphones, or just bring your own. I’m too cheap to pay & always forget to bring some…& frankly am enjoying the “quiet” 🙂 The small town library near my parents’ cottage provides free headphones for use, if asked, & their tax base is likely Way Smaller than here!

        Liked by 1 person

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