bathory

A long-gone but once powerful family in Hungary. The height of the Báthory clan was in the 1500s and 1600s. Thought to be closely inbred, as most royalty and nobility in those days, brighter family members like King Stephan Báthory of Poland were eclipsed by more brutal members. Devil worshippers, perverts, sadists, witches, and mentally unstable characters. Countess Elizabeth (Erzébet) Báthory (1560-1614) was the worst of them. Mentally ill, promiscuous, vain, narcissistic and highly sadistic, Elizabeth was the inspirationn behind Count Dracula. Elizabeth enjoyed torturing servants, especially if they were young women and attractive. As she grew older, she feared losing her youth and her so-called "beauty"... according to folklore a servant girl accidently pulled her hair while styling it and Elizabeth struck the girl across the face so hard that she drew blood, which got onto her hands. When she'd washed the blood off, in her twisted mind, she thought that her skin had regained its freshness and youthful suppleness where the blood had splashed. And the rest is history. Scores of peasant girls, and later, noble girls of lower rank than the countess, were mercilessly tortured, ranging from weeks to months, and killed in the most painful and frightening ways. Elizabeth never missed out on the torure and death of her victims, delighting in soaking up their blood. Killing girls of nobility began her downfall. She was never charged, sadly, and was walled up inside her small room in 1611, where she died in 1614. Sufficient punishment? I think not. Her accomplices, however, were punished as badly as the maidens that they tortured.