The Real Dracula: Historical Origins of Bram Stokers Vampire

Next visit Arefu, where many of the villagers trace their ancestry back to the loyal minions of Vlad Tepes himself in the movies, these are the ones who are always busy loading up Dracula's coffins with Transylvanian earth. Legend has it that when the Turks attacked and took over the Poenari Castle in , it was the villagers of Arefu who helped Vlad escape.

Spend the night with the locals camping around a fire and listening to centuries-old folk tales. Fringed by the peaks of the Southern Carpathian Mountains and resplendent with gothic, baroque and renaissance architecture, as well as a wealth of historical attractions, Brasov is one of the most visited places in Romania. Founded by Transylvanian Saxons during the 12th century, Sighisoara still stands as one of the most beautiful and best-preserved medieval towns in Europe.

Designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, this perfectly intact 16th century gem with nine towers, cobbled streets, burgher houses and ornate churches rivals the historic streets of Old Prague or Vienna for atmospheric magic. It is the birthplace of Vlad Tepes Vlad the Impaler , ruler of the province of Walachia from to find out more about Sighisoara.

This ocher-colored house is the place where Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's famous Dracula, was born in and lived with his father, Vlad Dracul read more about the story of the Dracul name , until when they moved to Targoviste. A wrought-iron dragon hangs above the entrance. The ground floor of the house serves as a restaurant, while the first floor is home to the Museum of Weapons. Located at the foot of the Bargau Mountains, not far from the Borgo Pass Pasul Tihuta in Romanian which connects the provinces of Transylvania and Moldavia, the town of Bistrita is one of the oldest in the region.

Archeological findings indicate that the area has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, long before Bram Stocker chose it as the setting of his fictional Dracula's castle.

Saxon colonists, who settled here in , helped develop the town into a flourishing medieval trading post. First mentioned in as Villa Bistiche, the name was later changed to Civitas Bysterce. Today, the old town's quaint 15th and 16th century merchants' houses, the remains of the 13th century fortress walls and a generally unhurried pace have preserved some of Bistrita's medieval atmosphere find out more about Bistrita. Access by car only Borgo Pass Bargau in Romanian , made famous in the opening chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula, is an oft-trod passageway through the Carpathian Mountains in northern Transylvania.

Located near the small township of Tihuta, the pass peaks at 3, feet. The Bargau Valley encompasses some of the most beautiful unspoiled mountain scenery in the Carpathians with picturesque traditional villages located in valleys and on hillsides, ideal bases for hiking, riding or discovering their vivid tapestry of old customs, handicrafts and folklore.

The real Dracula

Here, you will step into a realm that the fictional Mina Harker described in her diary as "a lovely county; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. Vlad Tepes was born in in the fortress city of Sighisoara. His father, Vlad Dacul, was the military governor of Transylvania and had become a member of the Order of the Dragon a year before. The Order, similar to the Order of the Teutonic Knights, was a semi-military and religious organization established in in Rome in order to promote Catholic interests and crusades.

For his deeds, the Order of the Dragon was bestowed upon him, hence the title Dracul the Latin word for dragon is draco. While in medieval lure dragons served as symbols of independence, leadership, strength and wisdom, the biblical association of the devil with the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve gave the snake-like dragon connotations of evil.

Thus, the Romanian word Dracul stands in English for both dragon and devil. Moreover, the ceremonial uniform of the Order — black cloak over red accouterment — was Bram Stocker' source of inspiration for Count Dracula's look. But how did Bram Stoker's story turn into a myth? A partial explanation is provided by the circumstances under which the book was written and received. A genuine epidemic of "vampirism" had hit Eastern Europe at the end of the 17th century and continued throughout the 18th century. The number of reported cases soared dramatically, especially in the Balkans.

Travelers returning from the East would tell stories about the undead, which helped keep the interest in vampires alive.

Western philosophers and artists tackled the issue ever more often. Bram Stoker's novel came as the pinnacle of a long series of works based on tales coming from the East. Back then, most readers were certain that the novel had been inspired by real facts and that its story was perhaps just a bit romanticized. Dracula is more than years old and still alive! Of course, almost everybody has heard about this Nosferatu: We all have an idea of who or what the Count is. However, on the other hand, Vlad Tepes Dracula , the historical figure who inspired Bram Stoker's novel, is definitely less well-known.

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Vlad Tepes was born in December in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. Vlad's father, governor of Transylvania, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before. The order — which could be compared to the Knights of the Hospital of St. John or even to the Teutonic Order of Knights — was a semi-military and religious society, originally created in by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Barbara Cilli.

The main goal of such a secret fraternal order of knights was to protect the interests of Christianity and to crusade against the Turks. The boyars of Romania associated the dragon with the Devil and decided to call Vlad's father "Dracul," which in the Romanian language means "Devil;" "Dracula" is a diminutive, meaning "the son of the Devil. Vlad followed his father and lived six years at the princely court. Vlad was held there until Afterwards the body may have been dug up and found alive, and from this a horror seized upon the people, and in their ignorance they imagined that a vampire was about.

Almost every culture has some variation of the myth of the hungry dead, and the rules by which these creatures are created and killed are so varied and diverse that no work of fiction could utilize them all and remain coherent or plausible, even taking into account a heavy dose of suspended disbelief.

Stoker wisely steered clear of some of the more ludicrous beliefs for instance, that vampires, seemingly driven by obsessive-compulsive disorder as much as by bloodlust, could be stopped by strewing poppy seeds in their path, which they would be compelled to individually count—a laborious process sure to last until dawn. In order to create at least a degree of believability, Stoker judiciously adapted the basics of vampirism as set forth in the accounts of eastern European vampire panics by the French biblical scholar Dom Augustin Calmet in Dissertations sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires.

Here he found the time-honored methods of vampire disposal, actually used on suspicious corpses: Variant methods included the removal of the heart rather than its staking. These were all physical measures taken against a physical threat. Baring-Gould described the Serbian vlokslak , a vampire-werewolf hybrid, and related the Greek belief that werewolves became vampires after death.

Another suspected Vampire grave.

It details the story of a man who was arrested in for digging up the body of his family member and performing an ancient anti-vampire ritual on it. He and his family believed that their relative had become a vampire after death and was haunting them from the grave.

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We took his heart and he sighed when we stabbed him. We burned it, dissolved the ash into water and the people who had fallen sick drank it. They got better immediately. It was like someone took away all their pain and sickness. We had no idea we were committing a crime.