Tales of her malice toward staff became so widespread that local families hid their daughters from her service, says Tony Thorne, a linguist at King’s College London and author of the 1998 book Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of Elizabeth Bathory. Visitors can roam this lofty site, from which startling rumors tumbled down the hillside in the early 1600s.īáthory moved to Čachtice in 1604 after her husband died. The crumbled remains of Čachtice Castle are now an eerie tourist attraction, looming above the town of Čachtice in western Slovakia, 50 miles northeast of the capital, Bratislava. They eventually had four children.īáthory’s violence peaked within another grand fortress. At 13 Báthory was engaged to 18-year-old Count Ferenc Nádasdy, from another influential Hungarian family, and they married two years later. Servants were routinely beaten in this era and, at age six, she watched a public execution. “Already at the age of four or five, she suffered from epileptic seizures, violent mood swings, as well as painful migraines,” Bartosiewicz says.īáthory was also exposed to brutality. The museum occupies the renovated castle where, in 1560, she was born into a wealthy dynasty that controlled Transylvania, now a region of Romania.īut Báthory’s privileged upbringing was tainted by violence and health problems, according to Aleksandra Bartosiewicz, of Poland’s University of Łódź, who in 2018 published a research paper on the countess. Visitors to the Hungarian town of Nyírbátor, about 170 miles east of Hungary’s capital Budapest, can stare the countess in the eye at the Báthory Castle and Wax Museum, which displays wax effigies of Báthory and her relatives. Nevertheless tourists intrigued by Báthory’s gory legend continue to follow her tale across Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria, visiting castles, crypts, and museums. Now, however, this longstanding narrative is being questioned by researchers who believe Báthory’s crimes were likely exaggerated as part of a conspiracy against her.
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