Vlad Dracula - the Impaler (1431-1476)

Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476)

If Dracula was ever to truly walk the earth as a creature of flesh and blood rather than a figure concocted in books and on the big screen than that person who deserve that terrible title would have to be Vlad Dracula, other wise known as Vlad the Impaler, or simply put, Dracula. Feared by thousands of people cause of his ways of cruel and unusual punishment and unquenchable thirst for blood, Vlad the Impaler ruled Walachia, now part of Romania, through the years of 1456 and 1476. But what exactly is it that separates him from other tyrants, killers, and rulers? The legend of Dracula actually isn’t that far from the truth.

Born in 1431 in Transylvania to a military governor named Vlad Dracul, Vlad Dracula would be raised to be a ruler. The elder Dracul, who was ruler of Walachia, was a member of the secret fraternity, Order of the Dragon, which was created in 1387 by the emperor to uphold Christianity and defend the empire against the Islamic Turks. Dracul in Romanian means devil, and adding an “a” to the end of it means “son of”, so Dracula literally means “son of the devil”. With his strict upbringing in a chaotic environment where battles were constantly being fought, Dracula soon gained pleasure in other people’s pain and wanted nothing more than to become a ruler of a country just like his father. In 1447 Vlad Dracul’s throne was over took by the boyars of Tirgoviste. Dracula was captured in the coup, but managed to escape and from then on would plot his revenge on Trigoviste’s and try to regain the throne that used to be his father’s. In 1456 after having put together an army of soldiers, Dracula over took the throne and gained his title, Prince Dracula, ruler of Walachia. It is during this time period of his ruling that his reign of blood and terror began. Construction of a new castle was started right away for Dracula and many slaves lost their lives to unfavorable work conditions. Dracula loved seeing weaknesses in his fellow man and would to anything to exploit it even more. One day Dracula decided to clean up his Kingdom and rid it of all people that were handicapped, poor, lazy, born with an illness, or somebody he simply did not like. He invited all these people to a hall so they could have a magnificent feast of food and wine. Dracula was there and asked his guest if they would like to know what it would be like to never be hungry again or to never feel pain, and of course his guests said yes. Minutes later Dracula had the hall boarded up, sealed, and lit on fire. There were no survivors. On another equally disturbing occasion Dracula had 30,000 merchants impaled for disobeying his trade laws. He left their bodies up in his city rotting so other merchants would think twice before disobeying him. Impaling a person was Dracula’s favorite way to kill someone. What he would do is take a large stake and have it stuck in the ground pointy side up. Then he would place his victim on it through the anus or if it was a woman through the vagina, and their body would slowly slide down until death ensuring the victim a painful and slow torture. If any of Dracula’s mistresses were though to be pregnant he would disembowel them and then impale them so the stake could clearly be seen going through. It was during this time period that rumors were circulating around that Dracula ate his victims flesh and drank their blood. The rumors were true. He seemed to gain amusement in all sorts of macabre situations. He would decapitate, boil, skin, hang, dismember, and burn people for fun or to prove a point. In another