During our childhood almost all of us grew up reading fantasies, be that the knight of Camelot or the Amphibian man. But nothing stood out more than the blood thirsty and menacing monster from Transylvania, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The legend of Dracula spawned in numerous amounts of parodies and spin offs…
But what if we tell you the creature from Stoker’s book, once tread the world like a King?
Well…most of it is true !
MEET VLAD THE IMPALER
Vlad III or Vlad Dracula was the prince of Wallachia, was known to be ruthless and merciless while slaying his foes!
He had a penchant for killing Victims in style, you guessed it right…Impalement!
According to literature he killed around 80000 people, and impaled around 20000 of them including Saxon merchants, Ottoman deserters, and POWs.
Now comes the interesting part…the Vampire mythology
According to legends he even hosted a dinner for himself, in a particular forest, which had in numerous bodies impaled and left hanging on a spike. He then displayed them throughout Transylvania to send a warning to his enemies. The bloody massacre was reportedly so gut wrenching that several invading Ottoman sultans retreated at the sight of it.
Many locals believed that he would also drink blood of his victims from a golden chalice or dip his bread into it…
There is not much authentic reports validating Vlad’s actual appearance…
[Vlad] was not very tall, but very stocky and strong, with a cold and terrible appearance, a strong and aquiline nose, swollen nostrils, a thin and reddish face in which the very long eyelashes framed large wide-open green eyes; the bushy black eyebrows made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven, but for a moustache. The swollen temples increased the bulk of his head. A bull's neck connected [with] his head from which black curly locks hung on his wide-shouldered person.
— Niccolò Modrussa's description of Vlad the Impaler[196]
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