Creepy Corvin Castle...

Anytime I stumble upon stories of Vlad the Impaler (aka Vlad Dracula III, aka the real-life inspiration for Dracula), I get pulled so here is a brief summary of this awesome place.

Side note: Dracul means dragon.

Built in the early 14th century, with 42 chambers, 2 drawbridges, buttresses, inner courtyards, balconies, and turrets, the Corvin Castle (Castelul Corvinilor formally known as (Hunedoara Fortress) is a Gothic/Renaissance masterpiece!  It is said to be the most beautiful, well-preserved medieval castle in Transylvania.

It is also allegedly where Vlad, the head-impaling monster, was imprisoned for 7 years.  It is believed his time in the dungeon caused him to go insane (because clearly he was not insane before that point).  Vlad was not the only prisoner the castle was home to.

Legend has it that three Turkish men were captured and sent to the dungeon to dig a well.  They were promised that once they found water, they would be rewarded and set free.

At about 30 meters down and an astonishing 15 years later, they were successful in striking water; however, they ended up being decapitated by their captors.  What a stink! They left a message on a wall which read "You now have water, but you don't have a heart."

Another victim of the castle was a monk who was sealed in a wall of the Capistrano Tower for spying on the nobles.  He was alive by the way when they sealed him in.  People have reported seeing his ghost wandering in the tower.

Many other people had the misfortune of finding themselves in the Corvin Castle where they were tossed into the bear pit, tortured, executed, or left in the dungeon to die.

These tortured souls still haunt the castle today and many believe the real-life Dracula himself haunts the massive fortress as well which is something I would definitely be down for seeing myself if I ever make it to Romania.

You can get more details here.

And one last note. The castle is also a very popular location for filming movies, documentaries, and shows about paranormal activity including the 2018 hit The Nun which I will now have to watch.

The last episode concluded with C18 and her onset grandfather and now we are at the halfway point to the end............So sad.......

Still time to catch up before the next new episode.......

The last episode concluded with C18 and her onset grandfather and now we are at the halfway point to the end............So sad.......

Its raining, we have Riverdale and The Originals, and a whole lot of chocolate chip cookies..........

First episode without Elijah and one more episode until C18's episode...........

Tonight at 8............

Sniff......Final season premiere tonight at 8...........

Season 7 finale time..........

Vampire Diaries funny............

~

Countess Erzsebet Bathory de Ecsed; Blood-thirsty vampire or deranged, psychotic serial killer?

I guess it depends on if you believe in vampires or not.  We know serial killers exist.

The accounts of this Hungarian noblewoman will definitely make you wonder.

So who was Elizabeth Bathory anyway?  She is the world's first documented female serial killer, and she is also known as the Blood Countess.

Born to Count Gyorgy and Anna Bathorythe in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1560.  She had a privileged life but she also had a strong family history of mental instability and derangement.

It is said as a young child, she would have extreme fits of rage which some now believe could have been due to epilepsy.  She had a nurse who was into practicing black magic which included the practice of sacrificing children for their blood and bones.  

At the age of just ten years old, she became engaged to Ferencz Nadasdy who was 16 at the time. This engagement was allegedly for political reasons.  After she and Ferencz married, he went away to war.  She was not alone though.  She was kept company by her alchemist/devil-worshiping uncle, her witchcraft-practicing aunt, and her pedophile brother.  A recipe for disaster.

Even though Elizabeth gave birth to seven children over the years, she was always preoccupied by her vicious/murderous side.  The rumors had been swirling around of Elizabeth's brutal acts for years so finally in 1610, King Matthias II ordered an investigation.  There were over 300 witness who were ordered to testify.

The exact number of Elizabeth's victims is still unknown.  It is speculated that between 1585 and 1610, there were at least 650 young girls.  Her victims were said to be local peasant girls.  They were all tortured brutally and drained of their blood.

Even as Elizabeth was being arrested at the Cachtice Castle, there was a dying girl, one dead girl, and many girls locked away.

The details of Elizabeth's acts were reportedly too gruesome to recount.

Elizabeth did not act alone.  She had three accomplices and while they received the death sentence, Elizabeth was locked away in a tower of the castle where she died four years later in 1614.

Over the years, as with most history, the retelling of this vampiric matriarch has evolved and changed, not much, but what stays the same in each retelling is the fact that Countess Dracula had an affinity for drinking blood, bathing in blood, and torturing young girls.  I think one thing is for sure no matter who tells the story.  Elizabeth Bathory was a nefarious, evil-doer, one of the worst known to mankind.

Of course the story does not end there.  The Cachtice Castle of course is haunted.  Reports of the apparition of an old woman (Elizabeth) is said to walk the ruins of the castle.  There are also apparitions of the young victims seen at the castle and in the underground tunnels where Elizabeth held them captive.  Other reports of mysterious mist, shadowy figures, light anomalies, cold spots, warm spots, voices, and having uneasy feelings of being watched.  If you are ever in Slovakia, take a tour of the castle. 

Find out more:
Things about Transylvania.
CNN

Arnold Paole

Paole

My interest in vampires continues on with possibly the world's most famous vampire.

He was born in the early 1700s in Medvegja, a small town in Serbia.

His name was Arnold Paole and this is his story.

Spring, 1727, Arnold Paole returned after being stationed in Turkish, Serbia to settle back in his home town of Medvegia.  He built a house and became part of the community.  Soon after this, he became engaged to his neighbor's daughter, and they married.  Paole confessed to his new bride that he was haunted by the fears of an early death.  He explained to her that while he was stationed at a military base in Greece, he was attacked by a vampire and that he had killed the vampire after he was bitten.

Paole

He was only married for a short while when he fell from the top of a hay wagon while working on a farm.  He was brought home but he was unconscious but alive.  It is believed that he had massive internal injuries, as well as a broken neck.  A few days later, Paole died.  He was buried in the town's cemetery.

It was less than a month after his "death" that people around town had been convinced that they had seen Paole.  No one was quite sure what to make of it or what he was even doing.  Turns out the very people who had claimed to see Paole, ended up dead!

The town's people wanted Paole's body exhumed and when his coffin was opened, there was a perfectly fresh body with no decomposition at all.  It is said that he even had grown new skin, nails, and hair.  Apparently, there was also blood on his lips.  The group of town folk decided to stake his body and when they did, blood spilled out and an audible cry was heard.  They left him staked to his coffin, and they burned his body.  Terrified by this, the towns people did the same with Paole's victims.

Things calmed down in Medvegia for about five years until there were more unexplained deaths.

The town's people sprung into action and went straight to the cemetery.  They opened the coffins of the 11 newly deceased people and found them to be in the same condition as they found Paole, no decomposition, new nails, new hair, and fresh blood.

This, of course, baffled the people of Medvegia.  The medical team and investigators had no explanation for what was considered a vampire outbreak.  One theory was that Paole had feasted on cattle/livestock during his vampire reign and anyone who ate said cattle/livestock, received the vampire qualities.  Another reason to be a vegetarian, just sayin'.  Paole was a real person, and his history is one of the most extensively documented "vampire" history ever recorded.

Click here to read more.