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Send us a textWelcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 365 - Vampire BridesLet's jump into Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic novel - Dracula.  Now the character of Count Dracula draws from  draws from historical figures, folklore, and literary innovation, and is widely believed to be inspired by Vlad III Dracula (Vlad the Impaler), a 15th-century Wallachian prince known for his brutal tactics against Ottoman invaders.  The name "Dracula" derives from Vlad II Dracul, Vlad III's father, who belonged to the Order of the Dragon (Dracul meaning "dragon" or "devil" in Romanian).Now Bram Stoker - though we don't have any solid proof of this - likely encountered the name of Vlad the impaler - the 15th century Wallachian prince known for his brutal tactics against Ottoman invaders - in his research for his novel, but there is no proof that Stoker's modeled the Count directly on him. Scholars note Stoker's notes mention neither Vlad nor Transylvanian history in depth. He may have just liked the sound of the name.In fact, Stoker blended vampire folklore with Gothic tropes, possibly inspired by actors Sir Henry Irving (for Dracula's aristocratic demeanor) and Jacques Damala. Many scholars believe he lesbian vampire tale Carmilla (1872) also influenced the novel's tone.Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

This week the girls celebrate the end of No Cuss December and lean into Edgy January with an episode about the truest of blood suckers out there. We're talking certified Wallachian baddie Vlad the Impaler and the original Girlboss Elizabeth Bathory. What were Dracula and Liz up to? Listen now to find out the TRUTH!Use code BIMBOSUMMIT at travelocity.com for 20% off your next visit to Bucharest.Call us! 1-706-45-BIMBOJoin our Patreon: www.patreon.com/bimbosummit Join our Discord: www.hotboardz.chat Follow us on Instagram! instagram.com/bimbosummitpodcast www.bimbosummitpodcast.com

Last time, we charted Vlad the Impaler's ascent to the Wallachian throne and how he earned his notorious moniker. But even he couldn't rule forever and the latter half of his life reflects this as he became embroiled in conflict after conflict, not just with those longing for his own throne, but with outside forces as well. Find out what ultimately became of Vlad in part two of his amazing story! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/historylovescompany/support

In addition to a hike or a cable-car ride up to Chopok peak, visitors to the ski resort Jasná, Liptov region, can meet Wallachian sheep and take a wild ride in a mountain cart down the hill. Host: Peter Dlhopolec Guests: Jiří Trumpeš, Veronika Tabačková

Vampire lore goes back to the ancient world (revenant legends abound from Rome to China) but vampire mythology doesn't come into its own until at least the Renaissance period. Was the inspiration for it all the bloodthirsty Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes, the ruler who impaled tens of thousands in the 1400s? Was he the direct inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula? Partially yes, but it's not as clear cut as most think. In this episode we will sink our fangs into vampire lore, the reign of Vlad Tepes, and where Bram Stoker got his ideas for his most famous novel.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3101278/advertisement

Have you heard the bloody story of the Wallachian conqueror Vlad the Impaler?

Synopsis: Sultan Mehmed I deals with a rebellious pretender to the throne, Prince Mustafa and his confederate Cuneyd, the governor of Nikopol (ref: Episode 15). After settling accounts in Rumelia, the Sultan is forced to contend with a massive rebellion in both the Balkans and Anatolia under the philosophical banner of Sheikh Bedreddin. An overall picture of Sheikh Bedreddin, his philosophy, social and economic context of the Rebellion is explored. Bedreddin's ultimate opponent, the redoubtable Bayezid Pasha, companion of and now Vizier to Sultan Mehmed I, is profiled. The Wallachian ever present threat of invasion is stopped and forced into tributary status. Episode 16 concludes with an overall strategic assessment of the Ottoman Empire in 1420 and the stage is set for the death of the Sultan and subsequent events in up-coming Episode 17. Thanks for listening! Your host and creator Frank would be thrilled to hear from you the listener anytime. Email: empiresofhistorypodcast@gmail.com Follow Frank on Twitter: @EmpiresPodcast Special Mention: 'As the Money Burns', hosted/created by Nicki Woodard. Please take a minute and check her podcast out “[a] deep dive into what happens during the Great Depression to America's richest & famous heirs & heiresses. Scandals, greed, lust, envy.” Here is her link: Episode Guide – As the Money Burns Empires Podcast the Ottomans Listen and SHARE with a friend, subscribe and leave a review please :) Apple: Listen on Apple Podcasts Spotify: Listen on Spotify Anchor: Listen on Anchor Did you know that Frank is also the author of horror short stories? Interested in steady, simple, first-person narratives? ‘I Can't Sleep Horror' Available on the following platforms: YouTube: I Can't Sleep Horror - YouTube Google: Google Podcast Apple: Apple Podcast Spotify: Spotify --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

♪♫This is Halloween!  This is Halloween!♫♪  Supporters on our Patreon and fans in our FB group chose the topics for today's episode (plus now there's a sub-reddit):  01:35 sorting Dracula fact from fiction 07:49 how horror stars got their stars 20:01 when did clowns become scary 23:29 the history behind zombies 28:38 movie monster fast facts!  Mentioned in the show: Overly Sarcastic's Frankenstein run-down Cutting Class podcast on Christopher Lee Oh No! Lit Class on The Phantom   Who needs a costume when you could wear this?!   Read the full script. Reach out and touch Moxie on FB, Twit, the 'Gram or email. Music by Kevin MacLeod  Sponsor: City of Ghosts Brandi B. asked that we sort fact from fiction on Vlad Dracula.  Personally, I can remember a time when I didn't know that Vlad the Impaler was thought to be the inspiration from Bram Stoker's genre-launching vampire Dracula.  Hop in your magic school bus, police box, or phone booth with aerial antenna, and let's go back to 15th's century Wallachia, a region of modern day Romania that was then the southern neighbor of the province of Transylvania.  Our Vlad was Vlad III.  Vlad II, his father, was given the nickname Dracul by his fellow Crusade knights in the Order of the Dragon, who were tasked with defeating the Ottoman Empire.  Wallachia was sandwiched between the Ottomans and Christian Europe and so became the site of constant bloody conflict.  Without looking it up, I'm going to guess that they failed, since the Ottoman Empire stood until 1923.  Dracul translated to “dragon” in old Romanian, but the modern meaning is more like devil.  Add an A to the end to denote son-of and you've got yourself a Vlad Dracula.   At age 11, Vlad and his 7-year-old brother Radu went with their father on a diplomatic mission into the Ottoman Empire.  How's it go?  No too good.  The three were taken hostage.  Their captors told Vlad II that he could be released – on condition that the two sons remain.  Since it was his only option, their father agreed.  The boys would be held prisoner for 5 years.  One account holds that they were tutoried in the art of war, science and philosophy.  Other accounts says they were also subjected to torture and abuse.  When Vlad II returned home, he was overthrown in a coup and he and his eldest son were horribly murdered.   Shortly thereafter, Vlad III was released, with a taste for violence and a vendetta against the Ottomans.  To regain his family's power and make a name for himself, he threw a banquet for hundreds of members of his rival families.  On the menu was wine, meat, sweetbreads, and gruesome, vicious murder.  The guests were stabbed not quite to death, then impaled on large spikes.  This would become his signature move, leading to his moniker Vlad the Impaler, but wasn't the only arrow in his quiver.  Facing an army three times the size of his, he ordered his men to infiltrate their territory, poison wells and burn crops.  He also paid diseased men to go in and infect the enemy.  Defeated combatants were often treated to disemboweling, flaying alive, boiling, and of course impalement.  Basically, you turn your enemy into a kabob and let them die slowly and, just as important, conspicuously.  Vlad's reputation spread, leading to stories we have trouble sorting from legend, like that he once took dinner in a veritable forest of spikes.  We do know that in June of 1462, he ordered 20,000 defeated Ottomans to be impaled.  It's a scale that's hard to even imagine.   When the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II came upon the carnage, he and his men fled in fear back to Constantinople.  You'd think Vlad was on the road to victory, but shortly after, he was forced into exile and imprisoned in Hungary. [[how?]]  He took a stab, no pun intended, on regaining Wallachia 15 years later, but he and his troops were ambushed and killed.  According to a contemporary source, the Ottomans cut his corpse into pieces and marched it back to Sultan Medmed II, who ordered them displayed over the city's gates.  History does not record where the pieces ended up.   Vlad the Impaler was an undeniably brutal ruler, but he's still considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history for protecting it against the Ottomans and a national hero of Romania.  He was even praised by Pope Pius II for his military feats and for defending Christendom.  So how did get get from Vlad Dracula, the Impaler, a warrior king with a taste for torture, to, 400 years later, Dracula the undead creature of the night who must feed on the blood of living, can morph into bats or mist, and must sleep in his native earth?  Historians have speculated that Irish author Bram Stoker met with historian Hermann Bamburger, who told him about Vlad III, which ignited some spark of inspiration, but there's not actually any evidence to back this up.  Stoker was actually the first writer that we know of to have a vampire drink blood.  Vampires are actually a common folklore baddie around the world, from the obayifo in Africa which can take over people's bodies and emit phosphorus light from their armpits and anus to the manananggal of the Philippines who can detach her torso from her legs so she can fly around with her organs trailing behind her and use her snakelike tongue to steal babies from the womb.  In Western culture, though, Vlad the Impaler became the basis for everything from Bela Lugosi's Dracula to Count Chocula.  That means he's also the source of the Twilight saga, truly one of history's greatest monsters.   Ronnie asked for “how some legends got their stars.”  I wasn't sure what that meant, so I asked for clarification.  No, I didn't, I launched off immediately and at a full gallop with the first interpretation that came to mind, as I do in all aspects of my life.  So let's talk horror actors and the Hollywood walk of fame.   Even if he weren't a recognizable face, Vincent Price is probably the most recognizable voice in horror history.  For folks my age, you probably heard him for the first time on Michael Jackson's Thriller.  Folks in their 30's might have heard him first as Prof. Ratigan in The Great Mouse Detective.  Price wasn't always a horror icon.  He'd done theater, radio, including Orson Wells Mercury Theater of the Air, and other genres of films, but 1953's House of Wax, which was also the first 3D movie to crack the top 10 box office gross for its year, solidified his place in horror history.  It's almost odd that Price went into acting at all.  His father was the president of the National Candy Company and his grandfather had set the family up with independent means thanks to his brand of cream of tartar.  Price and his wife Mary wrote a number of cookbooks, one of which my mother had when I was young.  You cannot fathom my confused disappointment that it was just a regular cookbook full of regular, boring, non-scary recipes.  And now, for no other reason than it makes me smile, is another amazing voice, Stephen Fry, talking about Price on QI.:  Romanian-born Bela Lugosi was a classical actor in Hungary before making the move to movies.  In fact, he was already playing Dracula on stage when the movie was being assembled.  Lugosi wanted the role so badly he agreed to do it for $500 per week, about $9K today, only one quarter that of actor David Manners who played Jonathan Harker.  It was a good investment, I'd say, since everyone knows Lugosi and this was the first time I'd ever seen David Manners' name.  Though Lugosi turned down the role of the monster in Frankenstein, he was quickly locked into horror.  He appeared in minor roles in a few good movies, like “Ninotchka” with Greta Garbo, but mostly bounced like a plinko chip from mediocre to bad movies, with ever decreasing budgets.  His drug addiction probably had a cyclical relationship with his work prospects.  He died two days into filming the absolutely dreadful “Plan 9 From Outer Space” and was replaced by a much younger and taller actor and his ex-wife's chiropractor because he fit the costume.   Peter Lorre is a name you might not recognize, but you would absolutely recognize his overall aesthetic.  It's still being referenced and parodied to this day.  See the bad guy?  Is he short, with round eyes, and a distinctive way of speaking?  What you got there is Peter Lorre.  Hungarian-born Lorre struck out at 17 to become a star.  For 10 years he played bit parts in amateur productions, but in 1931 he got his big break in the German film “M,” and Hollywood took notice.  His first English-speaking role was in the Hitchcock thriller “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”  The character spoke English, but Lorre didn't.  Just like Bela Legosi during his first turn as Dracula, Lorre had to memorize his lines phonetically.  Imagine how difficult it must be to put the right pacing and inflection into a sentence when you don't know which word means what.  He continued portraying psychopaths until John Huston cast him in a quasi-comic role in “The Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart and Sidney Greenstreet, which led to lighter roles like the one he played in Arsenic and Old Lace.  If you never seen it, make it you next choice.  It's a comedy, but you can definitely watch it with your horror movies, since it's about a pair of serial killers hiding bodies in their cellar.   Arsenic and Old Lace also features a bad guy getting plastic surgery to avoid the police, which accidentally leaves him looking like Boris Karloff and he's really touchy about it.  I don't know why.  Even though he played many monsters and villains in his career, Karloff was said to actually be a kind, soft-spoken man who was happiest with a good book or in his garden.  We hear him narrate How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year.  He doesn't sing the song, though.  That's Thurl Ravenscroft, who was also the original voice of Tony the Tiger.  The title role in Frankenstein took Karloff from bit player to household name.  Karloff said of the monster, “He was inarticulate, helpless and tragic.  I owe everything to him. He's my best friend.”  By the way, if you're one of those people who delights in going “Um, actually, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor,” can you not?  We all know that.  And since it's the last name of the man who gave him life, aka his father, it's a perfectly passable patronym to use.  Oh and by the way Mr or Ms Superior Nerd, Frankenstein wasn't a doctor, he was a college dropout.  I refer you to my much-beloved Red at Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube for a thorough explanation of the actual story.  Penny Dreadful did get pretty close in their interpretation.   Here's a name more people should know, John Carradine.  Wait, you say, the guy from Kill Bill?  No, that's his son David.  Oh, you mean the FBI guy the sister was dating on Dexter.  No, that's his other son Keith.  Revenge of the Nerds?  No, that's Robert.  The patriarch John Carradine was in over 500 movies, big names like Grapes of Wrath and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but he also did a lot of horror, though it could be a mixed bag — everything from Dracula in House of Dracula down to Billy the Kid vs Dracula.  Not always for the love of it, either.  Sometimes a gig's just a gig.  He told one of his sons, “Just make sure that if you've got to do a role you don't like, it makes you a lot of money.”  Good advice for many areas of life.  If you've got Prime Video or Shudder, look for The Monster Club.  It's an darling, schlocky little anthology movie, which they just don't seem to make anymore, starring Carradine and Vincent Price.     Jaime Lee Curtis could have been on this list since she was in 5 of the Halloween films, but I just don't think people think “horror” when they hear her name.   There were a few names surprisingly not set in the stones.  While ‘man of a thousand faces' Lon Chaney, who played the original Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame, has a star, his son, Lon Chaney Jr, who played the Wolfman, the Mummy and numerous other roles in dozens of horror movies, does.  Somehow, Christopher Lee doesn't either.  In addition to the 282 roles on his imdb page, he deserves a star just for playing Dracula 10 times and still having a career after that.  Also, he was metal as fuck, recording metal albums into his 80's and there was the time he corrected director Peter Jackson on what it's like when you stab someone, because he *knew.  My buddies over at Cutting Class diverged from their usual format to tell us all about his amazing life.   Over in the Brainiac Breakroom, (plug sub reddit, thank Zach), Alyssa asked for the history behind clowns being evil.  One day, a man dressed up as a clown and it was terrifying.  Thank you for coming to my TED talk.   No?  Okay.  Fine!  It's not like I have to research them and keep seeing pictures of clowns.  Clowns weren't really regarded as frightening, or at least a fear of clowns wasn't widely known, from the creation of what we'd recognize as a clown by Joseph Grimaldi in the 1820's until fairly recently.  David Carlyon, author, playwright and a former clown with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s, argues that coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, was born from the counter-culture 1960s and picked up steam in the 1980s.  “There is no ancient fear of clowns,” he said. “It wasn't like there was this panic rippling through Madison Square Garden as I walked up through the seats. Not at all.”  For centuries, clowns were a funny thing for kids — there was Bozo, Ronald McDonald, Red Skelton's Clem Kaddidlehopper and Emmet Kelly's sad clown– then bam!  Stephen King's hit novel “It,” the doll in “Poltergeist,” and every incarnation of The Joker.  It could be seen as a pendulum swing.  Clowns had been so far to the good side that it must have been inevitable they would swing *way the hell over to evil.   Not so fast, argues Benjamin Radford, author of the book “Bad Clowns,” who argues that evil clowns have always been among us.  “It's a mistake to ask when clowns turned bad because historically they were never really good.  Sometimes they're making you laugh. Other times, they're laughing at your expense.”  Radford traces bad clowns all the way to ancient Greece and connects them to court jesters and the Harlequin figure.  He points particularly to Punch of the Punch & Judy puppet shows that date back to the 1500s.  Punch was not only not sweet and loveable, he was violent, abusive, and even homicidal.   Maybe when isn't as important as why.  Why are some of us afraid of clowns?  Personally, I think it's their complete disregard for personal space.  Kindly keep your grease-painted face at least arm's length away.  The grease paint may be part of it.  It exaggerates the features.  The face is basically human in composition, but it's not.  It dangles us over the edge of the uncanny valley, where something makes us uncomfortable because it is *almost human.  The makeup obscures the wearer's identity, so we don't really know who we're dealing with.  Clowns also act in aberrant ways, contrary to societal norms and expectations, and that might subconsciously get our back up.  As for coulrophilia, sexual attraction to clowns…. I got nothing.  You do you.   Charlie asked for the real history behind popular horror icons, like werewolves, vampires, and zombies.  Even though the zombie craze held on longer than the 2017 obsession with bacon, most people don't know about them pre-George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.   The word “zombie” first appeared in English around 1810 in the book “History of Brazil,” this was “Zombi,” a West African deity.  The word later came to suggest a husk of a body without vital life energy, human in form but lacking the self-awareness, intelligence, and a soul.  The Atlantic slave trade caused the idea to move across the ocean, where West African religions began to mix with force Christianity.  Pop culture continually intermixes many African Diasporic traditions and portrays them exclusively as Voodoo. However, most of what is portrayed in books, movies, and television is actually hoodoo. Voodoo is a religion that has two markedly different branches: Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Vodoun. Hoodoo is neither a religion, nor a denomination of a religion—it is a form of folk magic that originated in West Africa and is mainly practiced today in the Southern United States.   Haitian zombies were said to be people brought back from the dead (and sometimes controlled) through magical means by voodoo priests called bokors or houngan. Sometimes the zombification was done as punishment (striking fear in those who believed that they could be abused even after death), but often the zombies were said to have been used as slave labor on farms and sugarcane plantations. In 1980, one mentally ill man even claimed to have been held captive as a zombie worker for two decades, though he could not lead investigators to where he had worked, and his story was never verified.   To many people, both in Haiti and elsewhere, zombies are very real and as such very frightening.  Think about it.  These people were enslaved, someone else claimed dominion over their body, but they still had their mind and their spirit.  What could be more frightening to an enslaved person than an existence where even that is taken from you?   In the 1980s when a scientist named Wade Davis claimed to have found a powder that could create zombies, thus providing a scientific basis for zombie stories, a powerful neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin, which can be found in several animals including pufferfish.  He claimed to have infiltrated secret societies of bokors and obtained several samples of the zombie-making powder, which were later chemically analyzed.  Davis wrote a book on the topic, “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” which was later made into a really underappreciated movie.  Davis was held up as the man who had scientifically proven the existence of zombies, but skeptic pointed out that the samples of the zombie powder were inconsistent and that the amounts of neurotoxin they contained were not high enough to create zombies.  It's not the kind of thing you can play fast & loose with.  Tetrodotoxin has a very narrow band between paralytic and fatal.  Others pointed out nobody had ever found any of the alleged Haitian plantations filled with zombie laborers.  While Davis acknowledged problems with his theories, and had to lay to rest some sensational claims being attributed to him, he insisted that the Haitian belief in zombies *could be based on the rare happenstance of someone being poisoned by tetrodotoxin and later coming to in their coffin.   Bonus fact: Ever wonder where we get brain-eating zombies from?  Correlation doesn't equal causation, but the first zombie to eat brains was the zombie known as Tarman in 1984's Return of the Living Dead.  This wasn't a George Romero movie, though.  It's based on a novel called  Return of the Living Dead by John Russo, one of the writers of Night of the Living Dead.  After Russo and Romero parted company, Russo retained the rights to any titles featuring the phrase “Living Dead.”    Cindra asked for movie monster facts.  The moon is getting full, so let's hit these facts muy rapido.   1922's Nosferatu was an illegal and unauthorized adaption of Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Stoker's heirs sued over the film and a court ruling ordered that all copies be destroyed.  However, Nosferatu subsequently surfaced in other countries and came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.   Not a single photograph of Lon Chaney as the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) was published in a newspaper or magazine, or seen anywhere before the film opened in theaters.  It was a complete surprise to the audience and to Chaney's costar Mary Philbin, whos shriek of fear and disgust was genuine.   In the original Dracula, Lugosi never once blinks his eyes on camera, to give his character an otherworldy vibe.  Francis Ford Coppolla did something similar by having Dracula's shadow move slightly independently, like the rules of our world don't apply to him.   Even though he starred in the film, Boris Karloff was considered such a no-name nobody that Universal didn't invite him to the premiere of 1931's Frankenstein.   Karloff's classic Mummy the next year did not speak because the actor had so many layers of cotton glued to his face that he couldn't move his mouth.   The Creature from the Black Lagoon's look was based on old seventeenth-century woodcuts of two bizarre creatures called the Sea Monk and the Sea Bishop.   To make a man invisible for 1933's The Invisible Man, director James Whale had Claude Rains dressed completely in black velvet and filmed him in front of a black velvet background.   The movie poster for The Mummy (1932) holds the record for the most money paid for a movie poster at an auction: nearly half a million dollars.   Boris Karloff's costume and makeup for 1935's Bride of Frankenstein were so heavy and hot that he lost 20 pounds during filming, mostly through sweat.  His shoes weighed 13 lb/6 kg/1 stone apiece.   The large grosses for the film House on Haunted Hill (1960) were noticed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock was inspired to make a horror movie after the seeing the box office gross for William Castle's House on Haunted Hill.   Filming the shower scene for Psycho was pretty mundane, but actress Janet Leigh was so terrified by seeing the finished product –thanks to the editing by Alma Reveill-Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann score– that she did not shower, only bathed, from the premier in 1960 to her death in 2004.  You can read more about Alma Revill in the YBOF book.   According to our friends Megan and RJ at Oh No! Lit Class podcast, the first use of Toccata Fuge in G Minor in a film was the 1962 Phantom of the Opera.  It's hard to imagine classic horror without it.   In Night of the Living Dead, the body parts the zombies ate were ham covered in chocolate sauce.  George Romero joked that they shouldn't bother putting the zombie makeup on the actors because the choco-pork made them look pale and sick with nausea anyway.   A lot of people know that Michael Myers' mask in the original Halloween was actually a William Shatner mask painted white.  They bought it because it was on clearance and the film had a small budget.  Most people don't know that Shatner later repaid the favor by dressing up as Michael Myers for Halloween.   Freddy Kruger's look was based on a scary drunk man Wes Craven saw outside his home as a child.  His glove made of leather and steak knives was actually inspired by Craven's cat.  Looks down at scratches on both arms.  Yeah, that checks out.  The idea of being killed in your sleep comes from real deaths of people who survived the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, only to die mysteriously later.   1987's The Monster Squad. With a werewolf, a mummy, Dracula, and Frankenstein's monster in the mix, the group looked suspiciously like the line-up of the 1930s and '40s Universal horror movies. To avoid confusion (i.e. lawsuits), filmmaker Fred Dekker made some subtle changes to his monsters, like removing Dracula's widow's peak, and moving Frankenstein's neck bolts up to his forehead. See? Totally different!   Yes, those were real bees in Candyman, even the ones in Candyman's mouth.  Tony Todd had a clause in his contract that he would get $1k for every bee sting he got during filming.  Even though juvenile bees with underdeveloped stingers were used, he still got $23k worth of stings.   You might think 1991's Silence of the Lambs was the first horror movie to win an Oscar, but Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde beat them to it by 60 years with Fredric March's Oscar for Best Actor.

In this episode we look into the origins of vampire mythology, learn how to properly accomplish the art of dying, discover why you should not answer strange voices in the night and find out what happens when you are buried alive with a reanimated corpse.  For more history and folklore content: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/historyandfolklorepodcast Instagram: www.instagram.com/historyandfolklore Twitter: @HistoryFolklore Facebook: www.facebook.com/historyandfolklorepodcast Sources: Claude Lecouteux, 'The Secret History of Vampires, Their Multiple Forms and Hidden Purposes (2001). Katharina M. Wilson, ‘History of the Word ‘Vampire', Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1985), pp. 577-583 Margaret Baker, Discovering the Folklore of Plants (2019). Michael Ostling, 'Between the Devil and the Host: Imagining Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland' (2011). Scott G. Bruce, 'The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters (2016). Stephen R. Gordon, 'The Walking Dead in Medieval England: Literary and Archaeological Perspectives (2013). The Medieval Bestiary, 'Bat' http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast250.htm Theresa Bane, Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology' (2017). T.S.R. Boase, 'Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgement and Remembrance' (1972). Zteve T. Evans, 'Bat Myths and Folkltales from Around the World' https://folklorethursday.com/folktales/bats-in-mythology-and-folklore-around-the-world/   Transcript ‘Vampires fit into no order, no class, or any reckoning of creation. They are neither death nor life, they are death taking on the appearance of life; or rather they are the terrifying grimace of one and the other. The dead reject the night with fear and the living dread it no less.' Hello, welcome to the History and Folklore podcast, where we look at different folk beliefs through history and how these beliefs shape people's perceptions of nature. Today we're looking at the history and folklore behind vampires, their origins and the beliefs and superstitions that surround them. Vampires have really captured the popular imagination over the past couple of centuries. Over this time the vampire has seen many reimaginings, from early films such as Nosferatu, to later books and television series such as Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Vampire diaries. In Europe, the literary obsession with vampires began in the eighteenth century, with a number of ballads such as Lenore, written in 1773 by Gottfried August Burger. The beginning of the romantic vampyre genre is believed to be the short story ‘the Vampyre', written by John Willaim Polidori in 1819. In this, the protagonist Aubrey meets the mysterious Lord Ruthven at a social event and agrees to travel Europe with him, but leaving for Greece shortly after they arrive in Rome when he learns that Ruthven has seduced the daughter of an acquaintance. It is in Greece where he meets Ianthe who tells him of the vampire legend that is well known there. Ianthe is killed by a vampire shortly after Lord Ruthven arrives, and Aubrey continues his travels with him. When Ruthven is killed by bandits Aubrey promises to lay his body out under moonlight and to not to talk of his death for a year and a day, an oath he regrets when he returns to London to see Ruthven living under another identity, and engaged to Aubrey's sister. This story includes many elements that modern audiences are familiar with. A pale, mysterious and high-class stranger, adept at seducing and manipulating those around them, whose body mysteriously disappears after death and who viciously kills and feeds off the life force of its victims. These concepts are developed in later works, and it is probably Bram Stoker's Dracula, published in 1897, that has had the strongest influence on the modern perception of vampires and has cemented certain superstitions into modern vampire mythology. In this tale, the vampire Dracula is tied to his tomb, to the extent that he must bring earth from it with him to travel, he is able to transform himself into animals, he is nocturnal, he induces nightmares, can hypnotise mortals and drinks the blood of his victims, causing them to grow pale, weak and waste away, he is repelled by garlic and holy relics, has no shadow or reflection and can be killed by beheading and by piercing his heart with a wooden stake. While stories such as this mark the beginning of modern popular vampire folklore, they did not mark the invention of the vampire mythology itself, and it is clear that these, and other eighteenth and nineteenth century authors were drawing from a much older and wider mythology, combining superstitions, folkloric beliefs, religious practices and cultural anxieties to create the modern vampire. It is often claimed that Bram Stoker drew his inspiration from real historical figures such as Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracul, and Elizabeth Bathory. However, this theory has been widely questioned  and Stoker's notes mention neither figure. Instead, in a book that speaks of a local ruler named Dracula, his notes just state ‘Dracula in the Wallachian language means devil' implying that this simple reason is the reason he selected the name. Because of this, I am not going to focus on Vlad the Impaler of Elizabeth Bathory. They are interesting, if horrific characters, but I am not interested in talking about such horrors for the sake of it and I think that these stories will tell us less about the average person's general worldview than the folklore of vampires will, so that is what I am going to focus on in this episode. It is interesting that Aubrey in Polidori's Vampyre learns of vampires in Greece, as this is where a tale that claims to be the original vampire story comes from. This apparently Ancient Greek tale concerns a young Italian man named Ambrogio, who travels to Greece and falls in love with a woman named Selene, who was attending Apollo's temple. This angers Apollo, who curses the young man to be burned by sunlight. In desperation, Ambrogio turns to Hades, who promises him and Selene protection if Ambrogio promises to get him a silver bow from Artemis. In exchange for Ambrogio's soul Hades gives him a magical bow to hunt animals to gain Artemis' favour and trust. So the now soulless Ambrogio goes out to try and steal Artemis' bow which he finally manages after weeks of apparently just killing swans to write messages for Selene with their blood. Artemis catches him, and curses him to be burned by silver. Ambrogio apologises and explains his dilemma, which leads Artemis to take pity on him, and balances her curse with some blessings. He will be immortal, be almost as swift and as skilful of a hunter as her and will have fangs to allow him to get blood for his messages without the need of weapons. Eventually Ambrogio ends up with Selene, and the couple worship Artemis in thanks for her gifts. Towards the end of Selene's life Ambrogio bit her, draining her of her blood and conferring her with immortality. This seems like a clear cut vampire origin story. An immortal with no soul and a weird obsession with blood who is burned by both sunlight and silver. When I looked into it further, though, this story seemed to have been recorded in the ‘Scriptures of Delphi' which don't appear to exist outside of an article on the website Gods and Monsters written by a person who had a friend he calls ‘Dan' whos Grandad wrote down stories that had been passed down through the family since the time of Ancient Greece, where they had been told them by the Oracles of Delphi. So this tale is less of a conveniently neat ancient Greek origin story and more modern internet lore, which means you are going to have to listen to me talk for longer about potential vampire origins. Luckily, I think the actual origins are far more interesting and reveal a lot about contemporary anxieties about illness, death and the afterlife. There is a long history of tales in Europe of the dead raising to torment the living. While these dead were not referred to specifically as vampires, elements of these tales were borrowed and adapted to become later vampire lore. One of the earliest of these is found in The Russian Chronicle of Times Past reported a strange event in the Ukrainian village of Polotsk in 1092, where devils galloped in the street, killing those who dared to leave their homes so that it was said ‘the inhabitants of Polotsk are devoured by the dead.' In the twelfth century Saxo Grammaticus recorded the tale of Asmund, who was buried alive with his sworn brother Asvith. When the then scarred and disfigured Asmund was discovered by a Swedish king and his army, hoping to uncover treasure in the grave, he described to them how Asvith's soul returned from hell to repossess his corpse and had then gone on to eat the horse and dog they had been buried with before turning on Asmund himself, attacking with sharp teeth and claws, tearing off one of his ears before Asmund was able to decapitate his dead friend and pierce his heart with a stake. There seems to be a wide variety of ways that the dead could harm the living. As well as directly attacking them, as in the previous tales, they were also known to passively harm the living through sympathetic magic while still in the grave. They would do this by eating their shroud, causing those they had been close to in life to weaken and die until the shroud had been entirely consumed. In Germany, these types of living corpse were known as ‘nachzerer', meaning ‘one who causes death by devouring something.' One account of this type of revenant comes from fifteenth century Germany, where there was a rumour in a certain town that a plague was being caused by a recently deceased woman who was eating her shroud. When the woman was exhumed she was found with the shroud half eaten with pieces in her mouth and stomach. She was decapitated and the plague stopped. Other revenants caused harm by visiting their family and neighbours at night, calling the names of individuals or knocking on their doors before returning to their graves. Those who the revenant called upon would quickly sicken and die. Walter Map recorded an example of this in 1182 when a fallen angel possessed a corpse. The corpse called the names of a number of his old neighbours, who then died. The townspeople were advised to cut the neck with a spade and to sprinkle the grave and body with holy water. This does not work, and the revenant is only stopped when he is cut through the head with a sword. It has been speculated that this type of knocking tale was the inspiration for modern vampires being unable to enter the house without an invitation/ The Greek broucalaca operates in a similar way. According to the seventeenth century thelogian Leo Allatius ‘on the Island of Chios the inhabitants do not respond to the first voice that calls them for fear it may be a spirit or revenant...if someone responds the first time they are called the spectre disappears but the one it spoke to will inevitably die.' Others can cause death merely by their presence. The Polish strzygi will climb to the top of church steeple at night, causing the death of all those who are the same age as it, for as far as it can see. While these tales do not specifically reference vampires, it is apparent that there are many overlapping ideas between these revenants and the later, more specific, vampire that we know today. Revenants are active at night, drain the life force of those around them, are tied to their graves and often target friends and loved ones. There are also many tales across Europe of creatures described as revenants eating flesh and drinking blood. Interestingly there is also a tale from the early seventeenth century Moravia where a village was getting terrorised by a vampire who rose from the grave. A man travelling from Hungary claimed that he could rid the people of the vampire which he succeeded in by waiting for the vampire to leave its grave and stealing its burial linens and cutting off the vampire's head when it came to retrieve them. This tale is interesting as the undead creature is referred to as a vampire, despite displaying no particularly vampiric tendency, such as drinking blood, further muddying the waters between vampire and revenant. Religious writers often explained such events by saying that the corpse had been possessed by a demon, but there were other common explanations for what may cause such a phenomenon. Sometimes it was believed that a person was born destined to become a vampire after death. In some parts of Europe those born with a caul were believed to become future vampires, unless the midwife burned the caul and forced the infant to injest the ashes. Children born with a tail were similarly cursed unless the tail was removed with a coin. People with red hair were believed to more often become vampires after their death, as were brothers born during the same month, or the fifth and seventh sons born to a couple. There was a belief in some Slavic countries that some people were born with two souls, and one of these souls could leave the body in order to cause harm to people, making them excellent vampires. These people were known as dvoeduschniki and it was said that they often hid their second soul under a stone and could not die unless it was found. This is an element found in the Romanian legend of the Strigoi, which is believed to have been a major inspiration for Dracula. In some versions of this legend the strigoi was created when a person with two souls died. When these individuals died the good soul went to the afterlife, while the evil one remained and would return to its body six weeks, six months or seven years after its death. These creatures would often have the same appearance they had in life, with larger teeth, claws and faces red from drinking blood. They were known for causing disease, spreading a pestilence that caused people to waste away. Many of these tales describe the revenant's victims succumbing to a mysterious wasting sickness, suggesting a deep anxiety and need to explain a type of illness or plague, often thought to be cholera. However, many tales also appear to emphasize a widespread anxiety around death in general, and about the afterlife in particular. Many tales of returning dead appear to highlight a real fear of not achieving the ‘good death' that was the obsession of the medieval period to the extent that a significant amount of scholarly and religious thought and writing was put into the idea of the ‘ars moriendi' or the art of dying. According to this philosophy, how you lived your life had less impact on your afterlife than the way in which you died. To achieve a good death, you must die with all of your spiritual and temporal affairs in order, righting all wrongs, repaying all debts and confessing all sins. You must receive the appropriate Last Rites of the church and take the final Eucarist, known as a viaticum. The idea was to break all ties to the mortal coil, so nothing could compel you to return. Even overly mournful relatives could impede the spirit's passing, as it was said their tears would soak the shroud and prevent the dead from resting. Obviously this manner of death is difficult to achieve and there are a number of interesting stories of families meeting their deceased relatives, risen from the grave to beg for prayers or charity to be given or some wrong to be righted so as to shorten their time in purgatory. These tales often differ to some extent to those of the vengeful dead, so I will cover these tales in more depth in a Wild Hunt halloween special episode next month. Other folk beliefs about the afterlife also fed into the fear of the dead returning. In many areas of Europe folk belief maintained that the dead continued their own communities much like the living. Coins were placed into the mouths or in the coffins of the deceased as it was believed that this money may be needed in the afterlife. They had their own inns, continued their trades, danced, sang and celebrated and carried on their lives much as before. It was said that revenants often targeted family members and loved ones as they missed them, and longed for their company in the afterlife. It was even believed that the dead held their own sermons at certain times in churches and those that stumbled on these sermons often met a bitter end. One sixteenth century woman got lucky by first seeing a deceased friend at the church who warned her to run without looking back. She followed this advice, but the crowd of dead who chased her from the churchyard grabbed at her cloak and tore it away from her. The next day,when the woman returned she found her cloak torn to pieces and scattered so that each grave had a scrap laying on it, giving a fearful insight into her fate had she not heeded the warning. The way in which a person lived their life may also lead them to becoming a vampire or revenant. A person who made a pact with the devil, for example, would likely become a vampire, those who cast the evil eye, witches and magicians, those who never ate garlic and those who lived what was considered an evil life, or a life that was in some way outside of regular society. The manner in which a person died could also increase their likelihood of becoming a vampire or other type of malevolent revenant. Those who were hanged for a crime, children who died without baptism, those who were murdered or committed suicide may be more likely to linger on earth. Interestingly, it has been speculated that these types of deaths would have led to the people being buried carelessly in shallow graves, and so would more often rise to the surface and be regarded as revenants. The time of burial may also affect your fate in the afterlife, and in Eastern Europe it was believed that the gates to the afterlife closed in the afternoon, condemning people buried this time to wander the earth. A Latvian folk song even implores the listener ‘bury me before noon, after noon do not bury me, after noon the children of god have closed the gates of heaven.' In this part of Europe it was believed that those who were buried after this time would make their way into homes through the chimney and torture, disfigure, eat the hearts and drink the blood of those living there. It was also said that they could change into animals, flame and shadow and would vanish when the cock crowed. There seems to be a widespread anxiety throughout Europe about being denied access to the afterlife. It was generally believed that a person was born with a fixed life span, usually given to be 70 to 80 years. The ancient Roman writer Censorinus claimed that if a person died before their allotted time then the gods may refuse him entrance to the other life. This idea was incorporated into popular belief, that a person's soul must stay on earth, near their body, until their allotted time was over and they would finally be allowed to pass. Usually they remained in spirit form, but if the spirit became upset, or if some unfortunate event happened, they may reinhabit their body to attack the living. Even if a person managed to reach their allotted time it was believed that their spirit still remained on earth for 40 days after their death. This was a particularly risky time in which it was important not to draw the spirit back by reminding it of its ties on earth or offending them in any way so that they would seek retribution. Because of this, many rituals were developed to facilitate the souls passing at the time of death, often calling on sympathetic magic. Clocks were stopped, windows opened, mirrors covered and knots untied. The corpse would be carried feet first out of the house so the spirit could not look back and be tempted to stay. Often the body would be carried to the graveyard out of a different door and by a long winding route, so that the spirit could not find its way back to the house. When placed in the grave, they would ensure that no piece of fabric lay next to the mouth for the dead person to chew and spread disease. If it was suspected that a person may return as vampire or revenant they may be buried facing down, so that if they woke they would claw themselves deeper into the earth. Strong smelling incense and garlic would also be put into the mouth, nose and coffin to prevent them from rising, presumably because they were believed to be repelled by strong smells. A stone may be placed in their mouths to prevent them from chewing or calling the names of their loved ones. Sometimes poppy seeds would be scattered on the grave as it was believed the vampire would have to count every seed before leaving. Poppies or peas would be sown on the path from the graveyard while the funeral party chanted ‘may the dead man consume one of these every year, and not the heart of his kinfolk.' These methods could also be used to protect the house. Poppy seeds could be placed outside the door, as the vampire would have to count each one before entering. The family of the recently deceased could eat garlic and spread garlic or incense around the boundaries of the house to use smell to repel their dead relative. In Denmark an old spinning wheel would be hung over the door as it was believed the dead person could only enter after walking around the building for as many times as the wheel had turned when it was in use. Occasionally steps were taken to physically trap the dead person in their grave by tying their legs or big toes together, nailing them to their coffins or cutting the tendons in their heels or the veins in their knees to prevent them from walking. In Scandinavia there were even laws put into place to prevent the return of the dead. The Saga of Erik the Red's saga explains that since Christianity was adopted in Greenland it was common practice to place a pole on the chest of those who were buried on farmland instead of consecrated ground to fasten them to the earth. The pole would be removed when a priest arrived to perform a burial service and sprinkle holy water into the hole left by the pole, thereby laying the deceased person permanently to rest. This appears to have been a relatively widespread practice. In 1007 CE Burchard of Worms condemned women who pierced the heart of deceased unbaptised children to prevent their return and claims when a woman and child die in childbirth and are buried, both of their bodies are pierced with rods that nail them to the ground so they do not rise and cause further death. It is likely that this means of securing someone into the grave later transformed into the known method of killing a vampire by piercing their heart with a stake. If these methods of prevention and protection did not work, there were ways of identifying if a vampire was active and which of the corpses in the graveyard it would be. A number of people mysteriously wasting away would indicate vampire activity, which would necessitate opening the graves of those who had recently died. If the vampire was seen, it could be recognised by long teeth and claws, a ruddy complexion and in, central Europe, by lameness, iron teeth and the inability to count above three. This presumably would hinder its counting of any poppy seeds left out, although who is hanging round to ask the walking dead to count I don't know. Any corpses that did not show the classic signs of death or decay, those whose hair or nails had grown after death, those with red faces or whose stomachs  were filled with blood when cut open could safely be regarded as vampires. If this was the case it could be stopped by putting a stake through the heart, cutting the head off and placing it by the feet where it could not be reached, placing strong smelling incense and plants in the grave and sprinkling with holy water. Of course, there were those who were skeptical of the existence of vampires. In 1764 the Benedictine monk Antoine Augustin Calmet wrote a treatise on vampires, concluding that the idea of vampirism came from an overactive imagination fuelled by the malnourishment by the Balkan people, while Jean Cristophe Harenberg claimed that it was illness that caused the fear of vampires stating ‘that vampires do not cause the death of the living, and everything that people reel off in this regard should be attributed only to disorder in the sick person's imagination.' It is notable that the interest in vampires in Western Europe grew in a time when anxiety, fascination and even romanticisation of illness, tragic premature death and communication with spirits in the afterlife was at its height. At the same time that many of the first modern vampire stories were being put into print, spiritualist mediums were gaining fame through communicating with the dead and women were applying makeup to mimic the pale yet flushed look of tuberculosis victims. I think that, even now, tales of vampires returning from the grave help us to explore and process, at least to some extent, our fear of death and the mystery of what may wait for us in the afterlife. Thank you for listening to this episode of the History and Folklore podcast. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting. An extra thank you goes to my patreons Joanne, Robin, Becky, Eugenia, the Fairy Folk Podcast, Louise, Ben, John and David. Patrons help pay towards the cost of running the podcast and are hugely appreciated. If you would like to support the History and Folklore Podcast, get early access to episodes, voting rights for episode topics and a monthly zine then patreon tiers range from £1-£3. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram at history and folklore, twitter at HistoryFolklore and Facebook at the History and Folklore podcast where I post hopefully interesting history and folklore facts pretty much daily and answer any questions or feedback.  

WARNING: there are graphic descriptions of torture of both men, women and children. Be advised. Man is this guy unpopular. This is my attempt not necessarily to vindicate him but to at least bring some background and clarity to his actions. I mean, yeah his rule was one of terror, but it was also one of stability for the Wallachian people. Part 2 will be out next week!

RockerMike and Rob discuss the legend of Dracula. From book to movie we talking Dracula. This is conspiracy 420 Vlad III, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș [ˈvlad ˈtsepeʃ]) or Vlad Dracula (/ˈdrækjələ/; Romanian: Vlad Drăculea [-ˈdrəkule̯a]; 1428/31 – 1476/77), was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. Please follow us on Youtube,Facebook,Instagram,Twitter,Patreon and at www.gettinglumpedup.com https://linktr.ee/RobRossi Get your T-shirt at https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/gettinglumpedup And https://www.bonfire.com/store/getting-lumped-up/ Subscribe to the channel and hit the like button --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rob-rossi/support https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-lumped-up-with-rob-rossi/id1448899708 https://open.spotify.com/show/00ZWLZaYqQlJji1QSoEz7a https://www.patreon.com/Gettinglumpedup #vhs #vampires #thelostboysgarage #1980smovies #horrorlover #thelostboysstar #80shorror #horrorgeek #film #movie #bmovies #bloodlust #goth #coreyhaim #horrorfilms #gothic #kiefersutherland #thelostboys1987 #vhscollection #spooky #omg80s #80svampire #cosplay #horrorfanatic #instahorror #horrorworld #horrorpage #vhsjunkie #thelostboysfilm --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rob-rossi/support

Dracula - Bram Stoker - Book 1, Part 1 Title: Dracula Overview: Dracula is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian noble, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunt Dracula and, in the end, kill him. Dracula was mostly written in the 1890s. Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes for the novel, drawing extensively from Transylvanian folklore and history. Some scholars have suggested that the character of Dracula was inspired by historical figures like the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler or the countess Elizabeth Báthory, but there is widespread disagreement. Stoker's notes mention neither figure. He found the name Dracula in Whitby's public library while holidaying there, picking it because he thought it meant devil in Romanian. Following its publication, Dracula was positively received by reviewers who pointed to its effective use of horror. In contrast, reviewers who wrote negatively of the novel regarded it as excessively frightening. Comparisons to other works of Gothic fiction were common, including its structural similarity to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1859). In the past century, Dracula has been situated as a piece of Gothic fiction. Modern scholars explore the novel within its historical context—the Victorian era—and discuss its depiction of gender roles, sexuality, and race. Dracula is one of the most famous pieces of English literature. Many of the book's characters have entered popular culture as archetypal versions of their characters; for example, Count Dracula as the quintessential vampire, and Abraham Van Helsing as an iconic vampire hunter. The novel, which is in the public domain, has been adapted for film over 30 times, and its characters have made numerous appearances in virtually all media. Published: 1897 List: 100 Classic Book Collection Author: Bram Stoker Genre: Action & Adventure Fiction, Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Gothic Fiction Episode: Dracula - Bram Stoker - Book 1, Part 1 Part: 1 of 3 Length Part: 4:55:47 Book: 1 Length Book: 15:58:53 Episodes: 1 - 9 of 27 Narrator: Kara Shallenberg Language: English Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: evolution, modernity, industrial revolution, economic change, social change, gothic, london, victorian, ancient legends, medicine Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/support

Dracula - Bram Stoker - Book 1, Part 2 Title: Dracula Overview: Dracula is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian noble, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunt Dracula and, in the end, kill him. Dracula was mostly written in the 1890s. Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes for the novel, drawing extensively from Transylvanian folklore and history. Some scholars have suggested that the character of Dracula was inspired by historical figures like the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler or the countess Elizabeth Báthory, but there is widespread disagreement. Stoker's notes mention neither figure. He found the name Dracula in Whitby's public library while holidaying there, picking it because he thought it meant devil in Romanian. Following its publication, Dracula was positively received by reviewers who pointed to its effective use of horror. In contrast, reviewers who wrote negatively of the novel regarded it as excessively frightening. Comparisons to other works of Gothic fiction were common, including its structural similarity to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1859). In the past century, Dracula has been situated as a piece of Gothic fiction. Modern scholars explore the novel within its historical context—the Victorian era—and discuss its depiction of gender roles, sexuality, and race. Dracula is one of the most famous pieces of English literature. Many of the book's characters have entered popular culture as archetypal versions of their characters; for example, Count Dracula as the quintessential vampire, and Abraham Van Helsing as an iconic vampire hunter. The novel, which is in the public domain, has been adapted for film over 30 times, and its characters have made numerous appearances in virtually all media. Published: 1897 List: 100 Classic Book Collection Author: Bram Stoker Genre: Action & Adventure Fiction, Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Gothic Fiction Episode: Dracula - Bram Stoker - Book 1, Part 2 Part: 2 of 3 Length Part: 5:28:21 Book: 1 Length Book: 15:58:53 Episodes: 10 - 18 of 27 Narrator: Kara Shallenberg Language: English Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: evolution, modernity, industrial revolution, economic change, social change, gothic, london, victorian, ancient legends, medicine Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/support

Dracula - Bram Stoker - Book 1, Part 3 Title: Dracula Overview: Dracula is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taking a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian noble, Count Dracula. Harker escapes the castle after discovering that Dracula is a vampire, and the Count moves to England and plagues the seaside town of Whitby. A small group, led by Abraham Van Helsing, hunt Dracula and, in the end, kill him. Dracula was mostly written in the 1890s. Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes for the novel, drawing extensively from Transylvanian folklore and history. Some scholars have suggested that the character of Dracula was inspired by historical figures like the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler or the countess Elizabeth Báthory, but there is widespread disagreement. Stoker's notes mention neither figure. He found the name Dracula in Whitby's public library while holidaying there, picking it because he thought it meant devil in Romanian. Following its publication, Dracula was positively received by reviewers who pointed to its effective use of horror. In contrast, reviewers who wrote negatively of the novel regarded it as excessively frightening. Comparisons to other works of Gothic fiction were common, including its structural similarity to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1859). In the past century, Dracula has been situated as a piece of Gothic fiction. Modern scholars explore the novel within its historical context—the Victorian era—and discuss its depiction of gender roles, sexuality, and race. Dracula is one of the most famous pieces of English literature. Many of the book's characters have entered popular culture as archetypal versions of their characters; for example, Count Dracula as the quintessential vampire, and Abraham Van Helsing as an iconic vampire hunter. The novel, which is in the public domain, has been adapted for film over 30 times, and its characters have made numerous appearances in virtually all media. Published: 1897 List: 100 Classic Book Collection Author: Bram Stoker Genre: Action & Adventure Fiction, Horror & Supernatural Fiction, Gothic Fiction Episode: Dracula - Bram Stoker - Book 1, Part 3 Part: 3 of 3 Length Part: 5:34:47 Book: 1 Length Book: 15:58:53 Episodes: 19 - 27 of 27 Narrator: Kara Shallenberg Language: English Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: evolution, modernity, industrial revolution, economic change, social change, gothic, london, victorian, ancient legends, medicine Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/free-audiobooks/support

Abraham and Dragos visit Marian’s farm.

Vlad the Impaler, Wallachian Prince and the inspiration behind Dracula. A celebrated but bitterly cruel European ruler that fought both his own people and Ottoman invaders to rule his homeland on three separate occasions. Vlad the Impaler lived a fascinating life that earnt him his most brutal nickname of the Impaler. Here at Raconteur, we bring to life the greatest stories from history and mythology to both entertain and educate. We are also on YouTube! For video versions of each story visit and subscribe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU4yfCCgXTUYcSPI0_5rP9w/?sub_confirmation=1 Video version of this story - https://youtu.be/QABIQdFfhb4 Music by Scott Buckley – www.scottbuckley.com.au New stories weekly. Thanks for listening!

In this episode we talk about Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes his brutal reigns and his fight against the Ottoman Empire. He would be popularised and mythologised by Bram Stoker in his 1897 novel Dracula, adapted to the screen with Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman playing the legendary vampiric character.

Chapter 6 of Wallachia: A Penny Dreadful by David Ely. Father Abraham attends the speech by Count Dracula and Negrescu Radu at the castle.

Author: Jane Congdon, “It Started with Dracula: “The Count, My Mother, and Me“ “As a young girl, Jane Congdon loved movies about Dracula. They ignited a dream in her to see the castles and forests of Transylvania, but first she had to face the monster that lurked in her very own house—a mother whose thirst was more frightening than a vampire’s. “ During this interview learn more about Jane and her trip to Transylvania to do research on Vlad the Impaler the inspiration for the character Count Dracula. “Vlad III Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula, was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. He was the second son of Vlad Dracul, who became the ruler of Wallachia in 1436.” Wikipedia

Vlad III Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș, Bulgarian: Влад Цепеш, pronunciation: [ˈvlad ˈtsepeʃ] ) or Vlad Dracula (/ˈdrækjələ/(Romanian: Vlad Drăculea, pronunciation: [ˈdrəkule̯a] , Bulgarian: Влад Дракула); 1428/31 – 1476/77), was Voivodeof Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania.   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Vlad III Dracula, known as Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș, Bulgarian: Влад Цепеш, pronunciation: [ˈvlad ˈtsepeʃ] ) or Vlad Dracula (/ˈdrækjələ/(Romanian: Vlad Drăculea, pronunciation: [ˈdrəkule̯a] , Bulgarian: Влад Дракула); 1428/31 – 1476/77), was Voivodeof Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania.   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Vampire lore goes back to the ancient world (revenant legends abound from Rome to China) but vampire mythology doesn't come into its own until at least the Renaissance period. Was the inspiration for it all the bloodthirsty Wallachian ruler Vlad Tepes, the ruler who impaled tens of thousands in the 1400s? Was he the direct inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula? Partially yes, but it's not as clear cut as most think. In this episode we will sink our fangs into vampire lore, the reign of Vlad Tepes, and where Bram Stoker got his ideas for his most famous novel.

If you’ve never heard of John Caragea and have no idea where Wallachia is, you’re certainly not alone. This look at the seamy underbelly of Eastern Europe in the 1810s may be obscure, but it’s no less fascinating than anything else covered on Second Decade. Wallachia, now part of the modern nation of Romania, was 200 years ago a minor province of the Ottoman Empire, and except as a breadbasket the Turkish sultans couldn’t be bothered to care much about it. That’s why rule of provinces like Wallachia ultimately fell to an elite class of Turkish-born Greeks, the Phanariotes, who outdid each other at sending the sultan lavish gifts to secure political offices. But in 1813 the new hospodar of Wallachia, John Caragea, immediately inherits a hot mess when people start dropping like flies from one of the most virulent outbreaks of the bubonic plague since the 14th century. Things get even worse when Caragea puts the city of Bucharest on lockdown, triggering a wave of lawlessness, violence and thievery that pushes Wallachian society to its limit. In this unusual look at an event little-studied in the English-speaking world, Dr. Sean Munger pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the Ottoman Empire and also paints a grim picture of what it was like to live in Eastern Europe two centuries ago. In this episode you’ll find out what a nosegay is, you’ll understand the utterly disgusting biology of bubonic plague, and you’ll appreciate why residents of modern Bucharest are a little wary when construction contractors start digging holes into the sites of plague pits. When this episode is over you’ll finally know something about the history of Romania that has nothing to do with vampire lore, Vlad the Impaler or the Communist era. Fair warning: though not profane, this episode contains descriptions of medical conditions that some listeners may find disturbing. Sean’s Patreon Make a PayPal Donation Additional Materials About This Episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to what is yet another episode full of fun and laughter from those nut job nerds you all hate to love or love to hate? First up we have the Professor telling us about how Tencent Games is planning to use police databases to restrict access to video games; which angers Buck due to breach of privacy issues and the reality that information will be flowing both ways. Professor is excited to see who is going to be the first criminal located by the police using video games to track him down. Ahhh, China, wanting to be the world’s number 1 in everything is now tackling the obstacle of behaving with extreme stupidity on an international level.This week the DJ brings us a story about the Deadwood tele-movie. Then the discussion delves into the range of movies and does Netflix and other streaming services spell the end of cinemas? Trust me, this is when you want to sit back with a cup of tea and watch the sparks fly. Best news is that apparently most of the original cast is back for this, including Ian McShane. Also some other movies in the works are Braking Bad, a new Super Mario movie (please, please, please don’t be a crappy as the last one) and also Steven Universe. So we will get to enjoy more from Dakota, check in on the crystal meth scene and hope the DJ stops doing weird accents.Buck brings us news of a real life working tractor beam that has been developed in Oz! A team working at the University of Adelaide has made science-fiction a reality for us, although on a reduced scale. But it is a start and now we have lasers and a tractor beam, now we need force fields and shields, please. Buck and the Professor geek out about the possibilities that this tractor beam represents for the future; which in reality is pretty darn sweet, right?Also we hope everyone who attended Supanova Brisabne had as much fun as we did. It was awesome meeting so many fantastic people, check the Facebook page to see some of them, and that is only a tiny sample of how incredible it was. Until next time stay safe, stay nerdy and we hope you enjoy.EPISODE NOTES:Tencent Games’ unique approach to gaming- https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/05/tencent-games-to-verify-ids-for-children/Deadwood TV movie starts shooting- https://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/deadwood-movie-starts-shooting/Tractor beams- http://www.sci-news.com/physics/tractor-beam-atoms-06569.htmlGames currently playingBuck- Mafia - https://store.steampowered.com/app/40990/Mafia/Professor- FAR: Lone Sails - https://store.steampowered.com/app/609320/FAR_Lone_Sails/DJ- Guns of Icarus - https://store.steampowered.com/app/209080/Guns_of_Icarus_Online/Other topics discussedEquifax data breach- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-08/smiley-credit-check-australians-financial-information-at-risk/8887198My Health Record government website- https://www.myhealthrecord.gov.au/Oldpeoplefacebook reddit page- https://www.reddit.com/r/oldpeoplefacebook/PUBG Lawsuit- https://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-corp-has-filed-a-lawsuit-against-epic-games/Days of Our Lives- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Our_LivesBreaking Bad TV movie in the works- https://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/movies/2018/11/08/breaking-bad-movie/Fear the Walking Dead- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_the_Walking_DeadWalking dead TV movies in the works- https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/11/rick-grimes-walking-dead-adventures-will-continue-in-movies/A new Super Mario movie- https://variety.com/2018/film/news/super-mario-bros-animated-movie-illumination-1203021006/Steven Universe TV movie- https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/21/17597892/steven-universe-the-movie-trailer-sdcc-2018Netflix vs Hollywood- https://newrepublic.com/article/148102/can-netflix-take-hollywoodPeter Cushing – Star Wars Actor- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_CushingThe Crow – 1994 movie- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_(1994_film)Deepfakes- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepfakeMore info about Tractor beams- https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.044034Boaty McBoatface- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatfaceFirst object to be teleported from Earth to the Moon- https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608252/first-object-teleported-from-earth-to-orbit/The Jaunt – A Stephen King short story- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_JauntGun of Icarus – Mobula ship- http://gunsoficarusonline.wikia.com/wiki/MobulaFirst voyage of James Cook- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_voyage_of_James_CookRichard Feynman – American theoretical physicist- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_FeynmanMargret Hamilton - American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(scientist)Hedy Lamarr - Austrian-born American film actress and inventor.- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_LamarrSatan 2 – The Super Nuke- https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/15/russia-set-test-super-nuke-satan-2-missile-capable-wiping-britain-twice-7390285/Melbourne Cup 2018 winner – First British trained horse- https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/nov/06/melbourne-cup-won-by-british-horse-and-british-trainer-for-the-first-timeThe Story of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid- https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/jul/11/butch-cassidy-sundance-kid-reel-historyShoutoutsFamous Birthdays6 Nov 1946 – Sally Field, American actress (Forrest Gump, Gidget, Flying Nun), born in Pasadena, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Field6 Nov 1948 –Glenn Frey, American rock vocalist (Eagles-Take it Easy), born in Detroit, Michigan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Frey6 Nov 1988 – Emma Stone, American actress who has been the recipient of such accolades as an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe, she was the highest-paid actress in the world in 2017. She appeared in Forbes Celebrity 100 in 2013, and in 2017, she was featured by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Born in Scottsdale, Arizona - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Stone7 Nov 1728 – Capt James Cook, was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook7 Nov 1867 - Marie Curie, Polish-French scientist who discovered radium and the 1st woman to win a Nobel Prize (1903, 1911), born in Warsaw, Poland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_curie8 Nov 1431 - Vlad III also known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula , Wallachian prince, born in Sighișoara, Transylvania, Romania - https://www.onthisday.com/people/vlad-the-impaler8 Nov [O.S. 29 October] 1656 - Edmond Halley, English mathematician and astronomer (Halley's comet), born in Haggerston, Middlesex - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Halley8 Nov 1847 - Bram Stoker, Irish theatre manager and author (Dracula), born in Dublin, Ireland (d. 1912) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_StokerEvents of Interest30 Oct 1961 – Tsar bomba was tested over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range, north of the Arctic Circle over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The bomb was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. It also remains the most powerful explosive ever detonated. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba5 Nov 1605 - The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot6 Nov 1935 – First Flight of the Hawker Hurricane, a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness by the Supermarine Spitfire's role during Battle of Britain in 1940, but the Hurricane actually inflicted 60 percent of the losses sustained by the Luftwaffe in the engagement, and it went on to fight in all the major theatres of the Second World War. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Hurricane7 Nov 1861 – The first Melbourne Cup, Australia's most well-known annual Thoroughbred horse race. It is a 3,200 metre race, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne,Victoria as part of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races. The event starts at 3pm on the first Tuesday in November and is known locally as "the race that stops a nation". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Cup7 Nov 1908 – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid were supposedly killed in a shootout with police in San Vincente, Bolivia ; the exact circumstances of their fate continue to be disputed. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_CassidyIntroArtist – Goblins from MarsSong Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJFollow us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.comTwitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamatedSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrSiTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

The area known as Wallachia is a historical region of Romania that, under the leadership of the legendary voivode Radu the Black, broke free from Hungary in 1290. As the years passed the Ottoman Empire was growing rapidly on the southern border and came to dominate much of the Balkans, including Wallachia which was ultimately forced to become a vassal of the growing empire in 1417. Accepting this status caused an internal crisis in the country that its leader, Vlad II Dracul, had to navigate carefully. The Ottoman Empire, knowing that Vlad had been a member of the ”Order of the Dragon”, a group of noblemen who opposed the Ottoman invasion, demanded Vlad II hand over his sons as hostages. He reluctantly accepted this and continued to rule an increasingly unruly nation. In 1447 Vlad II was assassinated by Wallachian noblemen. To avoid the country spiraling deeper in to chaos the Ottoman Empire released Vlad’s son, Vlad III Dracul, to take the reins of the nation. Vlad III put the conspirators to death and brought order... but did so with an iron fist that spared no cruelty to those that challenged him. He earned the nickname “the Impaler” because of his favored method of execution. Campaign: “Curse of Strahd”, Dungeons & Dragons Music by: Metatron Omega, Flowers for Bodysnatchers & Wordclock Web: https://www.redmoonroleplaying.com iTunes: http://apple.co/2wTNqHx Android: http://bit.ly/2vSvwZi Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/RedMoonRoleplaying RSS: http://www.redmoonroleplaying.com/podcast?format=rss Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RedMoonRoleplaying

In this Quackcast we cover the Importance of good linework in comics and different line techniques such as Herge's Ligne claire, the traditional thick line for characters and thin for everything else as exemplified in the work of Mucha, variable line widths as in Manga, solid blacks like in American comics, and complex lines like Durer or Hyena Hell. I really seriously thought I could get an entire Quackcast out of the concept and techniques of linework, but honestly I was struggling… Okay, so linework constitutes the skeleton that most comics are built on, with the notable exception of painted comics, photo comics, 3D and vector comic among others… But for most comics line is a pretty essential element. There are a lot of different techniques involved in the use of lines. Herge popularised “ligne claire”, which means that all lines have the same thickness and that there's no line shading. A popular style that I was taut was to have thick lines around characters and overlapping elements, with thin lines for internals and backgrounds. This is popular in a lot of manga, US comics and famously the work of Alphonse Mucha. Part of my technique on Pinky TA involves making my lines grey, so that when I set the line layer to “multiply”, the lines take on some of the background colours beneath them and don't show up as darkly as traditional black lines. The work of Hyena Hell on the Hub is interesting for her use of very complex internal shading line to build up texture and shapes, this can also be seen in the works of Albrecht Durer. Manga is notable for its extensive use of very stylised shading, crisp lines and the use of variable line widths for outlines, while American comics make heavy use of solid blacks for areas of shadow, basically extending the width of the line as far and as solidly as it can go. How do YOU approach your linework? The music for this week by Gunwallace is for The Wallachian Library. It's a dark, black future sounds, neon glows, pulses of energy and ideas, vectors and virtual circuits.Sorry, no link to this comic, the user deleted it from the site. Topics and shownotes Featured comic: Monster Corp - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/24/featured-comic-monster-corp/ LINKS: Ligne claire by Herge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligne_claire Alphonse Mucha - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mucha The Hub - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Hub/ Monster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_%28manga%29 junji ito - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junji_Ito Albrecht Durer - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer Masamune Shirow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masamune_Shirow Special thanks to: Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Featured music: The Wallachian Library WAS a comic by TheHereitcLocomotive, who has since deleted it… For what it's worth you can look at their profile here: - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/TheHereitcLocomotive.

Born in the 15th century in the tiny kingdom of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler instituted a reign of terror unseen in the annals of European history. A despot in his own time and a monster long after his death, this Wallachian warlord set a new standard for violence and oppression. While the rest of Europe was on the verge of a renaissance, the looming threat of Muslim invasion from the Ottoman Empire transformed this murderous tyrant into a defender of Christendom and a hero of the faithful. Years later his death is still a mystery, and interest in his life and times are more popular than ever. On this episode we discuss Vlad Dracula, the Impaler Lord.

In another installment of our "Evil Dudes in History" we explore the history and legend of the Wallachian voivod Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for the most famous vampire of all time. Plus: Which is the lesser of two evils: being impaled Vlad style, or being left to die of exposure on the top of a mountain as an Incan sacrifice? Music: "The Wheel of Hurt" by Margaret Whiting Images Videos http://youtu.be/LHQ7J4IbW8I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AXIFn8zQOY Charity o' the Week: Relief Fund for Romania

Vlad Tepes, a 15th-century Wallachian prince, was the notoriously blood-thirsty basis for Dracula, Bram Stoker's classic gothic horror character. Check out our HowStuffWorks article to learn more about Vlad Tepes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers