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Vlad the Impaler
Prince Vlad Dracule was born in Schäässburg (now called Sighisoara), a small
town in former Transylvania (now known as northern Romania) in 1431. The house
in which he was born, still stands intact in Sighisoara. It was no castle,
but just a simple three-storied house.
He was named after his father Vlad Dracul, who belonged to the Order of the
Dragon. This was an order formed by the Holy Roman Emperor for the purpose of
defeating the Turks, who tried to conquer Europe at the time. The name "Dracul"
which means dragon or devil, was taken on by his father, when he joined the
order, the same year prince Vlad was born. He later added the -a on his son's
name, which means "Son of the Dragon". But as the young prince grew older, he
became more known as "Son of the Devil".
His father ruled over the area of Southern Romania known as Wallachia, and to
keep his power, he had to be allied with powerful people. But he was a very
unreliable master, that changed his allies constantly. To begin with he was
against the Turks, later he suddenly changed policy and joined them for a short
period. Perhaps this unreliable behavior was the reason why the Turkish Sultan
ordered the capture of his two sons, prince Dracula and his little brother.
In 1447 prince Vlad Dracula's father was killed by some of his own men, and
the year after, the prince, now age seventeen, was released from his
imprisonment. He was sent back home to rule Wallachia, but in return he had to
obey the Sultan in Constantinople. But he was overthrown, by a rival and had to
escape, before he in 1456 could claim the throne back again. The first thing he
did, was to build a stronghold for safety. With the help of several hundred
noble families captured in his realm, who had to work as simple slaves, he got
his stronghold build high up in the mountains, close to the northern Wallachian
town of Tirgoviste.
Now six years of terror began. First he revenged his fathers death, then he
got rid of all his enemies in a boundless carnage. Several thousand people was
killed in Wallachia and the neighboring countries. But prince Dracula didn't
just kill people, he liked to see them suffer. His favorite method of torturing
someone to death, was impalement.
Impalement was a gruesome from of execution. The victim was impaled between
the legs upon a large sharpened stake, with the width of a man's upper arm and
hoisted upright in the air. Then the weight of the body would begin to drag
them downwards, causing the sharpened end of the stake to pierce their internal
organs very slowly. Vlad especially enjoyed mass executions, where several
victims were impaled at once. In order to better enjoy these brutal acts, Vlad
would place the impaled victims, in front of a banquet table and would then
enjoy and commonly dine in his "forest of the impaled", to the sounds of the
dying. It was these incredibly brutal acts, that got him the nickname "Tepes",
which in Romanian means "Impaler".
It is alleged that prince Vlad Tepes was responsible for the death, of over a
hundred thousand people within a few years. This figure, is including the
twenty-five thousand people, who died due to Impalement.
In 1462, because of his enemies, Vlad Tepes had to flee again. He escaped to
Hungary, over the Transylvanian Alps, in hope of getting some help from the
Hungarian king Corvinus. But instead of getting some sort of assistance, he was
convicted on some false charges to prison for twelve years. When he was
released again, he married a sister to the Hungarian King, and in November 1475,
he finally got the assistance to regain control in Wallachian.
But only a month later, Dracula was killed in battle against the Turks near
Bucharest. After his death, the feared and no doubt brave warrior was then
decapitated. Just to make people sure that he really was dead, his head was put
on display in Constantinople. Later his body was buried in a monastery near
Snagov in Romania. In a book called "Dracule", from 1488, written only thirteen
years after Vlad the Impaler died, he was descried as a vampire!
Sheal Mullin
Associate Member of the Vampire Church
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