8. The Vampire As We Know It May Have Been Based On Real People
The majority of you will have heard the story of Vlad The Impaler. He was considered to be an absolute monster, a sadistic, rampaging murderer who not only caused his enemies a lot of physical pain in battle, but also sought to cause emotional and psychological distress to all of those who chose to rise against him. His nickname is a bit of a giveaway, that he wasn't the nicest of eggs. He would impale the bodies of soldiers and of anyone who got in his way to the point where there would be thousands of bodies impaled on large wooden poles as far as the eye could see, and not all of them were dead. He was said to have enjoyed listening to their cries and would often eat his dinner surrounded by his victims, and was apparently fond of drinking their blood. Forget Luke Evans' pretty boy version with a soul from Dracula Untold. It has been said that Vlad The Impaler may have been the inspiration behind Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is important to note that Vlad's name was Vlad Dracul (literally Son of the Dragon in English). There's also a theory that says Elizabeth Bathory, a countess from Hungary and a known serial killer was the mother of vampires. The noble-born Blood Countess or Countess Dracula (olden days people were super good at nicknames) was named as the most prolific female murderer in history by the Guinness Book of Records. And they know their stuff. During her trial, it was cited that she was responsible for killing around 650 young women in brutal and horrific ways. Apparently, she abducted then mutilated them, made them either starve or freeze to death (after pulling the skin off their faces) and then bathed in their blood. Presumably her neighbours still claimed she "kept herself to herself" when asked what they thought of her.
