Replies

From your excerpt:

Much like the subject matter of the supermarket tabloids of today, the cruel life of the Wallachian tyrant was easily sensationalized.

Just as I thought.

Yes, I know he impaled many. But I thought it was mostly Muslims. Like I said, I haven't read many original sources; I hope to get around to it as I read more about the era of the fall of Constantinople, the period in which Vlad lived.

Oh, Vladdy was a bundle of chuckles. Even given the propensity for sensationalism on the part of his later detractors he did pretty well all by himself to earn his nickname. Not that he was alone - the lords who deposed his brother put that guy's eyes out with hot pokers and buried him alive. It'd be enough to give a feller a grudge.

He got back at them by impaling a few and working the others literally until their clothing fell off in construction of one of his castles, perhaps the one in the picture here. He deliberately overpaid a merchant by a single coin one time and when the merchant told him he replied that he knew it and if the merchant hadn't told him he would have had him impaled. One result of his law 'n' order campaign was that it was said that a virgin could ride naked and with a sack of gold across his entire country unmolested.

And you thought Giuliani was tough...