The bloody legend of Hungary's serial killer countess
It's not just that 16th-century Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory may have murdered some 650 young women, it's that she often sewed their lips together, covered them with honey so bugs would eat them alive, and then bathed in their blood in hopes of remaining forever young.
“The Blood Countess" is just one of the most disturbing figures in recorded history. See the photos and meet more of history’s most disturbing psychopaths
Hungarian: Báthori Erzsébet, pronounced [ˈbaːtori ˈɛrʒeːbɛt]; Slovak: Alžbeta Bátoriová; 7 August 1560 – 21 August was a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer from the family of Báthory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia).
Báthory and four of her servants were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women between 1590 and 1610. Her servants were put on trial and convicted, whereas Báthory was confined to her home.[ She was imprisoned within Castle of Csejte.[
The charges leveled against Báthory have been described by several historians as a witch-hunt.
Other writers, such as Michael Farin in 1989 have said that the accusations against Báthory were supported by testimony from more than 300 individuals, some of whom described physical evidence and the presence of mutilated dead, dying and imprisoned girls found at the time of her arrest.
In a 2018 article for Przegląd Nauk Historycznych (Historical Science Review) Aleksandra Bartosiewicz stated that when Báthory was persecuted, the accusations were a spectacle to destroy her family's influence in the region, which was considered a threat to the political interests of her neighbors, including the Habsburg empire.
Stories about Báthory quickly became part of national folklore. Legends describing her vampiric tendencies, such as the tale that she bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth, were generally recorded years after her death and are considered unreliable.[3] Some insist she inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897),[ although Stoker's notes on the novel provided no direct evidence to support this hypothesis. Nicknames and literary epithets attributed to her include The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula.
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