Alexandra Kelley

Just because I find her fascinating…

Elizabeth Bathory was born in August of 1560, a member of the prominent Barthory family. Her father had been a ruler of Transylvania When she was fifteen she was married to Ferencz Nadasdy, a Capathian Count. His wedding gift to her was Chatice Castle, in the Capithian mountains. In 1578 Nadasdy became the commander of Hungarian troops in the war againts the Turks. When her husband went off to war for long times, she was left with her servants for long times on end in her Hungarian castle. She was well educated and was able to conduct business while her husband was gone, as well as write four languages. But this could not cure Elizabeth’s bordem. She was supposedly taught the Dark Arts of magic from a wizard named Thurke. She was also seen going off with an unknown man who reportedly was dressed in black and had pointey white teeth. She returned alone from visiting the stranger, and afterword took up the hobby of torturing her servants to cure her bordem.

When her husband returned, he was unable to keep Elizabeth from torturing the servants. Perhaps this was because Nadasdy was considered to be a cruel military commander. However, he died mysteriously in 1604.  Some say he died in battle, while another account says he was murdered by a prostitute. Other’s believe he was killed by a rival Transylvanian General, Giorgio Basta.

 As Elizabeth aged, she became fanatically concerned with staying beatiful. She ordered one of her maids to be killed. The maid was decapitated, and her stump of a neck was held over a bath tub, so the blood from the artiries and veins in her neck would fill up the tub with blood. Elizabeth then bathed herself in the still warm blood, believing it would make her youthful again. With four of her servants kept alive to help her, Elizabeth had another servant murdered and drained into the tub everytime she wanted to take a bath. Eventually she ran out of servants, and began inviting guests to her house, having them murdered as well. Soon would be guests wised up enough to disregard her invitations. Finally, Elizabeth resorted to having people kidnapped. Unfortunatly for her, one of kidnapped escaped.

The escaped kidnap victim soon alerted others of Elizabeth’s evil doings. Finally, in 1610 assigned Gyorgy Thurzo to investigate Elizabeth. When he arrived at Chatice Castle, he found one girl there already dead, and another one dying. Others were locked up in the castle. He had Elizabeth and her four servants who helped in the murders arrested. The servants were put on trial. One was found innocent, as she had been forced to help Elizabeth. Two had their fingers cut off, and then were burned alive. The fourth was found guilty, but to a lesser extent, and was given the lighter sentance of being beheaded, before being thrown into the fire.

Elizabeth herself was deemed insane, and placed under house arrest. She was put into her room, and the door was walled up, with only a small hole to slid food and water through. Elizabeth lived the rest of her life there, dying in 1614, never to have a bath again.  Today, many people believe that she was in fact, a vampire.

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Alexandra