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| Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), often referred to by her Hungarian name, Erzsebet, was a Hungarian noblewoman, born to one of Hungary's wealthiest and most influential families. As with most European aristocratic dynasties, the Bathory clan was fraught with mental illness resul- ting from a long tradition of inbreeding. King Stephan of Poland ranks as one of Elizabeth's more memorable relatives; the less savory included a bisexual, sadistic aunt and a schizophrenic uncle. Small wonder, then, that Elizabeth began suffering from epileptic fits at the age of four or five. The young Countess was a spoiled child, raised by a string of governesses employed to cater to her every need. Though her erratic fits and stand-offish personality were bothersome, she was generally re- garded as an intelligent and capable young woman. At the age of eleven (or fifteen, by some accounts) Elizabeth became engaged to twenty-six-year-old Count Fernencz Nadasdy, a renowned war hero whose sadistic flair would ultimately earn him fame as "The Black Hero of Hungary." As was not uncommon in aristocratic circles, the marriage was a purely political union engineered by Elizabeth's opportunistic mother. The Nadasdy clan also climbed a few rungs on the social ladder - the Bathorys were a more powerful family with greater seniority. Though much speculation has been published with regard to the Countess' marriage, Fernencz's frequent absences were a hard fact. The first few years of their marriage produced few children, and it was during these long periods of solitude that Elizabeth's sadistic nature took rein. Before we explore any further, I must mention an incident from the Countess' childhood that clearly influenced her brutal actions as an adult. At a young age, Elizabeth witnessed the execution of a traitorous gypsy; the accused was stuffed in the dissected belly of a live horse and sewn inside. The gypsy's death was presented as a public spectacle (one particularly titillating for the nobles who attended); no sympathy was shown for the man's death nor was any remorse present on the faces of his executioners. This incident convinced young Elizabeth - in whom the seeds of cruelty had been sown at birth - that commoners could be killed with impunity and without fear of retribution. In her early twenties, Elizabeth, perhaps in a fit of boredom, discovered that torturing servants "tickled her fancy," if you will. No clear reasons have yet been given as to why the Countess took such exquisite pleasure in the pain of others, but overwhelming evidence proves that she did. Unfortunately for the teenage females in the servant population, Elizabeth's choice targets were adolescent girls. She began by ripping their bodies apart with red-hot pincers, setting them on fire, and torturing them with "star-kicking," which entailed oiled bits of paper being placed inbetween the servants' toes; the paper would be lit on fire while the Countess delighted in the spectacle of the girls attempting to kick away the flames. (How utterly delightful.) She was known to rip girls' heads apart - literally - by pulling their mouths open until they tore at the edges and the neck snapped. On her better days, she delighted in humiliating girls by forcing them to strip naked and perform their household duties in full view of men. When Fernencz returned home from war, he often indulged in the torture spectacles with his wife, though most accounts note that his capacity for administering agony was vastly exceeded by his wife's - Ferencz would storm off in disgust while Elizabeth squealed in delight. In her late twenties, the Countess bore two daughters and a son, all of whom were promptly relinquished to the care of wet nurses and governesses shortly after birth. Though the Countess ignored her children, she did not include them in her tortures. As the Countess grew steadily older, her thirst for innocent girls' flesh heightened. She invented new forms of torture, such as "honey torture," in which a girl was covered with honey and left outside to be devoured by insects and predators, and "water torture," in which a girl was stripped naked, taken out into sub-zero temperatures, and showered with cold water until she froze to death. Following the death of her husband (which some attribute to the Countess herself, though no strong evidence exists), she became ever more concerned with her fading beauty and began the regular blood-baths which earned her notoriety. When an unfortunate servant girl pulled the Countess' hair while styling it, Elizabeth slapped the girl so hard that blood splashed on her hand. As she went to wipe it off, she believed that the skin touched by the blood had regained the smooth, creamy complexion for which it had once been famous. She consulted her accomplices - witches known as Darvulia, Helena Jo, and Dorka-who assured her that the blood of virgins was indeed the proverbial fountain of youth for those who bathed in it. |
| Elizabeth ordered the maid's throat slashed and her blood drained into a large vat; she bathed lavishly in the blood while it was still warm. Thus began a horrific ritual; hundreds of girls were kidnapped, brought to the castle, and drained of their blood. Often she bit their necks and breasts herself, drinking the blood and eating the flesh from their open wounds. Elizabeth ordered torture devices from German clockmakers and blacksmiths; soon Csjethe Castle, where she lived out much of her adult life, had a full-scale torture chamber in the basement. Aside from the notorious vat and a kitschy iron maiden, there were spiked cages and a spike-filled metal orb hanging from the ceiling. Girls were placed in the cylindrical spiked cages and prodded with red-hot iron pokers until they impaled themselves on the spikes; others were placed in the spiked orb, which was rocked back and forth like a pendulum until the girl's flesh had been shredded. The cages were fitted with drains at the bottom so that the Countess could stand beneath them for a "blood shower." Elizabeth's reign of terror continued for years. The casualty list grew into the triple-digits; this was later verified by the roster of victims the Countess kept in her writing desk. Bodies of dead girls were burned, buried beneath the castle floors, or left in the wilderness to be devoured by scavengers. Shockwaves of terror penetrated the surrounding countryside from which most of Elizabeth's victims had been abducted, but few dared speak out for fear of the Countess' infamous wrath. Even the clergy - supposedly responsible for protecting peace and justice - remained silent. But even a powerful aristocrat cannot commit 600+ unavenged murders. Towards the end of her murderous marathon, the Countess became sloppy, ordering dead girls tossed over the castle walls to be devoured by passing wolves and asking clergymen to perform burial services for mutilated girls. However, no direct action was taken until the Countess, having exhausted her supply of adolescent girls in the area, began preying on noblewomen of lesser rank. She established a sham "school" for teenage girls of noble birth, inviting them to Csjethe Castle with the promise of education, only to torture them to death for months at a time. |
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