Dracula’s full name is Vlad Draculea the Third, also known as Vlad Tepes (pronounced Tse-pesh). Dracula/Draculea (variant spellings, Draculea being the truer Romanian spelling) means “Son of the Dragon,” as “Dracul” means “Dragon” and the “a” signifies the “offspring of.” As his father’s name was Vlad Dracul, that is where “Dracula” is derived from. There is controversy over whether “Dracul” means “Dragon” or actually “Devil,” as the two words are basically synonymous in Romania. “Tepes” translated as simply “The Impaler,” a name for which Vlad Dracula III earned in tribute to/fear of his preferred method of killing an enemy.

Born in in the Transylvanian town of Sighisoara/Schassburg in 1431 to Vlad Dracul II (“Vlad the Great”) of the Order of the Dragon and Princess Cneajna, Vlad Dracula III was (by default when his older brother Mircea was killed) heir to his father’s throne in Wallachia and a voivode (warlord prince/governor) who joined the Order of the Dragon, an order founded by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1387 for the objectives of protecting the German king, defending Catholicism against the partisans of Jan Hus and other heretics, and crusading against the infidel Ottoman Turks. His father preceded him as a member of the order.

For the sake of Wallachia’s safety, Vlad Dracula III’s father turned he and his brother over to the Turks, the mortal enemies of his family and country. In late 1447, both Prince Vlad Dracul II and Mircea Dracula, Vlad III’s older brother, broke their pact with the Turkish Sultan and were caught and assassinated in marshes near Bucharest. Vlad Dracula was eventually allowed to claim power in Wallachia in 1448 after both his father and older brother Mircea were slain, but the ill-prepared Dracula was soon overthrown. His mind set on vengeance and his heart pumping with rage in the aftermath, Vlad returned to Wallachia in 1456 with the support of Hungary, claimed his birthright, and showed his enemies no mercy in a reign that lasted until 1462. Taking up the ruthless practice of impaling his enemies (for which he will always be known historically as “Vlad the Impaler”; Vlad Tepes), he decorated his entire courtyard with hundreds upon hundreds of long stakes, an impaled victim on every one. Romanian folklore says his mad hatred went beyond the enemies of his homeland into his own country—that he’d carve unborn babies from their unwed mothers, hammer nails into the skulls of ambassadors sent on errands of peace, seal and burn down halls where the poor would gather to eat and rest, among just a few of the grisly acts he was said to perform on whomever he deemed it justified on.

The papal legate Modrussa reported to Pope Pius II how, in his years of reign before 1462, Dracula had killed 40,000 of his political foes :

He killed some of them by breaking them under the wheels of carts; others, stripped of their clothes, were skinned alive up to their entrails; others placed on stakes, or roasted on red-hot coals placed under them; others punctured with stakes piercing their head, their navel, breast, and, what is even unworthy of relating, their buttocks and the middle of their entrails, and, emerging from their mouths; in order that no form of cruelty be missing, be stuck stakes in both breasts of mothers and thrust their babies onto them; he killed others in other ferocious ways, torturing them with varied instruments such as the atrocious cruelties of the most frightful tyrants could devise.

One event demonstrating Vlad’s “respect of diplomatic usage” during a reception of a Genoese delegation from Caffa, narrated by Michael Beheim :

I have found that some Italians [i.e., Genoese] came as ambassadors to his court. As they came to him they took off their hats and hoods facing the prince. Under the hat, each of them wore a coif or a little skullcap that he did not take off, as is the habit among Italians. Dracula then asked them for an explanation of why they had only taken their hats off, leaving their skullcaps on their heads. To which they answered : “This is our custom. We are not obliged to take our skullcaps off under any circumstances, even an audience with the sultan or the Holy Roman Emperor.” Dracula then said, “In all fairness, I want to strengthen and recognize your customs.” They thanked him bowing to him and added, “Sire we shall always serve you with your interests if you show us such goodness, and we shall praise your greatness everywhere.” Then in a deliberate manner this tyrant and killer did the following: he took some big iron nails and planted them in a circle in the head of each ambassador. “Believe me,” he said while his attendants nailed the skullcaps on the heads of the envoys, “this is the manner in which I will strengthen your customs.”

A paraphrased Romanian peasant ballad :

One day Dracula met a peasant who was wearing too short a shirt. One could also notice his homespun peasant trousers, which were glued to his legs, and one could make out the sides of his thighs. When he saw him [dressed] in this manner, Dracula immediately ordered him to be brought to his court. “Are you married?” he inquired. “Yes, I am, Your Highness.” “Your wife is assuredly of the kind who remains idle. How is it possible that your shirt does not cover the calf of your leg? She is not worthy of living in my realm. May she perish!” “Beg forgiveness, my lord, but I am satisfied with her. She never leaves home and she is honest.” “You will be more satisfied with another since you are a decent and hardworking man.” Two of Dracula’s men had in the meantime brought the wretched woman to him, and she was immediately impaled. Then bringing another woman, he gave her away to be married to the peasant widower. Dracula, however, was careful to show the new wife what had happened to her predecessor and explain to her the reasons why she had incurred the princely wrath. Consequently, the new wife worked so hard she had no time to eat. She placed the bread on one shoulder, the salt on another, and worked in this fashion. She tried hard to give greater satisfaction to her new husband than the first wife and not to incur the curse of Dracula.

One example of Vlad Dracula’s cruelty in Romanian folklore :

If any wife had an affair outside of marriage, Dracula ordered her sexual organs cut. She was then skinned alive and exposed in her skinless flesh in a public square, her skin hanging separately from a pole or placed on a table in the middle of the marketplace. The same punishment applied to maidens who did not keep their virginity, and also to unchaste widows. For lesser offenses, Dracula was known to have the nipple of a woman’s breast cut off. He also once had a red-hot iron stake shoved into a woman’s vagina, making the instrument penetrate her entrails and emerge from her mouth. He then had the woman tied to a pole naked and left her exposed there until the flesh fell from the body, and the bones detached themselves from their sockets.

A description of Vlad’s “forest of the impaled” from Tursun Bey, a late fifteenth century Turkish chronicler :

In front of the wooden fortress where he had his residence, he set up at a distance of six leagues two rows of fence with impaled Hungarians, Moldavians and Wallachians. In addition, since the neighboring area was forested, innumerable people were hanging from each tree branch, and he ordered that if anyone should take one of the hanging victims down, he would hang in his place.

A story confirming how thievery was virtually unknown in Wallachia throughout Vlad’s reign :

A golden cup was purposely left by Dracula near a certain fountain located near the source of a river. Travelers from many lands came to drink at this fountain, because the water was cool and sweet. Dracula had intentionally put this fountain in a deserted place to test dishonest wayfarers. So great was the fear of impalement, however, that so long as he lived no one dared to steal the cup, and it was left at its place.

Vlad Dracula’s life would indeed know many sacrifices and hardships, but it would also know many victories. 1453 saw the fall of the Roman fortress at Constantinople, though that was not a battle without consequence. Nevertheless, it was a battle Vlad and his army played a pivotal role in. A series of overwhelmingly victorious attacks made through both Wallachia and Transylvania in 1456 made Prince Dracula a feared and hated name to many. In the winter of 1459 Dracula organized one of his most devastating raids on Transylvanian soil, with the clear intention of trying to seize Dan III and his supporters, burning villages, forts, towns, and crops to deprive the population of food, and killed men, women, and children as he progressed along the valley of the Prahova River. The much-hated Dan III was captured in 1460 by Wallachians and forced to dig his own grave before Vlad personally beheaded him. 1462 saw the suicide of his Transylvanian first wife (though it is unclear if they were actually ever wed), who threw herself into the river and killed herself after hearing false news of her husband’s death. It is said a Turk firing an arrow with a scroll through her window relayed this false news.

Come the end of 1462, however, the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus began to fear Vlad’s restlessness and willpower, so he had him imprisoned for a period of twelve years, not releasing him until 1474. It was not until November of 1476 that Vlad was able to reclaim the title of voivode. During the course of his conflicts, Dracula had to abandon the Orthodox Christian faith and become a Roman Catholic to secure a much needed hard-and-fast military alliance with the Hungarians. This was secured with the marriage of his second wife, King Matthias’ cousin, Ilona “Lisa” Szilágy, in 1475.

His bloody campaign against the Turks going on for decades, his battles finally came to an end one December in 1476. Decapitated in a marsh near Snagov by a Turkish assassin disguised as one of his own men, Vlad’s head was allegedly taken back to Constantinople to be displayed before his enemies. His remains later buried near a monastery in Snagov Chapel, Vlad was thought laid to rest for eternity.

When excavation digs turned up empty centuries later, the mystery then began : what happened to the body?

Bram Stoker had his own answer, written and told to the ages in the form of his famous novel, Dracula. Undead after a rebirth, his memories of his former life only a vague recollection in the back of his mind, Vlad Dracula embraced his vampirism, using his genius to the cause of evil and his own arcane purposes.

During his lifetime he had three children with two women. The first was with his first wife, a Transylvanian noblewoman for whom history records no known name [rumored to be named “Elisabeta”] who allegedly committed suicide in 1462. By this woman he had Mihnea “the Bad” Dracula, who was the Prince of Wallachia from 1508 to 1510, had two wives (first Smaranda, then Voica), had two sons and a daughter by Voica, and then was stabbed to death by the Serbian assassin, Dimitrije Iaxici. The second and third was with Ilona Szilágy, the cousin of the King of Hungary whom he married in 1475. From Ilona, Dracula fathered Vlad Dracula IV, another claimant to the Wallachian throne, and then an unknown third child who lived much of his life with the Bishop of Oradea before dying of unknown causes (written to be an unspecified mortal ailment of some kind) in 1482. Mixing history with the Bram Stoker novel and then with the Legend of CastleVania, it could be said that this mysterious third child of Vlad Dracula from Ilona is Alucard (rumored real name : Adrian Fahrenheight Tepes), the “forgotten son of Dracula” written in the CastleVania lore who was first seen prior to or during the 1482 battle between Sonia Belmont and Dracula, then later assisted her son, Trevor C. Belmont, in 1499, and then finally became the central “hero” figure in 1792 one-on-one against his father.

Which brings the avid historian to “Count” Dracula, the Belmont Clan, and the events and myths that comprise the Legend of CastleVania itself...

Prince Vlad Dracula III of the lands of Wallachia and Transylvania died in December of 1476. This we know, pure historical fact and all myth/legend aside. But the lingering question remains, embroidered primarily in American myth : did he survive? And if so, and that answer lay in his becoming a vampire, then how did that transpire? How did Dracula defy the grave?

To date, there are two popularized theories for how Dracula became a vampire and a third theory that is more my own personal conjecture :

#1 : Perhaps a grief-stricken Vlad returned from a victorious campaign against the Ottoman Turks in 1462 to find his Transylvanian (first) wife dead, having committed suicide after thinking her husband killed (history seems to confirm this much). When he is told that his wife could not ascend to Heaven as a result of her suicide, he renounced God and swore to rise from his death to avenge hers with all the powers of darkness. It could be conjectured that when Vlad was assassinated fourteen years later on 1476, he did, in fact, rise from his death, then given the virtual immortality that comes with being a vampire.

#2 : More of a creative theory suggests over fifty years after Vlad’s assassination in 1476, while Vlad’s headless corpse was kept in Snagov Monastery, Radu, son of Alexandru, the deceased Prince of Wallachia and Moldavia, retrieved and brought the head (history seems to indicate it was taken by the Turks back to Constantinople to be displayed before the enemies of Dracula, where it remained until the flesh fell from bone and it fell from its post — the history in this era is sketchy enough to leave this bit open to interpretation... maybe that wasn’t his head at all, merely a propaganda trick by the Sultan...?) to the monastery. Attempting to resurrect Vlad through an incantation he began to chant, his words were interrupted by one of the monks he had thought dead, who lunged and stabbed Radu in the back. As Radu’s blood spilled onto the corpse of Vlad, the deceased prince rose from his coffin, resurrected through the life’s blood of his lineage. Vlad then put one of the dead monks’ bodies into his now-empty coffin, hoping to retain the mystery of his rebirth.

Or, factoring in the Legend of CastleVania...

#3 : Dracula somehow made a deal with Death / The Grim Reaper in the afterlife following his assassination in 1476, giving him life after death in Undead form as one of the first vampyre, strigoi, nosferatu to be reborn every hundred years automatically or sooner if resurrected by outside means/persons. The recurring Belmont Clan encounters with Death throughout the centuries within the walls of the Demon Castle Dracula on the way to confronting Dracula would seem to suggest this possibility as a rather plausible (if one can make himself buy into the existence of a Grim Reaper and an afterlife — I ask the reader to bear with me on this, if only for sake of argument) if not plausible one — what possible reason could Death have to defend Dracula’s castle like Dracula’s personal bodyguard for all of time if he was not operating somehow in concert with Dracula, presumably under some kind of formal agreement or at least understanding? This “answer” would only raise another question, however : what could Death’s interest in Dracula be?

Stranger still is the tale of Mathias Cronqvist, a tale that comes up often. It is a discussion of great debate among the Watchers, but some believe Dracula was first known as Mathias Cronqvist, in the years before 1094. It was during this time, in the age of the Crusades, when Cronqvist was best of friends with a man known as Leon Belmont. Together, the two formed an undefeatable company, that fought in the name of God. Mathias served as the tactical genius, while Leon was a warrior without peer. However, shortly after losing his wife, Elisabetha Cronqvist, Mathias would become bedridden and would reveal to Leon that his own girlfriend, Sara Trantoul, had been kidnapped by the vampire, Walter Bernhard, and taken to a castle within the Forest of Eternal Darkness. It was a ploy. Mathias had come up with a brilliant plan. Blaming God for taking his wife away from him, he had turned to the dark side and merely used Leon to kill Walter so he could steal the vampire's Ebony Stone. After Leon defeated Walter, Mathias disappears and becomes Lord of the Night, the king of all vampires. However, by using Leon in the fashion he had done, Mathias had cursed the Belmont bloodline to "forever hunt the night" and forever hunt him. Also destined to eternally oppose Dracula was the Belmont family's signature weapon, the "Vampire Killer," a mystic whip inhabited by the vengeful soul of the slain Sara Trantoul.

Those that subscribe to this theory of Dracula's origin assume that he would later change his name and, drifting through the centuries, would later take on the persona of Prince Vlad Dracula III of Wallachia, then later Count Dracula. Some further speculate that Mathias Cronqvist actually found a way to be reborn into another body and, in 1431 at the birth of Vlad Dracula III, did just that.

In Transylvanian Romania, above the Argés River and adjacent to both the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvanian Alps lays Castle Dracula, erected from slave labor in the fifteenth century consisting of a labor party of enslaved local criminals and the rich boyars Prince Dracula took a disliking to. After the Prince’s death in 1476, it remained standing in a decrepit state of disrepair all the way until the 1970s, when a union of historians who led the media to believe they had been working toward manually restoring the castle to some semblance of its former glory. Historian and Dracul family descendant Radu Florescu as well others showed aristocratic Americans about the premises as if it were no different than any other tourist trap, invited tourists, none having any idea they were treading upon the cursed earth of CastleVania.

That is what is in the history books on Romania you can buy in bookstores. What is the truth, however, is that Castle Dracula has been (for lack of a better word) magically reconstituted to every bit its former glory and then some on multiple occasions, with every resurrection of its host, Count Dracula. In the Legend of CastleVania, this continually resurrecting castle is known as “The Demon Castle Dracula, CastleVania.” Dracula’s resurrections are concealable enough, but how an entire Castle right on the edge of the Argés resurrecting at least once a century was managed to be covered up is a mystery along with the motives of whatever government officials decided to cover this up — in earlier periods this could be explained, but with the last reconstitution of CastleVania in 1844 through 1852... one would think it a bit too out of the ordinary to hide, a gigantic castle rising on its own will from the earth only to crumble back just as mysteriously as it had appeared.

Ah, well. I digress — onto those refutable Belmonts.

Though the following chronological listing may not include every instance of a Belmont challenging Dracula, — truly, the Master Vampire to end all Master Vampires (gods, the man’s human life alone is extraordinary enough) — it contains all the instances witnessed or recorded by Watchers. Chronological listing is as follows :

You will note Sonia Belmont mentioned above as “a Slayer.” This is only theory (mine), but it would make sense and be perfectly possible chronologically for that period of time in retrospect to the Legend of the Slayer with Sonia being certainly one of the first Slayers, the legend leading all the way from the Tribal original Slayer up to the promising young Ms. Summers of my present tutelage. I will wait until further proof or historical documentation surfaces to cement this theory or otherwise bring it into better perspective before blabbing too loudly about this theory, but it is something to keep in mind, surely.

In 1845, Boston shipyards were plagued by a series of grisly murders. The attacks ended when a quiet young woman arrived in town. In 1893, in the Oakland Territory, a series of savage attacks claimed the lives of 17 homesteaders. The murders stopped when a young woman blacksmith passed through town. These are the only two concretely known & historically noted Slayers apart from Ms. Summers beginning primarily in 1997.

Let me state the Count’s “known” (at least, known concretely enough on paper for me to even be able to list these with a straight face... I use this term loosely) resurrections (automatic centennial resurrections/deaths following centennial resurrections in bold) should also be noted for reference. Keep in mind the below listing ignores “resurrections” when documented history regarding Dracula’s Belmont Clan confrontations indicates certain “resurrections” were not Dracula rising from the dead again, but only Dracula coming out of hiding after not being properly killed by the previous or same Belmont :

As the above listing should show, one can make the connection that Dracula is automatically resurrected roughly 100 years following any death after an automatic resurrection, beginning with his First Centennial Resurrection in 1576 and his death in 1591 against Christopher Belmont, leaving him to be resurrected for his Second Centennial Resurrection accordingly in 1691, 100 years after his last death. There have been strange occurrences, namely his resurrection in 1748 only 50 years after being put down by Simon Belmont, also his resurrection in 1830 by Carmilla... we tend to think of these more as the exception than the rule.

With this bit of knowledge in mind, we must consider : Dracula’s last centennial resurrection was in 1897, and he was thence killed in the year 1897 primarily by Quincey P. Morris. Like his resurrection via Malus in 1844, one can ignore his resurrection by the Countess Elizabeth Bartley in 1917 (and subsequent killing by John Morris & Eric Lecarde), as it was by means/persons outside of the “naturally” (using the word liberally) occurring centennial resurrections. Now with this in mind, 100 years after Dracula’s last Post-Centennial Resurrection death (1897) would slot his fifth and latest centennial resurrection... at the year 1997.

It is not certain whether he resurrected in a timely fashion, but it is known that just one year ago in 1999, Julius Belmont and his companions managed to confront and seal Dracula in a lunar eclipse in what became known throughout the Watchers as the "Demon Castle Wars." It was believed that Dracula would remain sealed for all of time beyond this; that all of humanity could at last be at peace with the Legend of CastleVania.

If that is so, why did CastleVania suddenly appear (and later vanish) in Sunnydale yesterday? Why did the Slayer come face to face with Dracula? In the next few days I plan to send my documentation of this incident to the benefit of the Council, but bear with me.

My colleagues and friends, it is my duty to inform and warn you — provided the historical documents I’ve compiled this informational packet bear any weight (at this point, I have no reason to doubt they are legitimate accounts of the said events) — that Count Vlad Dracula has been walking amongst us some time again. It being near the end of the year 2000 as I write this, nearly the dawn of the Millennium, I find myself in a constant state of worry. Why no army of Undead or even no army of gypsies hasn’t swept over Europe yet in Dracula’s bidding is unknown, but the proximity to the New Year could be attributed. Dracula has not been alive/Undead long enough to witness the dawn of a new millennium. What the significance of the dawn of the Third Millennium on January 1st, 2001 could mean in the Legend of CastleVania and to Dracula himself is unknown, but it could be a factor in why the Count has been in hiding these past months.

I will await word from any who wish to compare notes with what I’ve gathered thus far. I have not told The Slayer of the findings I’ve made in this documentation yet (at first glance, the very premise behind the Legend of CastleVania seems farfetched, if not laughable). For the time being I will prepare young Ms. Summers nonetheless for the time when mankind — Belmont Clan members among our modern day society willing to meet the challenge or not — must rise against the tyranny of Count Vlad Dracula III.

- Rupert Giles, Watcher
  September 27th, 2000