"Feels like you've had a lot of encounters with vampires lately," Joan of Arc remarked, wearing a thoughtful expression after Liang En finished speaking. "You always seem to find something or somewhere related to vampires."
"That's mainly because I've been spending more time in Eastern Europe recently," Liang En explained, just as Joan finished her sentence. "The vampire legends originated from Eastern Europe, so there are more related ruins here."
The earliest vampire legends date back to the 14th century. At that time, a massive plague swept through Europe. To avoid infection, people often hastily buried the sick without confirming if they were truly dead. For various reasons, when graves were later reopened, corpses were found in altered positions with traces of blood, which was actually due to those buried alive waking up and struggling inside the coffins.
Regions like East Prussia, Silesia, and Bohemia, which were poor and lacked education, propagated the idea of vampires, leading to centuries of vampire superstition.
Modern vampire lore, however, originated in the 18th century. The term "vampire" first appeared in English in 1732 and gained widespread acceptance during this period. This spread was due to the proliferation of education and faster information flow. In 1710, another plague hit East Prussia hard. Authorities, seeking to quell public fear or possibly sharing the belief that vampires were to blame, took drastic measures such as exhuming graves to check for signs of vampirism, like uncorrupted bodies or growing nails and hair.
With improved transportation in 18th-century Europe, these tales spread beyond local areas, reaching the entire continent. Today, some scientists suggest that those historically deemed vampires might have had porphyria, a metabolic disorder caused by genetic defects, marked by light sensitivity, garlic allergy, red eyes, and a need for hemoglobin, which can be alleviated by consuming blood. This belief, taken to the extreme by some, perpetuated vampire myths into modern fantasy literature.
Elizabeth Bathory is a significant figure in vampire legends. According to lore, she killed young girls and bathed in their blood to maintain her youth.
"Do you think that old lady was the inspiration for the vampire countess? I doubt it," Joan instinctively shook her head. "Can you tell the whole story?"
Joan, despite reading extensively, wasn't familiar with the vampire countess's history as it was often considered legend rather than historical fact.
"Tell the whole story?" Liang En tapped the cover of his notebook lightly. "Let me think of where to begin—right, let's start from the beginning."
Elizabeth Bathory was a member of the renowned Bathory family, which had been influential in Hungary for nearly two centuries since the days of Stephen III. By Elizabeth's time, the family had amassed immense wealth and high social status.
From a young age, she studied classical literature and mathematics, speaking Latin, German, Hungarian, and Greek. Unlike Joan, who developed a masculine demeanor only after joining the military, Elizabeth was treated like a boy from childhood, often wearing boys' clothes, learning fencing and horseback riding, and playing boys' games.
It was common for nobles of that era to get engaged in childhood and live with their future spouses. In 1571, 11-year-old Elizabeth was betrothed to 16-year-old Ferenc II Nádasdy, a match deemed appropriate. They married four years later.
Post-marriage, Ferenc gifted Elizabeth the Csejte Castle and seventeen surrounding villages in the Little Carpathians, near Eagle's Beak Rock, as a wedding present. Despite being one of Europe's largest landowners, Elizabeth was meticulous about finances, even directing the purchase of three onion rings in a letter to her subordinates.
Elizabeth invested heavily in public welfare, revitalizing education, establishing hospitals and Protestant schools, sponsoring students abroad, and protecting peasants' and the church's rights. She was highly regarded, with the king even ordering his daughters to learn from her.
However, things took a drastic turn after her husband died in 1604 following a battle against the Ottomans outside Buda, a loss that dashed Habsburg hopes of reclaiming Buda and Pest. At that time, Buda and Pest were separate cities on either side of the Danube, not united as Budapest until 1873.
As a widow, Elizabeth's troubles escalated. In March 1610, Prime Minister György Thurzó ordered an investigation into Elizabeth Bathory, accusing her of abusing and murdering servants. In the same month, her nephew, Prince Gabriel Bathory of Transylvania, survived an assassination attempt, likely linked to Thurzó.
The prime minister's actions seemed sanctioned by King Matthias, the Holy Roman Emperor, who had strained relations with Gabriel. In January 1611, Thurzó conducted two trials against Elizabeth, accusing her of murder. Witnesses and alleged accomplices gave wildly varying victim counts, leading to the swift execution of four alleged accomplices after torture. However, Elizabeth was confined to her castle without a guilty verdict, despite King Matthias' repeated calls for a trial until her death in 1614.
Elizabeth Bathory was buried in the chapel at Csejte Castle on November 25, 1614. A year before her death, Gabriel Bathory was killed by his successor, Gabriel Bethlen, marking the end of the Bathory family's prominence.
With Liang En's final words, silence enveloped them until Joan spoke up after five or six minutes, looking at Liang En.
"No, there's something off about this. From my perspective, Elizabeth Bathory seems to have been caught in a political struggle, and those notorious accusations were probably fabrications," Joan, a former Marshal of France, quickly understood the underlying conflicts after hearing the full story from Liang En.
Thank you for reading this far! You can access more chapters from HERE by joining my Patreon community. You'll gain exclusive early access to the COMPLETE NOVEL.
As a member of my Patreon community, here is what you'll get:
- Early access to the COMPLETE NOVEL.
- You also get access to all the novels I'm translating, you can find them here HERE.
- You Get Ad-free Chapters.
- Plus, you can Cancel your membership at any time.
