Vlad the Impaler and "Count Dracula" - part 2

Many writers have embellished the Bram Stoker novel – Dracula – by claiming that before writing he spoke to experts on Transylvanian history and culture. Stoker’s actual novel was incredibly inventive: many of the motives behind the storylines into the book were not based on his research on local legends and it seems that he was scarcely aware of the folklore, history and geography of Transylvania, whatever the extent of Stokers’ knowledge of Vlad the Impaler and vampirism. Despite the handful of books he consulted, where his story lines coincide with fact is just that – co-incidence. In fact, the reality of the region which features in Dracula and has come to be closely associated with the Count (Bistrita, Bistritz in German), is more interesting than Stokers’ fiction!

Bitrizter folklore is very replete, and in spite of the departure of the German-speakers, the inhabitants are distinct.  Their stories and traditions based on their bloody history are vivid.  Saxon legends reflect those described in Friedrich Muller’s  “Siebenburgische Sagen” in Vienna in 1885.  Dealing with German-speakers in Transylvania as a whole, nevertheless, Muller’s book does have stories particularly attributed to Bistriţa.  One of the stories is about Michael Weber, a farmer from Bistriţa who dreamt in 1826 that a treasure was buried in the garden of a Franciscan monastery.  A ‘black priest’ guarded the treasure but Weber told many people about his dream.  Despite the entreaties of his wife, one night before Pentecost he started to dig below a lilac bush in the garden.  In spite of digging for two hours he had no luck.  He gave up and started off to return home with the intention of coming back to the spot.  At midnight he arrived at Saltpeter Hill and had a rest.  This was the site of the old hanging ground and he fell asleep and dreamt that the black priest came to him again and said “You have begun the work of my salvation; come now and finish it!”  He did not arrive home that night and his wife came to look for him the next morning.  She found him unconscious at the hill and he had been beaten and badly scratched.  After he came round he was fixated on the black priest and would speak about nothing else.  He died in 1831, thoroughly mad.

Within Romanian-language culture the story which perhaps bears the closest relationship to the image of Vlad Tepes as a devil is the legend of the witch that transformed him/herself into a wheel that rolled around.  This tradition is quite common in Europe.  In the case of the Bistrizer version, the wheel is captured and an axle thrust into its hub.  Two days later a man is found with one end of the axle protruding from his mouth and the other from his behind.  This bears resemblance to a method (inverted) of impalement used by Vlad.

Another tale which has a reflection in Dracula (in this case in “Dracula’s Guest”) and which is common all over Transylvania is the story of the werewolf husband.  In this story a woman is attacked by a wolf which tears her clothes but does not harm her body underneath.  When she wakes up the next day she finds shreds of her clothing in her husband’s teeth.  In “Dracula’s Guest” a werewolf lies on top of the narrator in the Gothic tomb to keep him warm after he has been attacked.  These stories suggest that it was believed that not all werewolves meant an individual harm.

All of the tanneries and mills which made the fortunes of the inhabitants have now closed, coinciding with the fact that the river is no longer navigable to large boats [and the salt trade which also contributed to its wealth was replaced by factory-produced products many years ago].  The town is now largely dependent on tourism and processing the products of surrounding farms.

I will deal with the relationship between Bistriţa and Vlad Tepes in a later article, but I will just mention the circumstances of how he first came into contact with the town and how the antagonism of the inhabitants towards him started. In the original version of their book Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu  claim that Vlad, who was living in exile at the time, occupied the legendary Castle Bistriţa (or Castle Dracula (depending on which version of their book you read)) between 1449 and 1451.  When claims that the ruins in Argeş Valley (which featured in photographs in the 1980s) were those of Castle Bistriţa were shown to be false, attempts were made to locate the remains near Bistriţa  In their revised book published in 1994, McNally an Florescu claim that Castle Bistriţa was “built on a small hill in the middle of the quaint twelfth-century German township surrounded by ditches and towers built by the various guilds for protection”.  In the earlier version of their book they claimed that it had been built by Janos Hunyadi in 14   and apparently was a substantial fortress modelled on Castle Hunedoara.   In their revision they also claim that it was allocated to Vlad who “controlled it in recompense for his services to the Hunyadis at a crucial time of conflict with the local German merchants”.  In their revision McNally and Florescu claim that a separate Castle Dracula existed, the ruins of which they found “ a few miles east of Bistriţa on the road leading to the Borgo Pass” but gave no further details.  The “time of conflict with the local German merchants” obviously refers to the period 1456-8.

They also refer to the existence of a historical family called Ordog, which they claim is the Hungarian version of ‘Dracula’, and who lived near Bistrită, but although Stoker uses the word in Count Dracula (which he had drawn from the book “Magyarland”), he would not have known of the link to the family.  As I wrote above, in the 15th century the Saxons of Bistriţa tried to pursue an independent existence, despite being subjects of the King of Hungary.  In 1454-1456 [Vlad Tepes was in Transylvania under the ‘protection’ of Mattaus Corvinus but in fact probably on parole from imprisonment].  The Bistritzers were pursuing their normal strategy, refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of Mihail Szilagy (governor) whom they accused of corruption.  Vlad Tepes accompanied Szilagy when he captured Bistriţa and sacked it and burnt the houses of the leaders of the rebellion.  [Vlad himself captured the Bistriţa Castle where he had stayed in 1449-51/145 and which he levelled]  Only the year before the Ottoman Turks had finally captured Constantinople where they set up their capital.  Within 66 years not only all of Serbia and Transylvania had been conquered by them but most of Hungary.  Although Transylvania was not permanently occupied by the Turks, they launched numerous raids into the Land Beyond the Forest and contributed to the bloody history of Bistriţa.

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Dracula - the legend