The
Countess Elizabeth Bathory who lived in the Carpathian
Mountains in the 16th century was one of the original
vampires who inspired Bram Stoker’s legend of Dracula. She was Hungarian by
birth. Records give her entry into the world as 1561. As a girl she was
beautiful with long fair hair and an exquisite complexion. She was married off
an aristocratic soldier when she was fifteen and became mistress of the Castle of Csejthe in the Carpathians.
Life in the dark, gloomy CsejtheCastle
while her husband was away on his various military campaigns became very boring
indeed. She was determined to liven things up.
First she gathered round her a sinister
band of witches, sorcerers and alchemists who thought her the black arts. Then,
armed with her special flesh tearing silver pincers, a manual of tortures her
husband had used when fighting the Turks and a taste of flagellation learned
from her aunt, she set out to indulge herself and while away the lonely hours. When her husband died in 1604 she had
reached the difficult age of 43. She longed for a new lover to replace him but
her reflection in the mirror showed her that time and indulgence had not
improved her looks. One day she slapped the face of a servant girl and drew
blood with her nails. She was convinced that that part her body where the
girl’s blood had dripped was much fresher and younger than before. It only needed
the alchemist to add their opinion and she was convinced that drinking and
bathing in the blood of young virgins would preserve her beauty for ever. So, at the dead of night, the Counties
and her cronies would tear about the countryside hunting for girls. They would
be taken back to the castle, hung in chains and their blood used for the
countess’ bath, the finest saved for her to drink. The terrible woman carried on like this
for five years until she began to realize the blood of peasant girls had not
been terribly effective. In 1609 she turned to the daughter of her own class.
Offering to take in 25 girls at a time to teach them social graces, she soon
had a flourishing academy. Helped as usual by her peasant procuress,
Dorotta Szentes, know as Dorka, she treated the pupils with the same inhuman cruelty
as she had treated the others. But this time she became too careless. The
bodies of four girls were thrown over the castle walls. Before she realized her
mistake villagers collected them and took them away to be identified. Her
secret was out news of her reign of terror finally reached the ears of
Hungarian Emperor, Matthias II. He ordered that the Countess brought to trial.
But as an aristocrat she would not be arrested so parliament passed a new Act
so that she would not be able to slip through their hands. At her hearing in
1610 it was said she had murdered 600 girls. Dorka and her witches were burnt at stake.
The Countess escaped execution because of her noble birth. But she was
condemned to a living death walled up in a tiny room of her castle and kept
alive by scraps of food pushed through the bars. She died four years later
without a word of remorse.
