h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Vlad that is - whose nick name was Dracul - or the Dragon?

He would impale his enemies on spikes and drink their blood - which is what inspired Stoker.

So did quite a lot of other things as well including Le Fanu's 'Carmilla'. There's a brilliant essay by John Sutherland in 'Is Heathcliff a Murderer?' which puts forward a theory about Bram Stoker writing about an awful lot more than vampires, but the then imminent arrival of the twentieth century. In the same way Anna Rice has the whole child with lukemia inspiration behind her. It's still a form of dealing with something scarey you don't understand.

Supposedly he was the son of a count. He was kidnapped as a childand held for ransom by some of his father's enemies. His father refused to pay and they locked Vlad away. The held him in captivity and tortured him, asking his father for the ransom every few years or so. When he reached his mid-teens he escaped and made his way back home. He killed his father and took over his position. His father had ruled with an iron fist and treated his people poorly, and they were glad to have a new ruler. Vlad soon made them rethink their position. People who opposed him were impaled on the countryside for everyone to see. He attacked neighboring lands and imprisoned people so that he could torture them. He attacked the enemies that had imprisoned him and subjected them to many horrors.
His brutality was only matched by the obscurity of his illnesses. He was rumored to be an albino, to have an unnatural hunger for flesh and blood, and he was rumored (posthumously) to be a vampire. He was also rumored to be immortal, as several attempts on his life had failed.

yup - that's the bloke! He was kidnapped by the Sultan of the Turkish Empire I think. Which is where he picked up some of his ideas from. It was traditional for the son of the sultan who was to suceed him to personally strangle his brothers to ensure safe sucession.

Apparently Vlad was quite the general as well, having some degree of military success against neighbouring nations. One story I heard about Vlad was that some Hungarians tried to invade. The first leg of the invasion was surprised and all captured. However, in these pre-Geneva convention days, prisoners had no rights. Vlad impaled over 5,000 prisoners, making a "forest" of impalees 2.5km by 1km for the follow up invasion to find.
His impaling technique was also quite innovative; He drove a stake up through the victim's body from below, while they were still alive. Nt very pleasant.
My source on this is what I remember from an old Loaded magazine I saw from around Halloween last year.

His name was Vlad Tepes, Dracule or Dracula came from his fathers club. Vlad impaled his victims by lifting them onto a spike driven into the ground. Most spikes where sharp, and the victim was impaled through the stomach and into the heart, the weight of the body made death fairly quick. Particularly wicked torture was to be impaled on a blunter stake, where the stake was not aimed at the heart, but came out of the back. Death could take a long time.

You missed one thing. Vlad was just about the cruelst guy on the block, but he also had a strong sense of justice. Supposedly everyone was so afraid of commiting a crime he left a solid gold chalice in the middle of the town square for people to drink out of the fountain with and it was never stolen. Oh and another set of excellent books on it are the "Diaries of the Family Dracul" by Jeanne Kaligrodis. I think thats how you spell her name. Anyway its a Trilogy and prequal to Stokers Book.

I hadn't heard that about the chalice, nor heard of the books. I will look out for them, thanks.

Hi, Me again. N/P Mina I would really reccamend the books to any Dracuala fans because their full of neat tid-bits and info about Stokers story. Oh but the purpose of my post I spelt her name wrong before so here's the correct spelling...Kalogridis, J

And through all this you would never guess that he was a good christian who said his prayers everyday, or so I am reliably told. Well he sounds like a guy who was dedicated to his work!

Yeah I read that Vlad Drakul the fifth was quite the devout believer[Good Omens and Dark Destiny agree]
And on the whole he manly slaughtered Heretics[Turks], Disbelivers[Turks] and Sinners[Criminals] afterall he did keep his people safe from slavery. And at the time you a nobel could treat the lower classes pretty much however he wanted it was your god given right.


Also wasn't Mina, just Miss Murrys nickname short for something else?

Oops I have a typo in there. Ignore the excess "you".
and besides look at Elizibeth Bathory, her peers didn't even get on her case till she started having madiens of nobel birth drained of blood to fill her baths [they knew about it but so what if she killed a few peons or rather she had her servants hire peons to kill them so their mistress could bathe in virgin blood]

Yes, it was short for Whilomena. I think that's the proper spelling.
Pronounced "willow-meena", the feminine form of William I think.

Home page for Sighisoara, the Romanian village where Vlad Tepes was born - unfortunately it's in Romanina, but there are interesting pictures..

http://www.sighisoara.com/rom/sighisoara/istoria/vlad_dracul.htm

Romanina? Sorry, should have been Romanian...

You are right, very interesting pictures.
Thanks.

I believe it may actually be Wilhemina. I know for certain that there's no 'o' in it, and the 'h' comes after the 'l'

I had a quick look through my book, and all I could find was her called Mina all the time. I might get round to re-reading it one day, and then I can say for sure.
Yours looks right though.

I hate to contradict myself like this, but the 'h' could have been after the 'W',
in fact, now that I think about it, that seems more and more likely.