10 Terrifying Vampire Stories For Halloween
1. Countess Elizabeth Bathory
Elizabeth Bathory, also known as The Blood Countess is one of the most famous and terrifying of all historical vampires. Elizabeth was born in 1560 to one of the most powerful protestant families in Hungary. She was described as being an incredible beauty and a highly educated lady.
She married a Count named Ferenc Nadasdy and the two quickly gained a reputation for being cruel masters and inflicting harsh punishments upon their servants. Rumours also circulated that Elizabeth and Ferenc would engage in occult practices and satanic rituals in their castle.
Ferenc spent a lot of time away from the castle on official business and in his absence Elizabeth gathered together a devious group of friends to help keep her entertained. Her friends included a witch named Dorka and a man named Ficzko, who was described as a wicked dwarf. Together the twisted friends would inflict torture upon Elizabeths servants for fun, beating them with barbed lashes before covering them in ice cold water and leaving them outside to freeze.
Things took a turn for the worse when Ferenc died from a mysterious illness, prompting Elizabeth to completely withdraw to her castle at Cachtice. It was at this time that Elizabeth recruited a woman named Anna Darvula into her evil entourage. Anna was a witch who introduced Elizabeth to a new level of sadism and was also rumoured to be her lover.
Elizabeth was now 44 years old and the beauty of her youth was beginning to fade. Under Annas influence, Elizabeth turned to the occult for a solution and began to bath in the blood of young girls in order to absorb their life-force. To start with, Elizabeth would lure peasant girls to her castle with the promise of work before torturing and murdering them.
However, as signs of ageing continued to show, Elizabeth deemed that the blood of these peasant girls was not good enough and began to look for a more noble source of blood. The Blood Countess then opened an etiquette school for young women, luring the daughters of many noble families to her castle. The disappearances of these noble girls ultimately led to her downfall as the King of Hungary was forced to investigate the allegations being made against her.
On the night of the 30th December 1610, Elizabeths castle was stormed by the Hungarian officials who made the grisly discovery of bodies strewn around the castles halls and others laying tortured in the castles dungeon. Elizabeths wicked crew were arrested, tried and executed, the total number of their victims being estimated at around 650 girls. Elizabeth was not present at the trial and was never officially convicted of the crimes. She lived out the rest of her days under house arrest, walled up inside her bedchamber, until her death on the 21st August 1614.