A more familiar image of Vlad Tepes featured in this woodcut

On the trail of Vlad Ţepeş

I flew to Bucharest with Tarom Airlines of Romania, a comfortable enough service even if they did still allow people to smoke on board. I’d arranged transport and an English speaking guide to collect me at the airport and take me on the arduous four hour journey to Poiana Brasov which, nestling about eight miles above Brasov high in the Carpathians, would make an ideal base over the coming days. We stopped for about half an hour at a roadside inn and, as I savoured the delicious glass of local red wine, the butterflies in my stomach did extra somersaults as I peered longingly up into the darkness of the imposing mountains. What mysteries did they hold? What stories could they tell? My guide informed me that “we should be getting along,” and so I quaffed the last of my wine and, minutes later, we were on our way again.

Dănuț, my guide, helped me work out my schedule for the next hour or so of the journey. Every now and then, I would gaze out of the window, inwardly beaming at the prospect of all that lay ahead. I was like a child in a sweet shop, and almost had to pinch myself to realise that I was actually here, in Transylvania, ascending the Carpathian mountains - even if it was in a Ford Transit minibus.

I asked Dănuț what his opinion of Vlad Ţepeş was. “He was a good man,” he told me, “very fair and much loved by his people. He was also a very holy man, defending his empire and the church against our enemies.”

“So how did he manage to earn such a dreadful reputation?” I wanted to know.

“It’s true he impaled people - that was his execution method of choice,” my guide went on. “But it was only to those who were treacherous against the Wallachian people, and you must remember that those methods of torture and murder which seem so barbaric today were much more common-place in the fifteenth century.”

West to East

Food for thought, certainly. For the last hour and a half of the trek up into the dark, majestic mountains, I sat back, deep in thought, pondering the life of Prince Vlad and wondering where my quest would take me. When we finally arrived at the Poiana Hotel in Poiana Brasov, I was relieved that the check in process was quick and uncomplicated and, within five minutes of my head hitting the pillow, I was fast asleep. It had been an exhausting first day, with an almost twenty-four hour journey with various stops and connections. Unbelievable when you think what few miles lie between England and Romania, but in some way it added to the epic nature of my undertaking and, as Jonathan Harker had observed in his journal, the distinct impression I had had of the journey “was that we were leaving the West and entering the East”. What a pity, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, the Stoker himself had never actually visited this strange and wonderful land.

The next morning I awoke to glorious sunshine. Having breakfasted well in the hotel’s dining room, I met with my official guide for my stay here, Horia, who immediately handed me a glass of cloudy liquid, urging me to drink it in one. I ran through my notes I had made in the minibus with Dănuț, and Horia gave me his own input into what I should do and in what order. His own thoughts on Vlad very much echoed those of his colleague - maybe this misunderstood prince really didn’t deserve all his bad press. I’d have to wait and see, but many more of those local welcome drinks - it seemed to be a blend of absinthe and gin in equal measures - and I’d be in no state to make any valid judgments. I downed the last of it out of politeness and shivered, much to Horia’s amusement. “Come on then,” he said, patting me lightly on the back, “let’s get you off to Castle Bran. Your guide today will be Radu.”

Bran Castle - fictional home of Dracula

Bran Castle - again thought to have inspired Stoker in some way with his depiction of the castle of Count Dracula - is probably the most visited of the ‘Dracula connection’ sites, but undoubtedly the least authentic. Situated near Bran and in the immediate vicinity of Braşov, the castle is a national monument and landmark in Romania. The fortress is situated on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia, on Highway 73. Commonly known as Dracula’s Castle’, it is marketed as such, and this has led to persistent myths that it was once the home of Vlad Ţepeş, ruler of Wallachia.

The castle is now a museum open to tourists, displaying art and furniture collected by Queen Marie. Tourists can see the interior individually or by a guided tour. At the bottom of the hill is a small open air museum park exhibiting traditional Romanian peasant structures, such as cottages and barns, from across the country.

Castle Bran, high up in the Carpathian Mountains

Radu was both personable and eloquent, and probably the most knowledgeable Vlad ‘expert’ I had encountered so far. After my castle tour, during which he even donned a pair of plastic fangs to illustrate just how seriously the whole ‘Dracula’ thing is taken from a commercial point of view, we sat in a small restaurant for a chat over a bottle of ‘Vampyre’. This local red wine which, by rights - and its cheesy name - should be diabolical, was in reality rather moreish, and proved an excellent accompaniment to the fascinating conversation that followed. “It’s very difficult to separate fact from fiction these days,” explained Radu. “But I’ve brought these along to help us discern a little of the truth,” and with that, he opened up his rucksack and lifted out three rather dusty, ancient tomes scribed in his native tongue - “they were my grandmother’s” - and proceeded to thumb through the wafer thin pages of the first volume.

What followed was a remarkable few hours over which we debated the rights and wrongs of popular Vlad Ţepeş myth and culture, set against three fascinating accounts of the real man written by his fellow countrymen. Some of what emerged I already knew: Vlad Ţepeş (pronounced tse-pesh) was indeed a fifteenth century voivode, or prince, of Wallachia of the princely House of Basarab. Wallachia is a province of Romania bordered to the north by Transylvania and Moldavia, to the east by the Black Sea and to the south by Bulgaria.

Birth of a Prince

But let’s go back to the beginning. All three books seemed to agree that Vlad was born in either November or December 1431, in the fortress of Sighisoara, Romania. His father, Vlad Dracul, at that time appointed military governor of Transylvania by the emperor Sigismund, had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon about one year before. The order was a semi-military and religious society, originally created in 1387 by the Holy Roman Emperor and his second wife, Barbara Cilli. Now there was the first hint at that legendary name, ‘Dracul’ - so what exactly was the significance and how did it evolve into Dracula?

Radu explained: “The order’s emblem was a dragon, wings extended, hanging on a cross. The dragon was the symbol of the devil and consequently an alternate meaning of ‘drac’ (the devil) was dragon. The main goals of such a secret fraternal order of knights were to protect the interests of Catholicism, and to crusade against the Turks. This order provides an explanation for the name Dracula; ‘Dracul’, in Romanian, means dragon, and the boyars of Romania, who knew of Vlad’s father’s induction into the Order of the Dragon, decided to call him ‘Dracul’. Dracula is simply a derivative which means “the son of Dracul,” which was the surname to be used ultimately by Vlad himself. This is clearly where Bram Stoker took the name from. It was no invention of his, as is often believed, but something he lifted straight from the pages of history. “So you could say that your famous nineteenth century novelist is responsible for much of the negativity about Prince Vlad, purely by the stigma now associated with his name, which actually had quite noble connotations in its day.”

There isn’t much information about Vlad’s childhood. It is known that in 1442 he and his younger brother, Radu, became hostages of Murad the Second, as a result of an agreement between Vlad’s father and the Sultan. Being under considerable political pressure, threatened with invasion by the Ottomans, Dracul gave a promise to be the vassal of the Sultan, and reluctantly gave up his two younger sons as hostages to ensure he kept his promise. If he did not follow the sultan’s policies and interests, both Vlad and Radu would surely die. His eldest son, Mircea, was allowed to stay at home.

“Dracul is believed to have desperately regretted this action,” said Radu, “and it’s fairly well known that the boys suffered intolerable cruelty and sexual abuse at the hands of the Sultan. In fact, the disastrous effect was the massive division it created between the two. Vlad was the stronger of the brothers, but never forgave himself for his inability to protect his sibling from the depraved Sultan, who it seemed made Radu one his his ‘favourites’. The leaner, more chiselled features of the elder brother were apparently not to his taste and, although Vlad was tortured and beaten much more severely and with alarming regularity, he did escape the sexual attentions of his captor.

“Radu was much weaker than Vlad, which is probably why he chose to stay put when he had the opportunity to escape. He never forgave his older brother for symbolically “letting go of his hand” and this would prove to be something neither man would ever fully come to terms with, as later years would show.”

These years were influential in shaping Vlad’s character as he suffered much at the hands of the Turks, and spent much time locked up in an underground dungeon. It seems he was often whipped by his Turkish captors for being stubborn and rude, and one wonders if his fascination with torture truly began under the Ottomans as he witnessed their vicious atrocities and, it is believed, occasionally took part in various discussions on the art of torture.

We had finished our wine. “We’ll leave it there for today,” said Radu, “It’s almost sundown.” He smiled wryly as he saw I had acknowledged his sense of fun. We returned to my hotel and he bade me goodnight as I headed off to a dinner of Transylvanian sour pork. I had plenty to think about, and tomorrow’s destination was Sighisoara, Vlad’s birthplace. More wine would be on the agenda, I was sure, and hopefully more revelations.

For the final part of this story, see my post ‘Vlad Tepes - Christian Prince of Evil Monster?’