Elizabeth Bathory: The Blood Countess

In 1560, Elizabeth Bathory was born into one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Transylvania. Her family had many powerful relatives -- a cardinal, princes, and a cousin who was prime minister of Hungary are among these relatives. It has been said that At around the age of 4 or 5, Elizabeth had violent seizures. These may have been caused by epilepsy or another neurological disorder and may have something to do with her "psychotic" behavior later in life. The legend of Dracula is derived in part from her horrific deeds.

At the age of 15, Elizabeth married Count Ferenc Nadasdy. The Count was 26 years of age. The count took Elizabeth's surname so that she could keep her name. The count spent a great deal of time away from home fighting in wars and for this he was nicknamed "The Black Hero of Hungary". While her husband was away Elizabeth's manservant Thorko introduced her to the occult. For a brief time Elizabeth eloped with a "dark stranger".

Upon her return to Castle Cachtice the count did forgive her for her leaving. Back at the castle, Elizabeth couldn't tolerate her domineering mother-in-law. With the help of her old nurse Ilona Joo, she began to torture the servant girls. Her other accomplices included the major-domo János Ujvary, Thorko, a forest witch named Darvula and a witch Dorottya Szentes.

The first ten years of their marriage, Elizabeth bore no children because she and Ferenc shared so little time together as he pursued his "career." Then around 1585, Elizabeth bore a girl whom she named Anna, and over the following nine years gave birth to two more girls, Ursula and Katherina, and in 1598 bore her first and only son, Paul. Judging from letters she wrote to relatives, she was a good wife and protective mother, which was not surprising since nobles usually treated immediate family very differently from the lower servants and peasant classes.

At age 51, Count Ferenc died in battle and thus began Elizabeth's period of atrocities. First, she sent her hated mother-in-law away from the Castle. By this time it is thought that she had dabbled into some forms of sorcery, attending rituals that included the sacrificing of horses and other animals.

Elizabeth, now 40 years old, grew increasingly vain and she feared the thought of aging as she may lose her beauty. One day a servant girl accidentially pulled her hair while combing it. Elizabeth slapped the girl's hand so hard she drew blood. The girls blood fell into ELizabeth's hand and she immediately thought that her skin took on the freshness of her young maid. She believed that she had found the secret of eternal youth.
Elizabeth had her major-domo and Thorko strip the maid and then cut her and drain her blood into a huge vat. Elizabeth bathed in it to beautify her entire body.

From 1600 - 1610, Elizabeth's henchmen continued to provided Elizabeth with new girls for the blood-draining ritual and her blood baths. Elizabeth went out of her way to see to it that the dead girls were given proper Christian burials by the local Protestant pastor, at least initially.

As the body count rose, the pastor refused to perform his duties in this respect, because there were too many girls coming to him from Elizabeth who had died of "unknown and mysterious causes." She then threatened him in order to keep him from spreading the news of her "hobby" and continued to have the bodies buried secretly.

Near the end, many bodies were disposed of in haphazard and dangerously conspicuous locations (like nearby fields, wheat silos, the stream running behind the castle, the kitchen vegetable garden, etc.). But one of her intended victims escaped and told the authorities about what was happening at Castle Cachtice. King Mátyás of Hungary ordered Elizabeth's own cousin, Count György Thurzo, governor of the province to raid the castle.

On December 30, 1610, they raided the castle and they were horrified by the terrible sights: one dead girl in the main room, drained of blood and another alive whose body had been pierced with holes. In the dungeon they discoverd several living girls, some of whose bodies had been pierced several times. Below the castle, they exhumed the bodies of some 50 girls.

In 1611, a trial was held at Bitcse. Elizabeth refused to plead either guilty or innocent, never appearing at the trial. Johannes Ujvary testified that about 37 unmarried girls has been killed, six of whom he had personally recruited to work at the castle. The trial revealed that most of the girls were tortured for weeks or even months. They were cut with scissors, pricked with pins, even prodded with burning irons onto short spikes in a cage hung from the ceiling to provide Bathory with a "blood shower".

Sometimes the two witches tortured these girls, or the Countess did it herself. Elizabeth's old nurse testified that about 40 girls had been tortured and killed. In fact, Elizabeth killed 612 women -- and in her diary, she documented their deaths. A complete transcript of the trial was made at the time and it survices today in Hungary.

Of the people involved in these killings, all but Countess Bathory and the two witches were beheaded and cremated. Due to her nobility, Elizabeth was not allowed by law to be executed. The two accomplices had their fingers torn out and were burned alive. The court never convicted Countess Elizabeth of any crime; however, she was put under house arrest.

She was sentenced to life imprisonment in her torture chamber and stonemasons were brought to wall up the windows and doors of the with the Countess inside. They left a small hole through which food could be passed. King Mátyás II demanded the death penalty for Elizabeth but because of her cousin, the prime minister, he agreed to an indefinitely delayed sentence, which really meant solitary confinement for life.

Late in August 1614, one of the countess's jailers wanted to get a good look at her, since she was still reputedly one of the most beautiful women in Hungary. Peeking through the small aperture in her walled-up cell, he saw her lying face down on the floor. Countess Elizabeth Bathory was dead.

Her body was intended to be buried in the church in the town of Cachtice, but the grumbling of local inhabitants found abhorrent the idea of having the "infamous Lady" placed in their town, on hallowed ground no less! Her body was placed in the northeastern Hungarian town of Ecsed, the original Bathory family seat.

All records of Elizabeth were sealed for more than a century, and her name was forbidden to be spoken in Hungarian society. It is said that you can still hear the screams of the tortured girls near the castle at night.

"Portrait of the real Countess Elizabeth Bathory"

Charmedwishes...

Blessed be!

Vampire Woman Unearthed in Venice

March 14, 2009 -- An archaeological dig near Venice has unearthed the 16th-century remains of a woman with a brick stuck between her jaws -- evidence, experts say, that she was believed to be a vampire.

The unusual burial is thought to be the result of an ancient vampire-slaying ritual. It suggests the legend of the mythical bloodsucking creatures was tied to medieval ignorance of how diseases spread and what happens to bodies after death, experts said.

The well-preserved skeleton was found in 2006 on the Lazzaretto Nuovo island, north of the lagoon city, amid other corpses buried in a mass grave during an epidemic of plague that hit Venice in 1576.

"Vampires don't exist, but studies show people at the time believed they did," said Matteo Borrini, a forensic archaeologist and anthropologist at Florence University who studied the case over the last two years. "For the first time we have found evidence of an exorcism against a vampire."

Medieval texts show the belief in vampires was fueled by the disturbing appearance of decomposing bodies, Borrini told The Associated Press by telephone.

During epidemics, mass graves were often reopened to bury fresh corpses and diggers would chance upon older bodies that were bloated, with blood seeping out of their mouth and with an inexplicable hole in the shroud used to cover their face.

"These characteristics are all tied to the decomposition of bodies," Borrini said. "But they saw a fat, dead person, full of blood and with a hole in the shroud, so they would say: 'This guy is alive, he's drinking blood and eating his shroud.'"

Modern forensic science shows the bloating is caused by a buildup of gases, while fluid seeping from the mouth is pushed up by decomposing organs, Borrini said. The shroud would have been consumed by bacteria found in the mouth area, he said.

At the time however, what passed for scientific texts taught that "shroud-eaters" were vampires who fed on the cloth and cast a spell that would spread the plague in order to increase their ranks.

To kill the undead creatures, the stake-in-the-heart method popularized by later literature was not enough: A stone or brick had to be forced into the vampire's mouth so that it would starve to death, Borrini said.

That's what is believed to have happened to the woman found on the Lazzaretto island, which was used as a quarantine zone by Venice. Aged around 60, she died of the plague during the epidemic that also claimed the life of the painter Titian.

Much later, someone jammed the brick into her mouth when the grave was reopened. Borrini said that marks and breaks left by blunt instruments on several among more than 100 skeletons found by the archaeologists show that the grave was reused in a later epidemic.

Such a reconstruction of events is plausible, as is the link to the superstitions about "shroud-eaters," said Piero Mannucci, the vice president of the Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology.

"Maybe a priest or a gravedigger put the brick in her mouth, which is what was normally done in such cases," Mannucci said.

The anthropologist, who did not take part in Borrini's research, said that at a time when bacteria were unknown, such superstitions were a way for the terrified population to explain the waves of plague epidemics that killed millions during the Middle Ages. Jews were also often accused of spreading the disease.

Borrini said the discovery shows that vampires in popular culture were originally quite different from the elegant, aristocratic blood-drinker depicted in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel "Dracula" and in countless Hollywood revisitations.

"The real vampire of tradition was different," he said. "It was just a decomposing body."

"The Alleged Vampire Skull"

Charmedwishes...

Blessed be!

The Origin of Vampires

This myth begins at the very creation of man and of Lilith (the first woman created for Adam).

So God created man and woman in his own image and blessed them. Many have made her a model for feminism, because when Adam would not relent in his domination of her, she grew so angry that she uttered the Holy name of God and vanished.

God then had to make Eve for Adam, making her of his rib bone, so that she would be attached to him and not leave as Lilith had done.

Here, Lilith went out to the Red Sea, where she made a bargain with the Angels and she was allowed to stay out on her own, as a witch, and MOTHER OF ALL DEMONS.

Cain was the first born son of Adam and Eve. He was banished, with a mark, from the land of his parents because he killed his brother Abel in a jealous rage. He was cursed by God and was forced to stalk the fringes of civilization, fearful of the sun and ravenous for blood, as he was refused by nature for fruits and vegetables.

According to vampire legend, Cain wandered until he found Lilith by the Red sea. She took him in and showed him the power of blood. (The Tree of life represented in blood, and thus why drinking blood / being a vampire is such a big deal in a religious context).

From Cain and Lilith came a host of demons and vampires in vague myths. Lilith taught Cain many things, including how to use his blood to evoke mystic powers and how to create others of his kind. At first Cain refused to beget, believing it was wrong to curse the world with others of his kind. But eventually he grew lonely and brought three others into the Vampiric fold. These three in turn begat 13 more.

Cain outraged by this behavior, forbade the creation of any more progeny. Gathering his children and grandchildren to him Cain built a great city – The first city in the world – where vampires and mortals coexisted in peace.

Finally the city was overthrown – some say a natural disaster was the cause; others that a spurned child’s vengeful sorcery precipitated the cataclysm. Cain vanished into the wastes, never to be heard from again.

Three vampires of the second generation likewise disappeared into the mists of legends, and the children and grandchildren became the true vampires.

Charmedwishes...

Blessed be!

Trivia for Twilight

Hello guys! Since I did Harry Potter, I thought I might as well do Twilight. I hope you enjoy my little "labor of love". Imagine, After spending so many hours searching for the right pictures for the post, I will just delete it with 1 click! Good thing I saved the pictures in my computer. Anyway, I can't wait to watch it when it shows here in November.

Kristen Stewart has naturally green eyes. She wears brown contacts for filming to match Bella's eye color. She wore hair pieces so they didn't have to waste time doing her hair, and therefore had more time to shoot and turned eighteen while filming the movie and was rewarded with a birthday cake - and a full night of shooting. When Bella is searching the internet and finds the link for the bookstore in Port Angeles, the link above it is for Little Brown. Little Brown is the publisher of the Twilight Saga. During the filming of the prom scene, Kristen Stewart didn't like the songs playing so suggested 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth' by Iron & Wine which they decided to use.

Kellan Lutz intended on keeping his natural curly hair for the role of Emmett Cullen. However, his previous role in "Generation Kill" (2008) required a buzz cut and his hair didn't grow fast enough for the filming of Twilight (2008/I).

Henry Cavill was Stephenie Meyer's first choice to play Edward due to the fan base he had of him playing Edward. H. However, but by the time production was to begin, he was 25 years old, and no longer looked the part of a 17-year old. He was then offered the part of Carlisle Cullen but turned it down due to his commitment with "The Tudors" (2007).

For the role of Edward Cullen, Robert Pattinson flew from England to director Catherine Hardwicke's house to audition. There, he and Kristen Stewart, who was already cast as Bella Swan, rehearsed the "Love Scene"/"Meadow Scene" on Hardwicke's own bed. Robert Pattinson stated in an interview that this is his first American role and he had no formal training to perfect his American accent. Before casting, Robert Pattinson had never heard of the Twilight novel. He only attended casting because he liked Kristen Stewart's performance in Into the Wild. He unknowingly contributed two songs to this film. Apparently, he didn't know that "a mysterious third party" had given the director a copy of music he had recorded years ago. She decided to use two of the songs, and he was surprised to hear them when viewing early film footage. The songs are: "Never Think" [playing during the restaurant scene] and "Let Me Sign" (plays during the scene where Edward has to drink Bella's blood to save her). Pattinson said he was overwhelmed by how well "Let Me Sign" fit into the film. He actually plays the piano in the scene where Edward is playing "Bella's Lullaby". As soon as Robert Pattinson was cast, he moved to Oregon and began working on his character, both physically and mentally. He worked out five hours a day with a trainer: learning to fight, play baseball, and do stunts. He also had to learn to drive and get an Oregon driver's license.

All of the actors playing the Cullens wear topaz-colored contacts.

Taylor Lautner had to wear a wig for his role as Jacob Black.

Over 5,000 actors auditioned for the role of Edward.

According to a July interview between network.nationalpost.com and director Catherine Hardwicke, Kristen Stewart was recommended for the role of Bella Swan by Emile Hirsch, her co-star from Into the Wild (2007) and whom Hardwicke directed in Lords of Dogtown (2005). The script was finished in 6 weeks. Catherine Hardwicke has said that she filmed a scene with Robert Pattinson taken directly out of "Midnight Sun", the unfinished novel by Stephenie Meyer telling the story of Twilight through Edward's perspective. According to her, this scene will be on the DVD. While doing location scouting work in La Push, Catherine Hardwicke and the crew saw people surfing and suggested to screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg to add beach surfing scene. Rosenberg agreed and added it but the scene had to be scrapped because of budget constraints.

When the 'evil vampires' make their first appearance, actors Cam Gigandet, Rachelle Lefevre and Edi Gathegi are all wearing little slippers painted like bare feet. While entering the building at the prom, Victoria can be seen at a slot machine to the right of Bella, her hair in a bun, fur, and dress. The first scenes filmed for the movie were the ballet room showdown and the baseball scene as Cam Gignet had to leave the set to shoot another movie.

Jessica in the movie is a combination of the characters Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory from the book.

Eric in the movie is a combination of the characters Eric Yorkie and Ben Cheney from the book.

Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale) and Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale) learned how to play baseball left-handed for the famous baseball scene.

Stephenie Meyer claims these authors partially inspired her: Jane Austen, Orson Scott Card, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte. She can be seen next to a laptop ordering a vegetarian sandwich in the diner at the beginning of the scene where Charlie asks Bella if she likes the boys in town. She wrote a parallel novel (unfinished) to "Twilight" called "Midnight Sun". It tells the story of the first book from Edward's point of view. In it, he comments that the arrival of Bella to the school has all of the boys "acting like they're in first grade and she's the shiny new toy". This thought is spoken aloud by Jessica during Bella's first lunch in the cafeteria. Stephenie Meyer had her own personal cast before all the roles were officially casted. They including Emily Browning as Bella Swan, Henry Cavill as Edward Cullen, Charlie Hunnam as Carlisle Cullen, Mary-Louise Parker as Esme Cullen, Rachael Leigh Cook as Alice Cullen, Trent Ford as Jasper Hale, Tom Welling as Emmett Cullen and Olivia Wilde as Rosalie Hale.

Christian Serratos wore her own glasses for her part as Angela Weber.

With a $70.6 mil debut gross, the movie had the top debut ever for a film directed by one woman (as of 2008). In almost every scene involving a television, the ending ballet studio scene is being played. The original release date for Twilight (2008/I) was December 12, 2008. When the release date for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) was moved from November 21, 2008, to July 17, 2009, Twilight's release date was moved forward to November 21 in a attempt to fill the Harry Potter gap. The movie was shot in 48 days.
In the first biology classroom scene, Edward Cullen is clearly shown with white wings, an indirect hint about his angelic beauty as written in the book.

At the cafeteria salad bar, Bella drops an apple which Edward picks back up and then cradles in his hands, copying the cover image of the Twilight novel. On the one of the DVD's special features Catherine Hardwicke said that took them 13 takes to get it right. In the hospital scene, when Bella and her mother are talking about the accident, the TV in the background can be seen playing the previous scene. The apple on the cover of the book is not only a symbol for the forbidden; in Scandinavian mythology the apple is a symbol for eternal youth and beauty.

Stephenie Meyer cited the band Muse as her source of inspiration to write her books. Another of her favorite groups is Linkin Park, who contributed a song in the soundtrack. Even though there is a song by Radiohead in the movie, it never made it to the official soundtrack album. Prior to the release of the Twilight Soundtrack featuring Carter Burwell's scored theme of "Bella's Lullaby", Yurima's piano composition, "River Flows in You", was largely and erroneously believed by many fans to be featured in the movie as the lullaby. This was due to a popular fan site including the piece by Yurima on a playlist of songs that served as their personal soundtrack for the Twilight book. While this song was how the fan site imagined the lullaby to sound (and subsequently thousands of fans online), it was never a part of the movie. Matt Bellamy of Muse gave Carter Burwell music for Bella's Lullaby, but it wasn't used. When Edward enters the cafeteria, Robert Pattinson's sister, Lizzie, can be heard singing vocals on the soundtrack.

Kristen Stewart's stunt double, Katie Powers, also plays a waitress at the diner.

All of the Cullens can be seen wearing jewelry with the same symbol on it. Edward, Jasper, and Emmett all had the same wristband, and Alice and Rosalie had similar necklaces with the symbol on it; Esme had a bracelet and Carlisle had a ring. The song playing on the background when Bella comes to "have dinner" at the Cullen's is the aria "Libiamo" from La Traviata. "Libiamo" literally means "Let's Drink", which is exactly what the Cullens do when they "have dinner".

The jacket worn by Solomon Trimble in the LaPush beach scene was handmade by his mother from a Pendleton blanket.

The Cullen family crest (seen worn by all the Cullens) is a lion with a hand over its head, and a downward pointing chevron with 3 clovers. The lion was added because of the famous line "And so the Lion fell in love with the Lamb", but the other portions (chevron, clovers, and hand) are from the actual Cullen Coat of Arms, although there are fewer clovers (2), more hands (3), and a sheaf of wheat on the real one.

It took 36 hours to turn Nikki Reed's naturally brunette hair to blonde. She was the one who got the producers to add Robert Pattinson's songs to the film. Reed secretly started recording him from her laptop, while he was singing, and playing his guitar. She then took it to the film producers, were they fell in love with his songs. The next day, they asked Rob if he could sing a few of his songs for the soundtrack, and he accepted. In the scene where Bella goes to the Cullens house for the first time, when Nikki Reed's character had to break the bowl, she actually cut her hands. This is why she is wearing gloves for the scene in the film.

When Bella and Edward are lying in the meadow, the sun coming through the trees makes a heart between them.

Edward's car is a Volvo C30.

The dress Kristen Stewart wears in the prom scene was only twenty dollars. The suit Robert Pattinson wore was the most expensive item of clothing from the entire shoot. The playing cards used during the prom were from Rio, a Las Vegas casino. When the high school students are getting ready for prom, Eric tells Bella he'll need to borrow her iPod for dance music. 'Kristen Stewart' (Bella) actually suggested the song "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" by Iron & Wine to play during the dance scene Bella shares with Edward at prom.

When Carlisle bit Edward, he whispered something into his ear. The first time it was "I'm sorry" then "My son". On about the fifth take he said, "You're sexy".

In the kissing scene Kristen is wearing one of director Catherine Hardwicke's shirts. In the script, the climatic Bella's "limbo" scene was intended to be an underwater sequence but budget constraints will not allow the scene to be filmed. As the alternative, outtakes from other scenes of Bella and Edward together were used, albeit digitally modified.

Peter Facinelli was the second choice to play Carlisle Cullen. When he found out that he lost out on the final round of auditions, he wrote a note to Catherine Hardwicke, saying, "I hope to work with you sometime." At the last minute before shooting, the original actor withdrew due to shooting conflicts. Hardwicke then offered the role to Facinelli, who immediately took up. He had to dye his hair blond before starting work.