Title: Vlad the Impaler
1Vlad the Impaler
The Real Count Dracula
2Vampires are a normal part of everyday life
today! We think that we know what vampires
should look like! We think that we know what to
do To stop a vampire attack! But how do we know
about them? And why are we obsessed with them?
When we think of vampires today...
3But are there any truths to the Vampire myths or
is it all just a load of HOKUM! No the real
Dracula, Vlad Tepes, Count Dracu, Vlad the
Impaler was based on a real person.
The most common Vampire traits are Evil Pale
Skinned Drink Blood Allergy to light Sharp
teeth How to stop a vampire Garlic Holy
Water Crosses Sunlight Stake through the
heart Decapitation
Count Dracula was based upon A real historical
person known As Vlad Tepes or Vlad the
Impaler. He was much worse than any horror
character ever created!
4There have been many myths and legends
surrounding the most infamous monster the world
has ever known. Was he just a man and ruthless
tyrant named Vlad the Impaler? Was he a creature
of the dead who preyed on the living? Was he the
Devil himself?
Let's Take a Look
5Vlad Dracula was born in November 1431, in
Transylvania. He was born into a land at war.
Cutthroat was its nature. It was a land that knew
battle, the clanking of their breastplates being
a daily and customary din. When blood wasn't
being spilled over religious cause, it was spread
over right of land. Fights were continuous.
6From an early age Vlad and his brothers were
taught by their father to steady a bow, wield a
blade and ride bareback before they reached the
age of their scholastic studies. The art of
warfare was important if they were to survive.
His mother taught him religion and Vlad became
a devout religious figure. But he was captured
with his fathers and brothers during a battle and
left to die in a prison. Here he watched people
impaled upon spears.
7At first Vlad was sickened at the site of
impalement. But he grew fascinated by it.
Impalement, the most inhuman of punishments,
involved piercing a body length-wise with a
sharpened pole, the victim then left to die atop
the raised pole. Death was excruciating and
sometimes slow. Vlad watched victims squirm,
scream, haemorrhage, then die. He saw the crows
pick at their carcasses that were often only
blistered meat. Dracula detested the Turks for
their cruelty and wished that he could be given
the chance to impale them. Battered, starving,
cut, singed and now having to view what the Turks
did several times a week just beyond his
windowsill, he probably went mad.
Vlad the Impaler was born!
8Escape!
Vlad the Impalers father died on the battlefield
and his two brothers became traitors. When Vlad
found out he found a sympathetic jailor and
planned his escape. He rescued his fathers
sword from the battle field, gathered a powerful
army and then marched to the nearest village
where his army captured 300 Turkish men, women
and children who were chained together and
marched to Wallachia to build him a castle.
9Prince Dracula's "reign of terror" lasted from
1456 to 1462. No one was safe from the his deadly
decree of revenge. By today's standards, he
would be called a mass murderer. Most of his
killings were politically targeted against
domestic and foreign enemies but sometimes he
killed merely because he was bored. He hanged
his victims, stretched them on the rack, burned
them at the stake, boiled them alive, but mostly
impaled them. Estimated numbers of victims vary
between 30,000 and more than 100,000.
10Some Examples
During an outdoor festival of St. Bartholomew,
Dracula had 20,000 citizens impaled in one
afternoon on the outskirts of a forest. He sat
at a dining table of fine food and wine so that
he might enjoy his lunch by watching the tortures
at close range. He occasionally had a servant dip
his bread in the blood of the dying souls so that
he could savor the taste of life. He noticed
one of his knights holding his nose at the smell
of death in the air. When he asked the soldier if
he was making fun of the situation, the fellow
stammered, "No, my lord, my stomach churns, but
" and he quickly added, "I am not of the stout
heart that my prince be. "But, why would I want
in my service a man who cannot look at death
without regurgitating? Death is a soldier's
livelihood!" And with that, he called to his
bodyguards to impale the feeble fellow.
11Dracula was sympathetic towards the downtrodden
of his land the poor, the invalid, the cripple,
the infirm. One evening, he invited hundreds of
paupers to his dining hall at his castle,
treating them to something they had not had in
years a filling meal. After the desserts were
served, Dracula and his staff slowly meandered
out, leaving only the ragged guests alone in the
hall of stone. This is when Dracula's skilled
archers shot arrows of fire through the hall's
tall windows from outside, igniting the
tapestries, curtains, carpets and dinner linens
into a blaze that erupted into an inferno. The
peasants banged helplessly against the bolted
doors. Dracula remarked "The poor unloved
creatures, it is best that they leave this world
now, on a full stomach."
12Butcher or Insane?
A disease called Porphyria. occurs when the body
does not put heme into your body. In the
past people believed that drinking blood Would
replace it!
What he saw as a child growing up in a dungeon
shaped him.
Why was Dracula like this?
Dracula was not insane, no, but he was very,
very confused.
He did it all in Gods name to punish the
heathen Turks!
He wanted revenge for his fathers death!
13Unholy Matrimony
One may wonder why any woman in her right mind
would marry Dracula, but someone did. It was
either an arranged marriage or, as some critics
suggest, he simply saw her, wanted her and took
her. Who she was is uncertain there are
theories a member of Moldavian royalty, a
Hungarian princess, a daughter of a Wallachian
nobleman. The marriage was tragic and brief and
did not to produce any qualities of
home-and-hearth in the prince. He still kept his
mistresses at the castle he lived in.
14Death?
How Dracula died is anyone's guess...assumptions
are many and witnesses unreliable. Some saw him
fighting to the last until in a battle until
speared by a Turk. Some saw him taking a blow
from an axe by one of his own men in confusion
or shot through the head while cheering his men's
bravery. But, one fact is certain it was
recorded by the monastery monks his body was
found mutilated in a nearby bog The only way
the good priests could tell who he was came from
the medallions and the princely vestments he
wore. He was decapitated, seemingly in
ritualistic style after death. His head was
nowhere to be found.