Countess Dracula
The blood of six hundred, perhaps more, girls and young women stained her hands, her lips, her entire voluptuous body—for she bathed in this warm and viscous fluid, seeking thus to preserve her famous beauty. The scent of death, torture, and innumerable lesbian orgies hovered about her: a sinister perfume. And even when she was caught in the midst of a murderous debauch, no executioner’s axe could touch her white and still lovely throat, for she was the Countess Bathory, widow of Hungary’s great “Black Hero,” cousin to the Prime Minister himself, kin of princes and kings, bishops and cardinals, judges and governors.
Castle Csejthe, its massive gray stones arranged in walls and towers, turrets and battlements, dominated from its bleak hilltop the thatch-roofed village below. The peasants of northwestern Hungary’s county of Nyitra climbed the path to the somber fortress only when imperiously summoned, and then with a fearful reluctance. The Counts Nadasdy, who occupied Castle Csejthe, were traditionally cruel and without mercy, liberal where the lash and the dungeons were concerned, tight-fisted in dispensing rewards to those who toiled endlessly to work their lands.
It was to this feudal chateau, already of hateful reputation, that twenty-one-year-old Count Ferencz Nadasdy, destined for greatness as a warrior, brought his bride, the fifteen-year-old Countess Elisabeth Bathory, already renowned as a prototype of the Hungarian style of beauty: astonishingly white flesh, almost translucent, through which one could see clearly the delicate blue veins beneath; long, shimmering, silken hair, black as the plumage of the raven; sensual, scarlet lips; great dark eyes, capable of doelike tenderness, but sometimes igniting into savage anger, and at others glazing over with the abandoned somnolence of intense sexual passion.
Who can say what course the lives of this pair might have taken had the young Count Nadasdy remained at home, with his ardent and beautiful young wife, instead of galloping off to win on bloody battlefields the acclaim of all Hungary? They were well matched: the same tigerish desires drove them, the same streak of barbarous cruelty surged in their blood. Even Elisabeth’s consuming interest in witchcraft, sorcery, and diabolism was one they shared. That despite all separations, all the tests to which it was put, their love for one another endured, is testimonial enough to the powerful bond that linked them.
If the taint of traditional savagery marred the bloodstream of the noble Nadasdy line, no less was it true that hereditary forces found their culmination in the monstrous passions of Elisabeth Bathory. Hers was a curious heritage, wherein distinction and even greatness resided side by side with psychosis, brutality, and extremes of corruption.
Kings and cardinals, bishops and judges, sheriffs and governors bore proudly the name of Bathory. The prime minister of Hungary, Gyorgy Thurzo, was Elisabeth’s cousin. The great Sigismund Bathory, Prince of Transylvania, was her kinsman. One of the greatest of Hungary’s military leaders, Sigismund was both a genius and a madman, noted for the savagery and instability of his temperament. An aunt, one of the most distinguished ladies of the royal court, was a witch and a lesbian, a notorious corruptor of young girls. An uncle, equally distinguished, was a sorcerer, an alchemist, a witch, and a worshipper of the Devil. Elisabeth’s own brother, handsome and brilliant like all the Bathorys, was a satyr, a monster of depravity, whose lusts were so overwhelming and barbaric that neither child nor withered crone could be considered safe from his unremitting and twisted cravings.
As if this heritage were not sufficient, the Countess Elisabeth was exposed from infancy to the vicious teachings of her nurse, Ilona Joo, a woman steeped in black magic, witchcraft, and satanism. Never, throughout her life, was Elisabeth to know freedom from this malign influence: an influence paid its full due by the Hungarian tribunal, which burned the hag alive after putting her to the torture, while others of the Countess’ entourage were merely beheaded.
Left in the castle by her warrior husband, Elisabeth, her sexuality fully aroused by the virile Nadasdy, grew ever more lonely and more frustrated. The magic of Ilona Joo could not relieve her anguish. Gradually, she accumulated around her other witches, alchemists, and sorcerers: Darvula, a strange female creature who had practiced her witchcraft in the depths of the forest; Johannes Ujvary, alchemist and black magician, servant and plotter of tortures; Thorko, sorcerer and favorite of Nadasdy, who sometimes accompanied his master into battle, meanwhile formulating evil spells for the Count to send home by courier—tokens of his affection—to his beloved young countess; Dorottya Szentes, witch, lesbian, and sadist; and others of similar qualifications and predilections.
It was still not enough. Elisabeth summoned to the castle a pale young nobleman whose strange black eyes flashed in a head made even more cadaverous by long dark hair that hung thin and lifeless to his shoulders. He was reputed to be a vampire, and perhaps it was this that fanned to flames Elisabeth’s smoldering passion. The pair eloped—it was her only infidelity—but soon she returned, alone.
Forgiven by Nadasdy, who could understand the overwhelming force of passions no less demanding than his own, Elisabeth absorbed herself again in witchcraft and—since no man save her husband would again know her embraces—in other practices aimed at easing the aching her body knew in the long lonely nights.
With her two personal maids, Barsovny and Otvos, carefully chosen for their youth, their beauty, and their unscrupled ardor, Elisabeth abandoned herself to all the possible pleasures one woman may know in the arms of another. For a time this, and the occasional visits of her husband, were sufficient to fend off her evil destiny. But always in Elisabeth’s ear were the whispers of the crone Ilona Joo, hinting of other, far more perverse, more dangerous, more monstrous pleasures. Long before she succumbed, Elisabeth knew that one day she would put into practice the evil her old nurse suggested. As fully as Ilona Joo, perhaps more fully than the old woman or any other member of her corrupt household, Elisabeth craved the descent into evil. If she delayed, it was from prudence, a fear of the consequences, and not from any want of desire or absence of depravity sufficient to the dark deeds contemplated.
For ten years following her marriage the Countess had failed to conceive, though Nadasdy, strongly desirous of a male heir, strove manfully. At length, the bevy of witches, alchemists, black magicians, and sorcerers was instructed to take a hand in the matter. Perhaps they were successful. At any rate, shortly after her twenty-sixth birthday Elisabeth gave birth to a child, who was followed in quick succession by three others. For a time, the Countess was absorbed by her maternal role. Like a typical mother, she dispatched loving notes to Nadasdy, returned to the wars, advising him of the doings and health of the children. Indeed, up until Nadasdy’s death, when she was almost forty, Elisabeth seems to have resisted the more extreme urgings of Ilona Joo and the others. But once her husband, who had been a true lover and companion, was gone, Elisabeth at last cast off all restraints.
Strange and fearful whisperings began to be heard in the village, and at night the peasants locked themselves in their houses and listened in terror to the anguished and agonized screams that sometimes drifted down to them from the hill-top. Despite all precautions, children disappeared, as did young girls, even some of the younger women. Occasionally people came to the village, inquiring after travelers—girls and women—who had last been seen in that vicinity. The peasants were not helpful in such cases. The less said, they surmised, the better.
The maids and former lesbian lovers of the Countess, Barsovny and Otvos, were assigned the roles of procurers and kidnappers. If they could not tempt girls and women to the castle with promises of jobs, they drugged them, beat them into insensibility or submission, or otherwise overpowered them. For no less than eleven years the terrified peasants watched from behind their curtained windows and shuddered as the carriage, drawn by black horses and illuminated by moonlight, descended from Castle Csejthe to roam the countryside in search of new victims. On its sides the carriage bore the emblems of the Nadasdys and the Bathorys: symbols of power no mere policeman would ever dare to challenge.
It was not for the indulgence of her lesbian pleasures only that the Countess required this endless flow of children, girls, and women, not one of whom ever managed to escape the castle alive. Even in middle age, Elisabeth was still a remarkably beautiful woman, seeming far younger than her years. Still, time was beginning to take its toll. It could not be denied—not, at least, by the vain Elisabeth herself. Then, one day, around the time of her husband’s death, there occurred an incident that determined to a degree the nature of all the horrors to follow.
Striking one of her maids for some act of carelessness, the Countess noted that where the blood she had drawn fell upon her skin the flesh seemed whiter, younger, softer than before. Obtaining more blood, she bathed her beautiful face in it. Sure enough, or so it seemed, the blood restored the youthful texture and vibrancy to her flesh. After that, she was not long in concluding that complete and regular submersion in blood would restore her entire body to the full bloom of youthful loveliness. It was to appease this requirement, as well as her sadistic and lesbian ones, that Barsovny and Otvos scoured the countryside by night, luring, kidnapping, and overpowering new victims for their insatiable mistress.
Ilona Joo and other witches, magicians, and sorcerers had long been insisting to the Countess that only human sacrifices would enable them to achieve the desired results with their magic. For the alchemical experiments, skulls and other bones, especially those of small children, were urgently needed. Further, all in the castle, from the Countess on down to her lowliest cohort, seem to have been capable of deriving intense erotic pleasure from sadistic orgies of torture and murder. Thus there was nothing but enthusiasm when it became apparent that Elisabeth’s blood baths would also make possible the fulfillment and indulgence of the other needs.
In the dungeons beneath the castle, girls and women were chained to the walls and fed like cattle being fattened for market. The fatter they were, thought the Countess, the more blood in their veins; and the healthier, the better the cosmetic effects of their blood when she immersed herself in her gory baths.
The delicacy of the Countess’ flesh was such, she thought, that it could not be subjected to drying by coarse towels. Emerging from her tub, covered with human blood from head to toe, she had herself licked by girls, carefully chosen for their beauty and, above all, for the softness of their tongues. If such a girl became ill or otherwise displayed her disgust, horrible tortures and a speedy death awaited her—as each was firmly advised before being admitted into the Countess’ bloody presence. If, however, a girl reacted as if with pleasure to the experience, and especially if she lingered long and lovingly between Elisabeth’s ceaselessly voracious thighs, she might gain the Countess’ favor. Such favor might mean a deferral of the death sentence for a considerable length of time, though it seldom did. The Countess soon wearied of those she exploited for her pleasure, however obliging they might be. And not infrequently she took a particular delight in inflicting the most cruel tortures of all upon precisely those who for a time had been her favorites.
Some of the tortures inflicted by Elisabeth and the others upon their victims are a matter of record, preserved in still-existing (at last word) records pertaining to her trial. At that trial, Ilona Joo and Thorko, along with others, testified that hundreds of girls had been, over the years, kept in the dungeons and milked there, by means of incisions, of their blood, as if they were a kind of human dairy herd. The Countess, these accomplices turned witnesses declared, not only bathed in this blood, but she also drank it, as did some of the others.
Human sacrifices were made, in the course of magical and alchemical experiments and rituals and other practices. Girls were bound with ropes, and these were twisted until they cut into the flesh, after which the veins were opened with scissors, and the blood, as a result of the “tourniquets,” spurted forth under great pressure, drenching the walls of the torture chamber as well as the eager bodies of the torturers. Girls were beaten with whips and their flesh slit with knives. Sometimes they were flayed, and after this “frozen” in tubs of icy water. The victims were also, it was testified, forced to hold in their hands metallic objects heated until they glowed. Paper was placed at their toes, and then set afire. Some of the tortures described were “so revolting” that even at that time, when torture was commonplace as a punishment and in the questioning of accused persons, the judges found themselves scarcely able to believe that such things could be. (Eisler insists, taking his information from Von Elsberg by way of another writer, that most of the victims were brought to the Countess’ bed and there “bitten to death.” But apparently a great many died in other ways, as the trial testimony indicates.)
Rumors of these tortures and murders and reports of kidnappings had reached the ears of the authorities, and even come to the attention of King Matthias of Hungary, years before any action was taken. It was most difficult to proceed against the Countess, whose distinguished family had powerful friends everywhere. Her cousin, the prime minister, was by no means eager to confirm his suspicions about what was going on at Csejthe. But despite all this, it was at last and reluctantly decided that an investigation would have to be undertaken. Once this decision had been made, the inquiry was placed under the personal direction of Prime Minister Thurzo, who took with him to the village the governor of the province. There, they conferred with the village priest, who had lodged a lengthy and specific complaint, as well as with numerous villagers who insisted that the castle was the residence of a vampire. They were more nearly correct in this than either Thurzo or his chief assistant, the governor, suspected.
The raid on Castle Csejthe was conducted on New Year’s Eve, when it was hoped the raiding party would be able to approach the castle undetected. This proved to be the case, and the raiders, Prime Minister Thurzo, the governor, the priest, and numerous soldiers and policemen, gained the summit of the hill unnoticed. There, they found the massive doors of the castle ajar, and were able simply to walk in. Grisly surprises awaited them.
In the great hall, not far from the door, lay the pale, lifeless body of a young girl, the blood completely drained from her body. Sprawled grotesquely and pitiably on the floor, a few paces away, lay another girl, still alive. Her body had been pierced repeatedly with some kind of sharp instrument, and a great deal of blood had obviously been removed. Yet a little further on, chained to a pillar, was the body of another murdered girl. She had been burned, savagely whipped, and her blood drained from her body.
Hastening to the dungeons below, which the prime minister recalled from childhood visits to the castle, the party found several dozen children, girls, and women, many of whom had been bled repeatedly by the Countess and her household. Others had not yet been molested, and were fat and in excellent health, for all the world like animals ready to be shipped off to the slaughter-house.
Still, the party of raiders went unnoticed. After freeing the captives from their chains, they made their way to the second floor of the castle. There, they surprised the Countess and the others in the midst of a drunken and depraved orgy, details of which are said to have been too awful to be described. The celebrants were easily overpowered and taken into custody, Countess Bathory being confined in her apartment in the castle under heavy guard, and the others taken away to a nearby jail.
The trial court was convened as quickly as possible, with Theodosius de Szulo of the Royal Supreme Court presiding. The seriousness of the case and the high position of Elisabeth Bathory are emphasized by the fact that no less than twenty other judges, all of prominence, were on hand to assist Szulo.
The corpses, skeletons, and other human remains found by the raiders at Csejthe, along with a mass of additional evidence including testimony of the liberated prisoners, eliminated all possibility that pleas of “not guilty” might reasonably be entered. Instead, having been caught red-handed (an accurate description here if anywhere!), the murderous crew of witches and sorcerers, diabolists and alchemists, competed to see who could provide the court with the most detailed and horrifying testimony, each hoping, by such enthusiastic and unreserved cooperation, to win clemency. Some of that testimony has already been summarized, and to repeat more of it would shed no further light on the case.
Present in the courtroom were all the accused except one: the principal defendant, Elisabeth Bathory. She was permitted to remain in her apartment at the castle, where she was kept under heavy guard at all times. In absentia, she was announced convicted along with the rest. All were held to be guilty of at least eighty murders, the number of identifiable cadavers actually found. There were strong indications, however, that the real number of victims was in excess of three hundred, and possibly as high as six hundred and fifty.
After due consideration of the roles played by each of the defendants, the court announced the following sentences, which were without exception carried out.
Ilona Joo: Her fingers will be torn off one by one, after which torture she will be burned alive and her ashes strewn.
Dorottya Szentes: The fingers will be torn off one by one, to be followed by burning alive. (It is not clear why Szentes was singled out to share with Ilona Joo the more extreme punishment.)
Johannes Ujvary, Thorko, Darvula, Barsovny, Otvos: All will have their heads struck from their bodies by the executioner.
Following the solemn reading of these grim sentences, Judge Szulo at once declared the special tribunal adjourned. The reader will note, no doubt, that in reading the sentences Judge Szulo omitted the name of Countess Elisabeth Bathory.
This was not done lightly. King Matthias II of Hungary, whose father had been a wedding guest at the ceremony uniting Elisabeth and Count Nadasdy, was personally interested in the case and, despite many close ties with the Bathorys and the Nadasdys, favored execution. Only the strenuous efforts of Prime Minister Thurzo, who convinced the King of Elisabeth’s insanity—and perhaps brought other pressures to bear—saved her from sharing the fate of her childhood nurse and lifelong mentor, Ilona Joo.
In Elisabeth’s apartment at Castle Csejthe, the stone masons went to work. Her windows were walled up, save for tiny slits in the stone, left for ventilation. The same was done with the entrance to the apartment, with the exception that there was left an aperture through which food might be passed in to the prisoner. Inside this heavily walled apartment, never to be seen again in life, was Countess Elisabeth Bathory, still a strikingly beautiful and strangely youthful woman, though she was nearing her fiftieth birthday.
The Countess lived for four more years in her solitary confinement, never attempting to communicate with anyone, never uttering a sound that could be heard by the guards always stationed outside the slitlike aperture in the massive stone wall that imprisoned her. Her death, detected only when the food plates went for a long time untouched, is believe to have occurred on the 21st of August, 1614. She was fifty-four.
—R.E.L.M. & E.L.