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Legend of the Pied Piper’s Dark Origins, and Other Historic Folklore

Khalid Elhassan June 30, 2024 29 min

Legend - The Pied Piper leading away Hamelin's children — The Pied Piper leading away Hamelin's children. Needpix

14. The Start of the Dracula Legend

Legend - Seventeenth century painting of Vlad the Impaler — Seventeenth century painting of Vlad the Impaler. Wikimedia

Vlad III, the real life inspiration of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, was a medieval ruler of Wallachia, a region in today’s southern Romania. Better known to history as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, his methods of governance and warfare terrified contemporaries. They still send shivers down spines today. Vlad’s nickname, Dracula, means “son of Dracul”. It is from the Latin draco, or dragon: Vlad’s father had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon, created by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to rally Christians against the Ottoman Turks. Vlad’s other nickname, The Impaler, he got from his preferred method of punishment. The real life Dracula did not suck people’s blood. Instead, he shoved sharp stakes up their rears.

Vlad III, a son of exiled aristocrat Vlad II, was born sometime around 1430 in Transylvania. The father took over the throne of Wallachia in 1436, but rivals kicked him out a few years later. So he switched sides, and allied with the Ottoman Sultan, who restored him to power. To ensure his loyalty, he was required to send two sons, Vlad III and his brother Radu, to the Sultan’s court as hostages. Radu eventually converted to Islam, but Vlad came to loathe the Ottomans. He resented his father for his betrayal of the Order of the Dragon, into which Vlad himself had been inducted when he was five-years-old.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.