VLAD THE IMPALER

BAD TO THE BONE (WALLACHIA, PRESENT-DAY ROMANIA)

THREE SEPARATE REIGNS: 1448; 1456–1462; 1476

FATHER: Vlad Dracul / MOTHER: Cneajna

SUCCESSOR: Mihnea the Bad

OTHER NAMES: Vlad III, Dracula

WHAT WAS SO TERRIBLE ABOUT VLAD?

Vlad is best known as the (very loose) inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. While he definitely wasn’t an undead blood drinker, Vlad did display a lot of bloodthirsty behavior.

A PAWN IN THE GAME

Vlad’s father was the leader of a country called Wallachia in what is now southern Romania. His father was a member of the Order of the Dragon, so Vlad’s second name, Dracula, meant “son of the dragon.” (Nowadays, it means “son of the demon”).

Wallachia was sandwiched between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The two superpowers went at each other constantly, and wars were fought nonstop on Vlad’s home territory. When Vlad was about eleven years old, his father promised he’d support the Ottomans. To make sure he kept his word, the Ottoman sultan held Vlad and his younger brother hostage. If the father went back on his word, the captors said, the boys would be killed.

By all accounts, life as hostages wasn’t bad for the boys. They received a good education. The Ottomans preferred Vlad’s brother Radu (his nickname was Radu the Handsome) over him, so Vlad was said to be jealous. Once their father’s loyalty was thought to be secure, the two were finally released. Radu decided to stay with the Ottomans. Vlad returned home and soon became the ruler of Wallachia.

BECOMING BAD VLAD

Once he became ruler, Vlad was as warlike as most rulers in his part of the world during that time. But he took his warring nature much, much further.

The most famous story about Vlad is that one time he invited hundreds of local warlords to a banquet. But dinner wasn’t the goal of this meeting. Once these guests had eaten and were sitting back, relaxing, Vlad’s guards swooped in and stabbed them all. Then they were impaled, meaning a kind of pole was stuck through their bodies in one end so it came out the other. Vlad is said to have used rounded poles instead of spiky ones so that the person would suffer for a long time before dying. One story goes that Vlad impaled hundreds on the battlefield, too, then sat down to eat among the dead and dying. Many of those impaled were displayed outside his city as a way to scare off invaders. It’s said to have worked, but it must have scared off the city’s residents, too!

Locals were so fearful of Vlad’s vengeance that it’s said they never committed crimes. There’s a legend that he left a gold cup in the street overnight and no one stole it because they were afraid what would happen if they got caught.

Another terrible story about Vlad involves Ottoman ambassadors who came to visit Wallachia. It was their custom to always leave their turbans on. When Vlad demanded they remove them, they refused. He is said to have had the turbans nailed to their heads. At this point, word must have gotten around not to visit Vlad.

Vlad is also said to have bragged about all the people he killed. Estimates put that number at around 80,000 people, which would have been a large portion of the population in his country.

But when he wasn’t impaling people, Vlad did normal prince things like going hunting with his friends, going to church, and signing official papers. He’s said to have died by beheading on the battlefield against the Ottoman Empire, and then his head was carried back to Constantinople for display. The saying “Live by the sword, die by the sword” applies here. After he died, people started referring to him as Vlad the Impaler, and the nickname has stuck with him throughout history.

DRACULA’S CASTLE

Vlad’s real castle in Wallachia crumbled long ago. But when tourism officials in modern-day Romania saw that there was an interest in Dracula in the late twentieth century, they looked around for a castle that they could say was his.

Bran Castle in Transylvania looks like the castle described in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It’s located on the edge of a cliff, with turrets and sheer walls and a threatening appearance. This seemed like the perfect place to send Dracula tourists. It’s possible that Vlad visited there or even was held captive there, but he certainly never lived there. Still, people call it Dracula’s Castle. It is the most visited tourist attraction in Romania, and thousands of people from around the world visit each year. The castle educates people about the real history of Vlad and the region, but also plays up the spooky local legends associated with the fictional Dracula.

So are the gruesome stories about Vlad true? Most of what we know about him comes from German stories from that time period, including a pamphlet, “The Frightening and Truly Extraordinary Story of a Bloodthirsty Madman Called Dracula of Wallachia.” Because the Germans were his enemies, it’s possible they exaggerated many of the details about Vlad’s terribleness. There are stories from his region that paint a different picture. He is seen as a strong and brave leader for his time. Could the truth be somewhere in between?

THE ORIGINAL DRACULA?

How did Vlad come to be known as the original Dracula? An Irish author named Bram Stoker is responsible for this legend.

Bram Stoker never visited Transylvania (in former Wallachia). But he had read a book that was written about the area where Vlad ruled. When Stoker read about Vlad, he thought Vlad sounded like an amazing character. This set his imagination in motion. As he wrote Dracula, he borrowed certain aspects of Vlad’s life and wove them in with local folklore from the region. In Transylvania, there was an ancient belief in people who appeared ordinary during the day, but then roamed the night as spirits to torment humans. These spirits were undead and could never rest. There were stories of blood drinkers in the region, too—people who had not been accepted into heaven were said to roam the night drinking blood from cattle (but not from humans).

Combining elements of the stories together, Stoker came up with the character of Count Dracula, a nobleman who was also a vampire, living in a crumbling castle in Transylvania. While the name Dracula links to Vlad, Stoker intentionally made Dracula different from the real ruler. Dracula was published in 1897, and it was an immediate hit. In the time since then, “Dracula” has also been the subject of countless movies and books.

Even though there were never any stories about Vlad being a vampire before the publication of Stoker’s novel, there are some stories that associate him with the undead. For many centuries after his death, there was a local oral tradition that Vlad Dracul would come back to life one day when his country needed him.

Vlad’s Legacy

While Vlad didn’t really accomplish anything for his people in his time, the legends surrounding his life have helped bring tourism money to what was once his homeland.

IF YOU HAD LIVED IN VLAD’S TIME… YOU WOULD HAVE:

believed in the Moroi, undead creatures who draw energy from the living

used a piece of linen cloth as a toothbrush, and maybe used a little crushed salt, pepper, and mint as toothpaste

left gifts for the “fate fairies” after your brother or sister was born so he or she would have a good life