Hello Poison Friends! Lets talk more vampires! This episode we need to discuss the fictional Count Dracula's namesake, Vlad III or Vlad Dracula, who is also known as Vlad the Impaler. I am going to go ahead and include a trigger warning here for some violence and gory details, but I am including timestamps here for those who want the history while skipping over these more gruesome parts:
36:00-37:07-- Violent/disturbing death mention.
49:54-51:24-- Violence, mentions + details of death via impalement.
36:00-37:03--Violence and more impalement details + Other mentions of torture and murder (concerning adults and children), including cannibalism.
46:03-46:27-- Violent nature of Vlad Dracula's death and treatment of his corpse.
Okay, so obviously Vlad III/Dracula did some pretty messed up stuff during his lifetime and reign over Wallachia. We are covering his history as well as a bit of his father, Vlad II's, to try to understand him a little better as well as why he makes for good horror character inspiration. There is a lot of political turmoil and drama involved here between nations such as Hungary, Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia, and of course the Ottoman Empire. We will be mentioning the many alliances and betrayals as well. In all of the drama, Vlad III created a name for himself as a ruthless soldier, using Guerrilla warfare tactics at times and brutalizing enemy soldiers and civilians. He found pleasure in impaling people alive and watching them suffer and he enjoyed burning down homes and whole villages. He was known to strike fear into invading armies by making sure they encountered thousands of impaled corpses, staked up high, on their way to him. Many of the accounts we have of his life and reign (technically "reigns", because he was removed from power a few times and then took power back), are from 15th century accounts from various sources such as monasteries, letters, eye witness accounts, war records, etc. His nickname, Vlad the Impaler, was certainly earned.
I also wanted to talk about some vampire legends we have here in the US. The two I am bringing to you are from New Orleans, LA, where the very air seems supernatural and superstition is a way of life. There we come by the story of Jacques St. Germain, who gave lavish dinner parties for fellow wealthy, aristocratic folks in the area. He never ate at these parties, though, and there were rumors of him that have since formed into legend.
Another vampire tale from the area involves the "Casket Girls," who immigrated from France in the 18th century to find husbands. Or at least that was what their claim was. This legend is based on the filles a la cassette who did indeed travel to the area around that time, but somewhere down the line, the word "cassette" became "casquette" and then mistranslated to "casket."
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