Dracula has appeared on stamps around the world. He’s a popular theme, and rightfully so. The most intriguing portraits come from his twin birthplaces, Romania and Ireland.
A tale of two Draculas
Romania is the heart of vampire folklore, but Ireland is its modern birthplace. Many will already be familiar with Dracula lore. The character has appeared in 300+ movies (the best being F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, prove me wrong), and hundreds of books and short stories featuring the fanged gentleman, all starting with Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.
Stories about undead creatures living on human blood go back thousands of years. You can find stories from ancient Persia and Mesopotamia, as well as India and China. You can even find tales of blood sucking evil in Mapuche and Aztec legends in the Americas as well as various cultures throughout Africa. It’s a universal theme. But the heartland of the Dracula story is Romania.
Vlad Țepeș Romania Post 1976
Like many folktales, this one is rooted in history. Vlad Țepeș or Vlad Drăculea/ Drăculești was a Wallachian ruler between 1428 and 1477, coming into and losing power a number of times during his life. There are so many spelling variations of the Dracula name, I’ll settle on Drăculești to cut down on confusion. FYI Țepeș translates to Impaler, hence his other nickname, Vlad the Impaler.
His father was Vlad II Dracul, or Vlad the Dragon. It came from his membership in the Order of the Dragon, a royal order created by the Holy Roman Emperor and dedicated to defending the Christian faith. Vlad III Drăculești means „son of Dracul”. It’s interesting that Dracula has evolved over the centuries to mean demon or evil rather than the powerful and honourable dragon. How did this occur?
The printed word is to blame
You can blame moveable type, in part, for spreading the myth beyond local oral tales. Stories of Vlad’s cruelty were common during his reign, but how much of that was propaganda and how much real is hard to tell. He had a lot of enemies eager to destroy his reputation. Regardless, eyewitness accounts were recorded of his brutal invasions and horrific methods of punishing people who crossed him. His sobriquet Vlad the Impaler was justly earned.
Faceplate from Die Geschicht Dracole Waide
In 1488, shortly after his death, Die geschicht dracole waide, (The story of Dracul) was printed in Nuremburg. It detailed Vlad’s litany of crimes against people who crossed him. The anonymous German author painted him as vicious and bloodthirsty, willing to do anything to maintain power.
An earlier pamphlet, by German poet, Michael Beheim didn’t help Vlad’s reputation abroad either. Von ainem wutrich der hies Trakle waida von der Walachei | Concerning a Despot called Dracula, Voievod of Wallachia focused on his cruelty as well. It was printed @1463, while Vlad was still alive. It’s not easy finding a translation, but a few are available.
The worst despot and
tyrant that I know
on all this earth
under the wide vault of heaven,
since the world began;
no-one was ever so despicable.
I want to tell you about him.
He was Dracula, called voievod.
This very land of Wallachia
was under his control.
translated by William C. McDonald
It’s pretty obvious Beheim didn’t like him. Keep in mind Beheim was alive and writing during Drăculești’s reign and would have heard stories while working in various German and Viennese courts.
The legend of Vlad Drăculești isn’t straightforward
The legend of Vlad Drăculești isn’t straightforward. One nation’s enemy is another nation’s hero. To many Romanians, he is viewed as a great defender who protected the borders and people. History is a complicated mess.
Romanian romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’s poem The Third Letter issued 1950
As you do not come, O Lord Impaler, as putting your hand on them,
To divide them into two cities: in the tribes and in the misha,
And in two large dungeons with the silencing to gather them,
To set fire to the prison and to the house of fools!”
excerpt from The Third Letter
Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889).
Romanian romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’s poem The Third Letter calls upon Vlad to help defend the Romanian homeland against corrupt politicians. It harkens to a tough, but just ruler. Today, Romania still views the Drăculești legend through this lens. While his enemies painted him as a ruthless murderer, Romanian sources regarded him as a strong ruler who kept his realm safe “he hated any evil conducted in his country so much, that theft, robbery, injustice or raping women or girls would be punishable by death.” Dracula and Romania (romaniatourism.net)
Strigoi & Transylvanian legends
Romania Dracula 1997 EUROPA. Designer P. Commisarschi
When did Vlad the protector and defender of the faith evolve into Dracula, the supernatural being? To trace the transformation you have to dig a bit deeper into Romanian myths. Common fables of strigoi or vampires in Romanian folklore abound, especially in the Transylvanian countryside. Some researchers believe they can be traced to the Dacians, an ancient tribe from the Carpathian mountains.
Strigoi were thought to be the undead of those who committed suicide and were cursed. There are other creatures that come under the strigoi name but I’m concentrating on the vampire portion. The stirgoi would come back from the grave and prey on family members, weakening them over time by feasting on their blood. You can see shades of this in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
I have not had the heart to write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her mother’s hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucy’s fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to wake her I could not; she was in a faint. Dracula, Chapter 8, by Bram Stoker
Ireland Centenary of Publication of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” 1997
In Romania the word Drac means devil or demon. But that doesn’t get us to the blood sucking undead portion of the legend, does it? Again, we have to look little deeper into stories written about Vlad to see how they morphed. One tale I read, had Vlad sitting at a dinner table, surrounded by the impaled bodies of his enemies, calmly dipping bread into a bowl of their blood and enjoying it with his meal. You can find many woodcuts from the period depicting this and other nightmarish scenes of impalement.
The abundant tales of his blood thirsty behaviour lent themselves to the growth of horror stories about him. Combined with propaganda from Hungary, Germany and political rivals at home, you have a perfect storm for the creation of an archetypal evil being.
Bram Stoker enters the scene
Today, it’s difficult to separate Stoker’s Dracula from the Transylvanian stirgi. The two are deeply entwined in our modern psyches. Think vampire and you automatically shift to Dracula.
The next part of the transformation from human to supernatural involved the death of Vlad’s wife. Drăculești’s wife, believing he had died in battle against the Ottomans, became overwhelmed with grief and threw herself off the castle walls. Vlad returned from war and found his beloved dead. In a fit of anger at God for allowing this to happen while he was off defending the faith made a pact with the devil. Part of his deal was immortality so he could search the world, looking for signs of his wife in other women – hence the reason he preyed almost exclusively on women. There are variations on this story, but they all boil down to a grief stricken man selling his soul so he can find his lost wife.
Did Bram Stoker visit Romania? No. So why did he latch onto a Romanian folktale about stirgi and Vlad Drăculești? We can thank a small lending library in Whitby, UK. It was there he read the book An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldova by William Wilkinson (1820) that mentioned the legend of Vlad. Stoker also borrowed stories and legends from Whitby for some of the spooky settings.
Romania Dracula & Stoker 2004 Designer Radu Oltean
Romania Dracula & Stoker 2004 FDC
The sheet above shows how deeply embedded Bram Stoker version of vampires is, even in Romania. We have shifted from Vlad Drăculești to Stoker’s Dracula. This souvenir sheet was issued 2004 and created by Radu Oltean. The portrait of Stoker looks like he’s watching over the rest of the panel images. It’s a well done portrait of the author and his creation.
The author’s inspiration for this book’s title was an obscure historic document about the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which contained a short reference to Voivode Dracula, never mentioned as Vlad. The author of the manual made a short note of Dracula … that his name meant Devil in Romanian. This was Bram Stoker’s inspiration for the Count’s name. As for vampire facts, his inspiration was the universal folklore. Dracula | Romania Stamps | Worldwide Stamps, Coins Banknotes and Accessories for Collectors | WOPA+ (wopa-plus.com)
According to biographer Liam Dail (Bram Stoker: The True Story of the Life & Time of the Great Author), Stoker spent 7 years researching and writing Dracula. During this time, he tapped into a wealth of homegrown folklore about bloodsucking entities to flesh out the Count from Transylvania. As early as 1819 vampires were subjects of story telling in English literature. John William Polidori, a friend of Lord Byron and Percy Shelly, wrote The Vampyre at the same time Mary Shelly penned Frankenstein. It was published in The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register; London: H. Colburn, 1814–1820. Vol. 1, No. 63. Stoker would have been familiar with the story, given his relationship to the world of literature and theatre. He connected Drăculești with the undead legends and created the modern vampire genre.
100th anniversary of Stoker’s death
Ireland 2012 100th anniversary of Stoker’s death
The 2012 Irish souvenir sheet above, celebrates both Stoker’s theatrical history and Dracula on the 100th anniversary of Stoker’s death. There are three portraits in one sheet – the clearly undead Nosferatu as Stoker’s shadow, from the 1922 film, the more romanticised version on the right and the cheeky count on the steps buying a ticket to watch Dracula. I’m not sure who the artist is, my usual sources failed me in this.
Ireland 2012 100th anniversary of Stoker’s death FDC
Was Sligo the epicentre?
A bit of Irish history and a hefty dose of folklore may have helped spark Dracula’s creation. It is likely Stoker grew up with tales of the na Neamh-Mhairbh – Irish revenants who fed on the blood of the living. Fears of the undead feeding off humans is a powerful image. But there was also an earthly anchor to Stoker’s terrifying vision.
“The time when Bram was a sick child was hugely important because of the stories he was told by his mother. Many of them concerned Irish folklore but she also spoke at length about the cholera epidemic she had lived through.” Dacre Stoker, Bram’s great-grandnephew in a 2012 interview.
Bram’s mother, Catherine Thornley came from Sligo, the site of a horrific cholera epidemic that left emotional scares on the residents for decades to come. She passed the horrors onto her young son in the form of tales from her youth.
Stoker experts believe Catherine’s vivid descriptions of the suffering she had seen stayed with young Stoker and helped fuel his macabre novel later on in life. The Sligo epidemic that stoked Bram’s interest in all things – Independent.ie
So, Dracula was birthed in Ireland, nurtured on stories of na Neamh-Mhairbh and images of cholera wasting away a population. But he owes his literary existence to Romanian legends and folklore.
You can find more stories about Ghost stories, monsters, myths & legends. Just skip down the list for more tales. If you’d like to read more articles like this leave a comment below.
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