0:00

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

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of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

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from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion

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is advised. In

0:12

the more than two years since I've been

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putting Noble Blood out into the world,

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by far, the most frequently

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requested subject for me to cover is

0:21

the Hungarian countess Elizabeth

0:23

Bathory. Chances are

0:25

if you're a fan of historical trivia

0:28

or true crime corners of the Internet,

0:30

you at least have a passing familiarity

0:33

with Bathory. She's often

0:35

positioned, including by the Guinness

0:37

Book of World Records, as the most

0:39

prolific female serial killer

0:42

of all time. In

0:44

the centuries since Elizabeth Bathory's

0:47

life, her story has traveled as

0:49

folklore and word of mouth, horror

0:51

story, as pop history,

0:53

and now spooky Internet

0:56

irreverence. The basic

0:58

version of the narrative is that Elizabeth

1:01

Bathory was a wealthy and

1:03

powerful countess in sixteenth

1:05

and seventeenth century Hungary,

1:07

and that her estates became nightmare

1:10

dens of sadistic torture that

1:12

she inflicted first on her servant

1:14

girls and then eventually

1:17

as time went on and the daughters

1:20

of noblemen too young girls

1:22

who had been sent to her palaces to

1:24

learn basic courtly etiquette.

1:27

Stories of Elizabeth Bathory often

1:30

include gruesome details of her torture.

1:33

That she would take a girl and strip

1:35

her naked before covering her

1:37

with honey and sending her out into

1:39

the fields to be devoured by insects.

1:42

Bathory would stick needles beneath

1:44

fingernails, cut off flesh,

1:47

whip servants with stinging nettles,

1:50

or forced girls naked into

1:52

freezing ice baths. There

1:54

was seemingly no end to

1:56

Elizabeth Bathori's depravity,

1:59

nor to her creative means of indulging

2:02

her sadism. Most

2:04

popular culture depictions of Elizabeth

2:06

Bathory also include one

2:08

very specific element that

2:11

the countess not only murdered

2:13

young girls, but that she bathed

2:16

in their blood, believing that

2:18

it would keep her forever young

2:20

and beautiful. It's

2:23

the perfect detail, incredibly

2:26

visual and cinematic. Can't

2:28

you picture it now, the aging

2:31

Countess, vain and ever

2:33

fearful, lowering herself

2:35

into a golden tub filled

2:37

with crimson. It gives her

2:39

motivation for the murders beyond

2:42

insanity or mere sadism.

2:45

It makes the story unforgettable.

2:48

If you know the name Elizabeth Bathory,

2:50

at all. It's because, you know,

2:53

Elizabeth Bathory, the bloody

2:55

serial killer, the blood

2:57

countess. But what if

2:59

we been wrong about her this entire

3:02

time? What if Elizabeth

3:04

Bathory was completely

3:06

innocent. In recent

3:08

years, a few scholars have attempted

3:10

to reframe Elizabeth Bathory

3:13

not as a murderous but as

3:15

a victim of circumstances, manipulated

3:19

by the Hungarian crown and the

3:21

encroaching Habsburg power, punished

3:24

for being a wealthy and powerful

3:26

woman in the wrong family, conveniently

3:29

disposed of on trumped up

3:31

charges. Those scholars

3:34

suggest that, as so often

3:36

happens, hundreds of years

3:38

of rumors and exaggeration have

3:40

taken root, and when a story

3:42

is better than the truth, well that

3:45

story is almost impossible to kill.

3:48

Now, personally, I'm not certain

3:51

I'm fully convinced one way or the other.

3:54

I think the problem with certain pieces

3:56

of evidence is that they can be explained

3:59

reasonably in either direction. But

4:01

to put the case into modern legal

4:04

parlance, there's certainly reasonable

4:06

doubt, and I think it's worth trying

4:09

to understand why maybe a

4:11

famous historical monster might

4:14

have just been a woman all along.

4:17

I'm Dana Schwartz, and this

4:20

is noble blood. In

4:26

the sixteenth century, when Elizabeth

4:29

Bathory was born, Transylvania

4:31

was a principality within the Kingdom

4:33

of Hungary. The Holy Roman

4:35

Empire was a looming neighbor ruled

4:38

by the powerful Habsburg family.

4:41

At certain periods in history, Hungary

4:43

and the Holy Roman Empire would have the same

4:46

monarch. That's what the Habsburgs

4:48

certainly wanted to consolidate

4:50

their power, for their leader not only

4:52

to be emperor but also king

4:54

of Hungary, and why not Lithuania

4:57

and Poland as well. Transylvan

5:00

Out was a pebble in their shoe,

5:02

a stronghold for Eastern independence

5:05

from Western Habsburg influence

5:07

of these little principalities, and

5:09

the Bathories were one of the most influential

5:12

families across those principalities.

5:16

Elizabeth born August seventh,

5:18

fifteen sixty was a product

5:20

of an illustrious lineage.

5:23

Her paternal uncle was the Voivode,

5:25

or highest ranking official of Transylvania.

5:28

Her father was a baron. Elizabeth's

5:31

mother was also a Bathory, and on

5:33

that side, her grandfather was a

5:35

previous by vote of Transylvania, and

5:37

her uncle, Stephen Bathory, was

5:40

the King of Poland and Grand Duke

5:42

of Lithuania. Some here

5:44

that Elizabeth's parents were both Bathories,

5:47

and we've that into their Halloween story

5:50

about her, that being in bred

5:52

was the source of her mental illness, her

5:54

sadism. There were reports

5:57

of her having epilepsy in her childhood.

5:59

Surely that too, some believe is

6:01

the result of her parents blood being

6:04

too close. Fortunately

6:06

for Elizabeth, her parents were

6:08

from two extremely distant

6:10

branches of the family, though

6:12

the name had been preserved. Her mother and

6:14

father were separated from their last

6:17

common ancestor by seven

6:19

generations and two hundred years.

6:22

But Elizabeth was sickly as a

6:24

young child, prone to seizures

6:26

that were diagnosed in the sixteenth century

6:29

as falling sickness. Some

6:31

say that one of the treatments involved opening

6:34

a cut and letting the blood of a healthy

6:36

person enter the body, and so

6:38

that too, is used as a

6:40

morbid little detail to foreshadow

6:43

Elizabeth's alleged blood lust.

6:46

The rumors about Elizabeth Bathory's

6:48

life are countless, and I've found

6:50

that most sources on the Internet

6:53

either willfully forego actual

6:55

evidence or just except that

6:57

Elizabeth today lives more as

7:00

folklore than an actual historical

7:02

figure. One

7:08

of the rumors is that when Elizabeth

7:10

was thirteen, she had an affair

7:13

with a peasant boy and gave birth

7:15

to a child. There's no evidence

7:17

of that. What we do know is that

7:19

when she was ten years old, she was engaged

7:22

to Count Ference Nadashti, who

7:24

was five years older than her and

7:26

from one of the most powerful noble families

7:29

over in the Kingdom of Hungary. The

7:31

pair were married when Elizabeth was fifteen

7:34

and Ference was twenty, at an event

7:36

with four thousand and five hundred

7:39

guests in attendance. We

7:41

don't know if the pair were in love, but they

7:43

seemed to at least like each other well enough

7:45

to have five known children,

7:48

three of whom survived to adulthood. But

7:51

the purpose of their marriage, like most

7:53

early modern marriages, wasn't

7:55

happiness. This marriage codified

7:58

an incredibly lucrative allotans,

8:00

one that would make the couple two of the

8:02

most powerful figures in Eastern Europe

8:05

at the time, with enough the states

8:07

scattered across Hungary that an

8:09

army could traverse the country

8:11

by using their properties as protective

8:14

lily pads. If it's

8:16

difficult for you to visualize the

8:18

very complicated geopolitics at the

8:20

time. Think of Transylvania

8:23

and Hungary as a square

8:25

rectangle situation. All

8:27

squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles

8:30

are squares. Transylvania

8:32

was a part of Hungary, but there were parts

8:34

of the Kingdom of Hungary that existed outside

8:36

of Transylvania. At the

8:39

start of the sixteen hundreds, when Elizabeth

8:41

was reaching middle age, Habsburg

8:43

Emperor Rudolph the Second inherited

8:46

and claimed both the titles of

8:48

Holy Roman Emperor and King

8:50

of Hungary. There was so much

8:52

resentment and an anti Hapsburg

8:55

independence movie in Transylvania

8:57

that eventually forced Rudolph to abdicate

9:00

Hungarian throne and give it to his

9:02

brother Matthias. It was

9:04

still in the family, but hopefully people

9:06

would get less mad if it was more

9:08

of a nominally separate kingdom.

9:11

In sixteen o four, after twenty

9:14

nine years of marriage, Count Ference

9:16

died while off fighting the Ottoman invasion

9:18

of Hungary, and Elizabeth Bathory

9:21

became one of the wealthiest and most

9:24

powerful women in the kingdom.

9:26

She was sitting on incredibly important

9:28

land that she inherited from her husband's

9:31

powerful Hungarian family. States

9:33

that she was already more than comfortable

9:36

managing. She had managed them for

9:38

decades while her husband was off fighting.

9:41

The properties were vast, and she was so

9:43

wealthy that even King Matthias the

9:45

Second was in debt to her. Meanwhile,

9:48

over in Transylvania, her nephew,

9:50

Gabor Bathory was being crowned

9:52

prince. With Elizabeth's

9:54

wealth and rank, Gabor seemed

9:56

like an even bigger threat to the Habsburgs

9:59

of Hungary. Her estates were

10:01

huge, stretching from the west to

10:03

the southeast of the Hungarian Kingdom.

10:06

If the Bathories wanted, Elizabeth

10:08

could grant Gobor safe passage across

10:11

the entire kingdom, giving him

10:13

access to possibly claiming the Polish

10:15

throne or even the Hungarian throne.

10:18

The Bathories were a threat.

10:21

This is the larger context in which

10:23

Elizabeth Bathory was accused

10:26

of terrible things. On

10:32

December, the

10:34

Palatine of Hungary, Gregory

10:36

Thorzo, stormed into Elizabeth

10:39

Bathories castle with a

10:41

regiment of guards. The

10:43

Palatine is the highest ranking

10:46

official of the country, think of him almost

10:48

like a prime minister, and had

10:51

been ordered by King Matthias

10:53

to investigate the terrible rumors

10:55

about the widow Elizabeth Bathory.

10:58

Thorso had succeeded in his task

11:00

and then some, eventually gathering

11:03

hundreds of testimonies, all

11:05

of which were in agreement that Elizabeth

11:07

Bathory was a murderer. Thorso

11:10

would right that he burst into the castle

11:13

and found Elizabeth Bathory in the

11:15

act of torture, with one young

11:17

girl already dead at her feet and

11:19

another strung up and being flayed.

11:22

But in truth, according to the documentation

11:24

of the secretary at the time, Bathory

11:27

was actually just eating dinner. It's

11:30

hard to find where the stories

11:32

of Elizabeth Bathory murderer

11:34

began. One visiting priest

11:37

had written to the king back when Elizabeth's

11:39

husband was still alive, saying

11:41

that he saw the two of them being noticeably

11:44

cruel to their servants. The

11:46

local Lutheran pastor, Janis

11:48

Picenus seemed to delight

11:51

in accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft

11:53

and cannibalism. He even

11:55

wrote to Thurso saying that Elizabeth

11:57

would transform into a black ut

12:00

and that she would stalk him at night.

12:03

His clearly exaggerated outrage

12:06

doesn't seem particularly easy to explain,

12:09

at least from a religious perspective.

12:11

Though Elizabeth's husband was Lutheran,

12:14

Elizabeth herself remained a lifelong

12:16

Calvinist, just like her mother had been.

12:19

But even still, she didn't renounce

12:21

Lutheranism or hinder the religious

12:23

freedom of the Lutherans on her land. Her

12:26

records as a landowner indicate that

12:28

she built schools and educated ministers,

12:31

and supported Lutheranism to the healthy

12:33

extent that the local pastor should

12:35

have been content with. Still, it's

12:37

worth noting that before Thorso's

12:39

investigation into Bathory, there

12:42

were no formal legal complaints

12:44

made against her at any time from

12:46

either anyone on her estate or in her

12:48

community, and this was during a period

12:50

when the Hungarian legal system kept

12:53

meticulous records of all grapes

12:55

and grievances. It was just

12:57

rumors that swirled around her that

13:00

motivated Thorso to move on Bathory.

13:06

King Matthias authorized Thorzo

13:08

to investigate the rumors around Bathory

13:10

at the start of six and

13:12

the Palatine sent two notaries

13:15

out into the Hungarian territories to

13:17

gather whatever evidence they could. By

13:19

October there were fifty two

13:21

witnesses. Later,

13:24

after Bathori's arrest, there would

13:26

be over three hundred. The

13:29

stories were damning Elizabeth

13:32

Bathory, they said, like to

13:34

torture young girls, that she

13:36

mutilated even bit them,

13:38

that she beat and stabbed and

13:40

starved them. Almost

13:42

all of the testimony, it's worth pointing out,

13:45

was word of mouth hearsay from

13:47

people who had heard of Bathoris

13:49

abuse, or from people who had

13:52

had relatives who had entered service

13:54

at the castle but who had never emerged.

13:58

Elizabeth was arrested that night

14:00

December in her castle,

14:03

along with four of her servants,

14:05

her so called accomplices. Thorso

14:08

tortured all of the servants into confessing

14:11

to assisting the countess with various

14:13

murders, although all four gave

14:15

differing numbers of victims, ranging

14:17

from twenty to sixty. One

14:19

of the later witnesses would allege

14:22

that an officer had told him

14:24

that he had seen a ledger, the Countess's

14:27

own ledger of her murders, and

14:29

that they numbered in these six hundreds.

14:32

Under torture, one of the countess's

14:34

servants gave Thorso the location

14:36

of a young girl's body buried

14:38

on the estate. Before the

14:40

torture, the servant had maintained

14:43

that the young girl was one of eight who had died

14:45

of the plague earlier that fall. Bristling

14:48

with excitement, Thurso and his men

14:50

dug up the body, still fairly

14:53

well preserved, having been buried in

14:55

the cold dirt of autumn. There's

14:57

a hoisted the decomposing, play

15:00

gritten corpse onto a wooden platform

15:02

in front of the castle, and he invited

15:05

all the servants and noblemen of neighboring

15:07

estates to come and see, Come,

15:10

be witness see the naked

15:12

tortured body of one of the Countess's

15:15

victims. Elizabeth

15:17

herself was forced to stand there in

15:19

full view a punishment of

15:21

public humiliation. Thorso

15:23

shouted at her to look at her poor victim.

15:27

Though the body was more than two months old,

15:29

Thorso claimed that it was fresh,

15:32

which no doubt colored the opinions

15:34

of onlookers when it came to make

15:36

their statements about Elizabeth's

15:38

brutal torture. After

15:40

all, they had seen the Countess

15:42

standing next to a clearly

15:45

mutilated body. Though

15:51

King Matthias urged Thurzo to follow

15:53

the strictest legal procedures, Thurso

15:56

ignored the wreck. He claimed to spare

15:59

the Bathory family the shame of a public

16:01

trial and to preempt

16:03

the order of execution. The

16:06

servants that had been arrested, were

16:08

tried and quickly put to death. But

16:10

though Elizabeth had private hearings,

16:13

she never had the large public trial

16:15

that would have been standard at the time. She

16:18

wasn't permitted to make a defense or

16:20

speak on her own behalf.

16:22

There was never a sentencing. Thurzo

16:25

continued to claim that it was a mercy

16:27

that if she went to trial she would be put

16:30

to death instead.

16:32

Without a verdict, she was merely

16:34

detained under house arrest at

16:36

the castle for the rest of her life. The

16:39

rumors would only continue and

16:41

grow. The thorso wrote

16:44

to the king and said that she was bricked

16:46

into a locked room. Visiting

16:48

priests at the castle would write and remark

16:50

that she actually moved freely about

16:53

the castle, at least until

16:55

she died three years later at

16:57

age fifty four. The

17:02

story could be complete there. Elizabeth

17:05

Bathori as a murderess, for whom

17:07

the extent of her crimes will never be fully

17:10

known. A woman who was cruel

17:12

and sadistic, who killed as

17:14

many servants as she could because

17:16

she could protected by her

17:19

wealthy and powerful family. Only

17:22

in the end, when she was no longer fully

17:24

protected, her wealth and privilege

17:26

at least allowed her to remain comfortable

17:29

under house arrest, guilty

17:31

and disgraced, but not hanged

17:33

by the neck. But in recent

17:35

years, Hungarian scholars in

17:37

particular, have found that Bathori's

17:40

case is less cut and dry than some

17:42

people might believe. I don't

17:44

know if there's a smoking gun one way or

17:47

the other, but I think it's interesting

17:49

and important enough to examine that

17:51

there might be more gray area than

17:54

originally meets the eye. Doctor

17:56

Irma Shadeki Kardo's posits

17:59

that the quote I witness testimony

18:01

of the hundreds of witnesses against Elizabeth

18:04

Bathory are less compelling

18:06

than they might originally seem.

18:08

For one thorso had restricted

18:10

his investigation only to the

18:13

parts of the Hungarian Kingdom where

18:15

he had full power and where

18:17

many of the tenants were beholden to him.

18:19

He obtained confessions under torture.

18:22

The vast vast majority of the

18:24

testimony gathered is hearsay.

18:27

There are no firsthand accounts

18:29

of anyone who was actually abused

18:31

by the Countess. Much of

18:33

the later testimony came after

18:35

the witnesses would have seen a decomposing

18:38

corpse on a platform with Elizabeth

18:40

standing beside it, while Thorzo

18:42

was shouting that this was one of her victims.

18:45

I think that would buy us anyone a little,

18:47

at least subconsciously. But

18:50

again, though Thorso claimed that his

18:52

lack of public trial was to protect

18:54

Elizabeth, it also conveniently

18:56

prevented any recorded defense.

18:59

Her disgrace, and the rippling

19:01

disgrace of the entire Bathory family

19:04

was irreconcilable. It

19:07

was also fairly convenient for Thorso

19:09

that his own son, Imre, happened

19:11

to be the same age as Elizabeth's

19:14

son, Paul. Paul, being

19:16

the scion of two powerful families,

19:19

would easily eclipse Thorso's

19:21

son when it came to Hungarian politics,

19:24

unless, of course, the Bathories

19:26

family fortunes changed. Dr

19:33

shadeky Cardo's also raises a

19:35

fascinating point that many

19:37

of the so called tortures that Bathory

19:40

was reported to have engaged in were

19:42

actually well recorded medical

19:44

procedures for the sixteen hundreds.

19:47

In Transylvania, where Bathory had

19:49

grown up, in the seventeenth

19:51

century, it was considered the duty

19:53

of landowners and nobles to

19:55

provide for the welfare of their tenants

19:58

and servants. The lady of

20:00

the house was responsible for the

20:02

women and children. According

20:04

to Schadecki Cardo's, Elizabeth's

20:06

letters aren't blood chilling

20:09

manifestoes of a sadistic murderer,

20:11

their normal, reasonable business

20:14

management. Elizabeth writes, petitioning

20:16

the King for her tenants, she installed

20:19

in each of her estates herbalists and

20:21

healers, and appointed the same

20:23

personal healer that she used for her own

20:25

children for her underlings. Coming

20:28

from Transylvania, Elizabeth was

20:30

familiar with a more hands on approach

20:32

to herbal medicine and healing methods

20:34

that would have been unfamiliar to

20:37

the local people when she moved with

20:39

her husband to western Hungary.

20:42

One of Elizabeth's most famous, quote

20:44

unquote accomplices was a woman

20:46

named Anna Darbuglia, a Croatian

20:49

midwife and healer and one of the few

20:51

women who performed rudimentary surgeons

20:53

on her patients so that the female patients

20:56

wouldn't have to be treated by men. It

20:58

would have been a rare and strange

21:00

sight, maybe for some to see a

21:02

woman doing something like blood letting, even

21:05

though blood letting at the time was a

21:07

conventionally accepted medical procedure.

21:10

The medical texts of a contemporary

21:12

Transylvanian doctor Fence

21:14

Papa peris contain a number

21:17

of procedures that, to the

21:19

untrained eye, or to an eye mistrustful

21:22

of a woman holding a knife, might look

21:24

suspiciously like torture. Necrotic

21:28

tissue needed to be cut from healthy

21:30

flesh to prevent infection from spreading.

21:33

Maggots were frequent. Blight boils

21:36

and abscesses had to be lanced.

21:39

Wounds needed to be cauterized with

21:41

red hot irons. For

21:43

some ailments, hot cupping was recommended,

21:47

and for those with fever or rubonic

21:49

plague, a weak, sweating

21:51

body would be shocked with an

21:53

ice cold bath. Singing

21:55

nettles were an old wives cure

21:58

for rheumatism and arthritis. Some

22:00

seamstresses suffered from boils

22:02

under their nail beds, a condition

22:05

known as finger nail poison.

22:08

The treatment was lancing finger

22:10

tips under the nails with needles. Hearing

22:13

those treatments out of context, and

22:16

particularly if they were unfamiliar

22:18

or gasped done by a woman,

22:21

you can almost see where the stories of

22:23

torture might have begun. Shadeki

22:26

Cardos also points out that the deaths

22:28

that Dorzo ascribes to Elizabeth happened

22:31

to coincide with outbreaks of

22:33

disease. The eight girls

22:36

whom Thurzo built his case around had

22:38

possibly actually died of the plague.

22:41

They had been quarantined together and

22:43

treated by two of Elizabeth's servants,

22:46

and they had died when Elizabeth wasn't

22:48

even at the castle. Elizabeth

22:50

was frequently touring between her estates.

22:54

The pace and pre neticism with which

22:56

the rumors of Elizabeth Bathery's guilt

22:58

took hold of the Countryside could

23:00

also possibly point to Thurso's

23:03

haste to make her guilt quote

23:05

common knowledge. Common

23:07

knowledge was accepted evidence in

23:09

court at the time. Elizabeth's

23:12

confinement meant that her relatives

23:14

were able to take control of her valuable

23:16

properties a few of her son

23:19

in law's new in advance of impending

23:22

quote surprise arrest. They

23:25

even helped him to arrange it. King

23:27

Matthias's debts that he owed to Elizabeth

23:30

were conveniently dissolved. I

23:37

don't know exactly where I stand

23:39

when it comes to a proclamation that Elizabeth

23:42

Bathory was either a sadistic

23:44

monster or completely innocent a

23:46

framed woman. Personally,

23:49

I tend to find it a little easier to

23:51

believe that a few hundred

23:53

people living in close and unhygienic

23:55

quarters at the start of the sixteen hundreds

23:58

were more likely to have died

24:00

from the plague than from a cruel

24:02

and unusual Lady Dracula. People

24:06

were suspicious of powerful women,

24:08

and especially of powerful

24:10

women with regional and religious

24:12

differences. Rumors were

24:14

easy to spread, and Elizabeth

24:17

Bathi's downfall financially benefited

24:19

many people in power. But

24:22

on the other hand, I also don't find

24:24

it difficult to believe that a wealthy, noble

24:26

woman might have been exceedingly

24:29

cruel, abusive, maybe

24:32

even deadly in her treatment of servants.

24:35

You'll notice that throughout this I didn't

24:37

mention the whole bathing in blood

24:40

thing. Well, that's because

24:42

that's objectively a complete

24:44

fabrication. There were absolutely

24:47

no contemporary witnesses who alleged

24:50

even rumors of Elizabeth bathing

24:52

in the blood of young women to preserve her

24:54

own youth, or doing anything with their

24:56

blood. That rumor came over

24:59

a hundred years later during the Counter

25:01

Reformation. In seventeen

25:03

twenty nine, the Hungarian Jesuit

25:06

priests Laslow Taroshi used

25:08

the by then infamous saga

25:10

of Elizabeth Bathory as a parable

25:13

to discuss the dangers of becoming

25:15

Protestant. He wrote that

25:17

she was a Catholic who had broken

25:19

bad and converted to Lutheranism,

25:22

and that unleashed in her a blood lust

25:25

that caused her, this demented Protestant

25:28

to sadistically torture servants

25:30

and bathe in young blood in order to try

25:32

to stay young herself. It's

25:34

a compelling detail, and kudos

25:37

to Taroshi for his imaginative

25:39

creativity that still persists

25:41

in the popular culture today.

25:43

But it's just not true. Elizabeth

25:46

wasn't even ever Lutheran. She was

25:48

never elapsed Catholic. As

25:50

I mentioned, she was a lifelong Calvinist.

25:53

So no blood lust. But as

25:56

for the murders, it's up to you

25:58

to decide what's to and

26:00

what's merely rumor. That's

26:11

the saga of Elizabeth Bathory.

26:13

But keep listening after a brief sponsor

26:15

break to hear a little bit more about

26:18

her legacy. Lists

26:29

of pop history fun facts are

26:32

littered with the type of historical anecdote

26:34

that seems like it should be true, and

26:37

so these anecdotes are just repeated

26:39

often enough that they become fact. One

26:42

of those seems like it might as well

26:44

be true is the idea that,

26:46

upon hearing the rumors of this Eastern

26:49

European countess from Transylvania,

26:51

an Irish author named Bram Stoker,

26:54

while staying on the misty northern coast

26:56

of Scotland, was inspired

26:59

to write Us to worry about a man

27:01

who sucked blood from others to survive.

27:04

His book, of course, became

27:07

Dracula. Now there's

27:09

no real consensus on whether Bathory

27:12

directly or even indirectly inspired

27:14

Stoker, but Bathory did

27:16

inspire another recent character

27:19

in pop culture. In the video

27:21

game Resident Evil Village, there's

27:24

a glamorous woman with a large

27:26

black hat and sweeping white

27:28

gown who stands at over

27:30

nine ft tall. The character

27:33

is named Countess Alcina

27:35

or Lady Dimitrescu, and

27:38

she became an almost instant

27:40

fan favorite. A villainist

27:43

who rules over a feudal peasantry

27:45

with allegations of murder and

27:48

cannibalism swirling

27:50

around her incredibly glamorous

27:52

and incredibly tall person. Noble

28:01

Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and

28:03

Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.

28:05

The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz.

28:08

Executive producers include Aaron Mankey.

28:11

Alex Williams and Matt Frederick.

28:14

The show is produced by rema il Keali

28:16

and Trevor Young. Noble Blood

28:18

is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,

28:21

and you can learn more about the show over at Noble

28:23

Blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts

28:26

from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart

28:28

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

28:30

wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M