From "bátor", meaning "valiant".
A long-gone but once powerful family of 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 Klara Báthory, aunt of Elizabeth Báthory, was bisexual and sadistic towards her
female servants. An uncle of Elizabeth was a schizophrenic Devil worshipper.
Countess Elizabeth (Erzébet) Báthory (1560-1614) was the worst of the Báthory clan.
Raven-haired, pale-skinned, voluptuous, she was concidered a
beauty... but she bore the personality of a pit bull.
Mentally
ill, promiscuous, vain, narcissistic and highly sadistic, Elizabeth was the inspiration behind Count Dracula. Vlad Dracul, a distant relative to her and inspiration for the Count, bears less resemblance to Dracula than Elizabeth, who was concidered a
vampire in her own
time.
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.
Somewhere between 50 and 650 young ladies were brutally tortured and killed to satisfy the mad countess's unsatiable thirst for blood. Sadly, they are forgotten.
"...a twelve year old girl named Pola somehow managed to escape from the castle. But Dorottya Szentes, aided by
Helena Jó, caught the frightened girl by surprise and brought her forcibly back to Csejthe Castle. Clad only in a long white robe, Countess Erzsébet greeted the girl upon her return. The countess was in another of her rages. She advanced on the
twelve-year-old
child and forced her into a kind of cage. This particular cage was built like a huge
ball, too narrow to sit in, too
low to stand in. Once the girl was inside, the cage was suddenly hauled up by a pulley, and dozens of
short spikes jutted into the cage. Pola tried to avoid being caught on the spikes, but Thorko maneuvered the ropes so that the cage shifted from side to side. Pola's flesh was torn to pieces..."
Grim!
