In search of the real Dracula (Squeamish?)

BBC ^ | Leif Pettersen

[decimon]

Long before Bram Stoker’s literary Dracula sparked a century-long, global obsession with vampires – both the torturing and tortured variety – a lavishly mustachioed Wallachian prince by the name of Vlad Dracula (r 1448, 1456-1462 and 1476) was making a name for himself by heroically repelling successive waves of Ottoman invaders.

>

However, Dracula famously earned the post-mortem moniker “Ţepeş” (impaler) from his preferred form of execution: skewering. A wooden stake was carefully driven through the victim’s buttocks, emerging just below the shoulders. This diabolical method ingeniously (ie, cruelly) spared all the vital organs, meaning that the now writhing victim faced at least 48 hours of unimaginable suffering before death.

To be fair to poor Dracula, skewering defeated enemies was not unusual in medieval Europe. Vlad’s first cousin, Ştefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great), is said to have “impaled by the navel, diagonally, one on top of each other” 2,300 Turkish prisoners in 1473. And they sainted him!

Dracula’s legend as wily Ottoman scourge and bloodthirsty combatant was sealed in the spring of 1462 when, after repeated failed attempts to conquer the rebellious prince, an increasingly impatient Sultan Mehmed II raised and personally led an army of 90,000 troops into Wallachia. The momentum and morale of this impressive siege took a serious hit when they stumbled upon a bit of Dracula’s handiwork: a literal forest of stakes adorned with 20,000 men from Mehmed’s previous Ottoman army. Ţepeş’ forces, using disguises and guerrilla tactics, picked away at the Sultan’s demoralized forces, including a daring but unsuccessful assassination attempt on the Sultan himself, for months before they ultimately retreated.

>

[TASMANIANRED]

I’m having difficulty understanding the problem.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks decimon. We know this much -- Dracula's not just a textbook case of Type A behavior. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Sherman Logan]

 Then there’s the time the local folks were complaining about the beggars. Vlad invited them all to a great banquet then locked them in and set fire to the building.

The complainers or the beggars?

[decimon]

Then there’s the time the local folks were complaining about the beggars. Vlad invited them all to a great banquet then locked them in and set fire to the building.

The complainers or the beggars?

I'd have done both. Get rid of all the annoying people in one shot.

[PapaBear3625]

Vlad demonstrated you can terrify and put the fear of God into a Muslim. All you have to do is impale 20,000 or so...

Vlad was a prisoner of the Turks for several years as a young man. While among them, he realized a serious weakness: while Islam may prattle on about the paradise that awaits the martyr enough that a Muslim does not fear death, they still fear pain.

A quick, relatively painless death is OK. That's why you have so many suicide bombers. A slow, painful death is a whole different story. Vlad promised them a slow, painful death if they came at him, so they left.

[Sherman Logan]

his solution to keeping the Koranimals out of his country worked.

Actually, it didn't.

Vlad ruled off and on, mostly off, for 30 years, then died in battle against the Turks.

His country was ruled directly and indirectly by the Turks for pretty much the next four centuries. His methods do not appear to have been notably more effective at delaying the Ottoman conquest than the somewhat less spectacularly brutal tactics of neighboring countries like Serbia and Hungary.

[SatinDoll]

RE: Gary and Harriet Necking

Dear Old Lady - you obviously do no know that snails are hermaphrodites, do you?

[TheOldLady]

LOL! Yes, I'm familiar with the anatomy of snails. When they swap DNA, they both get fertilized and produce hundreds of pearly little snail eggs that hatch into the tiniest snail babies that would be so cute if they didn't turn into marauding yard monsters that will eat everything down to stubs if given a chance.

But that's IRL, and Gary and Harriet are in little cartoons made by the talented JoeProBono to promote the FReepathon.

BTW, they aren't "necking." And I have another one where they aren't "slow dancing" either.   :-D

[SunkenCiv]

Snail Porn!!!

[TheOldLady]

Decimon the Impaler for president!

[TheOldLady]

Glad you enjoyed it. I think...   ;-p