WEBVTT - The True Story of Dracula 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:10.320 Also media, let's fucking podcast. 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:14.760 This is a behind the Bastards listeners, It's a podcast 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.960 about the worst people in all of history. And I 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.160 got I got very hyped there, so you might think 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.239 this is going to be a high energy podcast episode. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.880 But I am years old or something like that, and 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.240 last night I went to bed at three am. 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.360 I just feel we have to cut that because some people. 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.080 Yeah, we'll believe it out, we'll bleep it out. So okay, 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:37.960 we'll bleieve it out. 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:38.760 Safety. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:42.320 Yeah, I don't even fully remember. I just I'm telling 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.000 you right now people, I'm the kind of hungover that 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.120 you get, not because you've gotten you were drinking or 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.280 doing drugs, but because you are in your mid thirties 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.640 and you stay up slightly later than normal. That's that's 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.760 where I am right now. I'm pounding coffee. I'm trying 0:00:57.800 --> 0:00:58.400 to do better. 0:00:58.760 --> 0:00:58.880 Uh. 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:05.080 And here to just distracked from my my decrepit elderlyness, 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:07.199 is Jack O'Brien the. 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.919 Most decrepit old person you've ever seen, the crypt keeper. 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.080 What's up, guys? How are you doing? Jack? I'm doing 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:15.440 all right. 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.280 Why are you like seven mountain dues. 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.600 Or what's zero mountain dues in but it's still early. 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.720 What is it? Is it a security risk to tell 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.199 people how old you are or just like I don't 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:32.680 know what. 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.200 We like to filter out disinformation, Like there's a lot 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.200 of listeners who think my real name is and you know, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.399 I don't tell that for a specific reason. But the 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.040 more lies there are out there, right, like, the the 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:46.080 better it is for me. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.120 Okay, yeah, people don't like us, Jack, but you. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.800 Also don't know how old you are, so I know, like, 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.680 could you could use some crowdsourced research put into that, right, 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:58.360 But that's right. 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.480 I was born on the Bayou and they don't they 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.040 don't take notes about when. 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:02.680 You were born there. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.800 That's actually I'm actually who that credence song was true. 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.280 Yeah, well, it's great to be here. It's great to 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.520 see both of your faces. Thank you for thank you 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:11.280 for having me back. 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.880 Good to see you, Jack, attack Jack. It's the spookiest 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.160 month of the year. I think we can all accept that. 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.080 And on the day this drops, Happy Halloween. 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:25.000 Yeah, Happy, happy Halloween, everybody, Happy Halloween. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:29.880 Happy Halloween. It's Tuesday Halloween. I do apologize. I feel 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:36.560 like we all are getting a little screwed there, right yeah, yeah, yeah, Halloween. 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.880 We need to make it be like Thanksgiving, where it's 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:40.000 always on like a Friday. 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.680 Yes, but you bet a couple of days off before 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:43.440 and after. 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.440 Yeah exactly, But but that's not the case. So it's 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.000 a Tuesday. I wish you all the best. But because 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.600 we wanted to try to help make Halloween extra good, 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.280 we have an episode about the man who put the 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:02.399 spook in Spooktober, which is what I call October Dracula. Yeah, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.480 that's right, that's right, motherfucking I mean, the title of 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.040 the episode is just motherfucking Dracula comma bitches. But they 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.440 probably won't let us use the episode exclamation point, thank you. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:14.840 I don't think we can put that on Spotify. 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:20.920 They'll get angry. Jack, What do you know about Dracula. 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.680 I am a big fan of his cereal. 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.600 I just count Shocula, which is I mean, honestly, Jack, 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.560 a little racist, all of the all of the dah 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.440 the same, right, Yeah, I. 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.440 Am not that from it. Like, I know there are 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.840 historical roots to the character, but like in terms of 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.040 who it's based on or what they did to have 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:54.520 such a horrible story told about them, which which is 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.600 what it is I mean, it feels like it could 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.600 just be like from a middle school burn book, right, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.600 like just like like I heard they go into people's 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.800 rooms and try and bite their neck and suck on 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.840 their wad. Yeah. So I don't know what I'm curious 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.600 to learn more. Yeah, well you're going to learn way 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.080 too much today. So good, that's what I come here for. 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.080 If you're you know, most people I think are broadly 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.480 aware that Dracula the Vampire from the Bram Stoker book 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:25.760 and then from I don't know, like a million other 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.720 books and pieces of media sense is based on a 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.680 real guy of Vlad Tepesh, better known as Vlad the Impaler, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:35.440 and we have gotten over the years. 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.920 Yeah, yeah, Lad, that's right. I've always resented this guy 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.279 a little bit because he took a nickname that I 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.440 always wanted. Yeah, Jack the Impaler. Yeah, yeah, you remember 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.960 like how hard I tried to go. Yeah, going back 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:51.400 into cracked days. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:54.839 For the record, Jack, You're always the first Impaler in 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.960 my heart, or at least in the top like three, 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:58.279 certainly before Dracula. 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.560 A lot of people say like, I don't pale that 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.159 many things, and I would point out, like, wait, have 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.080 you not seen me eat with a fork. 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:08.640 Yeah, Or I mean you've cooked kebab a couple of 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.320 times out of stuff. 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:13.599 I don't generally cook it, but I will eat off 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.560 of a kabab, so that gives me rights to that. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.159 But yeah, I think I think he just got to 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:23.040 it first. Otherwise I would be known, you would have 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:24.320 been introducing me as Jack. 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:26.960 There's all there's a lot of unfair things like that, 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.000 like the the Wachowski's get credit for creating the matrix, 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.040 even though just seven or eight years later, I had. 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.680 An idea that was very similar to the matrix. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.840 So like who gets the credit, you know, But yeah, 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.479 it's unfair, it's unfair. And also my version of the 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.560 matrix all Danny DeVito we get, we get those we 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:48.760 get those talentless hacks out of there, and we go 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:49.800 pure divito. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:56.680 It's predvito. It's multiplicity matrix, matrixplicity, it's multiplicity the matrix. 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:58.840 And that's how you can kind of tell things are 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:03.200 off a little bit. Yeah, this is a world of alldvitos. 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.039 Because you're like, I'm used to some Danny DeVito's, but 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:06.840 not quite as many as we're getting. 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.480 So like, sure, we've heard of like you go into 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.560 work and it's mostly de Vito's but not pure Divito, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.440 and that's how things are a little bit, yeah, a 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.240 little bit twisted at the robots have taken so Dracula, 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:26.520 So Dracula. Sorry, this becomes a dragon who could be 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.560 ably played by Danny DeVito is based on a real guy. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.560 Shock he should be Vlad the Impaler, And a weird 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:36.040 number of fans over the years have been like, you 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.720 should do with Lad the Impaler episode and there are 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.160 a lot of lurid stories about what he did. But 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.400 the reason why we haven't covered him before and we're 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.960 not really going to do an episode focused entirely on 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.799 Lad the Impaler is that he's the kind of historical 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.919 bastard where like you don't actually know if any of 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.680 that's true or if most of that is true. Like 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.160 every if I was just doing a Lad the Impaler episode, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.200 every other sentence would be me being like reading a 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:05.839 paragraph where somebody from like the sixteen hundreds is writing 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.000 about an atrocity he was supposed to have committed a 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.640 couple of hundred years earlier, and then me going, but 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.360 also maybe that's not true, because it's it's it's more 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.040 based on these like other myths or whatever that came 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.880 about in a previous age or you know, here's all 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:20.760 these reasons why that might not be the that's the 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:26.160 case flying around, Yeah, for some reason. So there's reasons 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.640 to Yeah, I always got the sense, and I think 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.280 this is why I like didn't dig into it that much. 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.760 Is I always got you know how Einstein gets credit 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.400 for every smart thing, very smart sounding thing that anyone's 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.280 ever said. Now they're like, well, you know what Einstein said, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.800 the definition of is doing the same thing over and over. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.160 And it's like, first of all, that's not insanity and 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.760 that's not a smart thing. But second ball, Einstein like 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.240 never said any of that. But it's like I always 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.160 got the sense of Vlad the Impaler and slash Dracula 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.800 just like got his brand was really strong, Like we 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.120 needed somebody to be spooky, and so we just gave 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.200 him all the dark shit. Yeah. 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.320 History, Yeah, that is probably a lot of what happened. 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.960 It's one of those like he was a ruler in 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.200 the fourteen hundreds, which was a pretty brutal time, especially 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.320 in Eastern ye Eastern Europe doesn't have a lot of 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.760 periods of time where things weren't fairly brutal like it is, 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.440 and he's but I don't know on his own, I 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.880 don't know that I would qualify him as a bastard because, like, 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.400 for this show, just kind of to make things narratively 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.040 make sense, I have adopted sort of a definition where 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.760 it doesn't just being a bastard doesn't just mean you're 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.280 a bad person. It means you actively like made the 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.560 world worse and stood out in your time as a 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.320 shitty person. Like I wouldn't do a Behind the Bastards 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.920 on a random plantation owner in the South, right, not 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.280 because that's not a bad thing to do, because it's 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.240 but because like what is there to say, right, Like 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.680 he was one of a bunch of people who were 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:00.920 part of this really awful system. I would do an 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.360 episode on Robert E. Lee, right, because the things that 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.440 he was trying to do not only like extended the 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.880 Civil War and made this conflict bloodier, but he was 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.280 actively attempting to set this system up in a way 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.120 that would allow it to like persevere longer into the future. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:18.720 So he was somebody who was actively not just part 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.719 of a bad system, but like making things worse in 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.959 his existence right, whereas in Vladi Impaler, I'm not sure 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.720 if that really qualifies. He's a ruler in Wallachia during 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.600 which is you know, part of Romania now during this 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.520 really brutal period. He definitely, like all rulers in that, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.560 does some horrible shit. But most of the stuff about 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.200 his like real horrible crimes against humanity. Some of it 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:45.680 may be true, but a lot of it is the 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.480 result of propaganda for a bunch of Catholic monks who 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.480 were like really pissed at him because he had killed 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.599 a bunch of the Germans in his country. And I 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.439 don't know, you know, mixed bag as to whether or 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.440 not like it's fair or just kind of of like 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.760 a part of a political dispute basically that has echoed 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.720 down And like anybody who is a ruler in Europe 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:08.959 in this period's going to do some massacres. But if 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.640 like you're doing the same kind of horrible shit as 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:13.800 everybody else in the area, I don't know that I'm 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.000 going to like want to cover you in behind the bastards. 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.640 So what makes Tepees interesting is the degree to which 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.240 is how he becomes Dracula, right, And that is a 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:26.840 story that involves a lot of other people's bastardry. It 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.839 involves a really fascinating look into human folklore and the 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.320 kind of stories that we tell about our monsters, and 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.800 I think ultimately it has a lot to say about 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:38.960 like why we are the way we are. So that's 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:40.600 kind of the story we're going to be talking about today, 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.959 how Vlad became Dracula. But that is going to start 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.440 with a little bit of a bio on Vlad v Impaler. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.160 So are you ready to learn about v the MP V. 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.839 The MP I am a little VMP action. 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.679 Yeah, that's right, that's right. So Vlad was born in 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.240 fourteen thirty one. Maybe he may have been born as 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.400 early as fourteen twenty eight. We're not gonna know, because nobody, 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.400 really nobody was like putting down birth certificates. I'm gonna 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.000 guess people didn't always know what year it was. Like, 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.360 if you traveled like seven miles by foot, you probably 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.120 would go to a place like, no, it's not fourteen 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:16.520 twenty eight, it's fourteen twenty nine. 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:17.040 Whatever. 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.400 I like to keep it mysterious, like you do with 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.600 you exactly exactly. Lad also is trying to avoid getting 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:28.800 doxed so he was probably born in Transylvania. That part 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.319 of the books is likely accurate. The town he was 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.959 born in is I'm going to do my best here, Sigiswara, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.840 which was then part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Hungary 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.120 and Romany, I mean, Romani is not a thing at 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.320 this moment as like an independent nation. But they're going 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.720 to wind up spending quite a bit of time having 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.880 a little kerfuffle over this specific area that he's born in. 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.240 Eastern Europe in his time was a place of chaos 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.160 and violence, one in which the medieval traditions of serfdom 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.560 and feudalism they were starting to fade in the west. 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.000 Right in western Europe in the fourteen hundreds, serfdom and 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.040 kind of a lot of these feudal attitudes are giving 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.640 way to what's going to result in like a more 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.439 modern concept of like states in the relationship between people 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:15.439 and rulers that's starting to happen in the West and 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.560 the East. All of that shit is really kind of 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.120 coming into its height, right because it's, you know, just 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.079 a different part of the world. The chief powers in 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.240 Vlad's time in the area where he grows up are Hungary, 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.400 that's like the big Christian Kingdom, which was a closely 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.560 related foreign kingdom to Wallachia where his dad is going 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:38.480 to be ruling in the not too distant future. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.120 And then the other big power, Yeah, I've heard of Hungary, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.320 not Wallachia. Well, so everybody gets an idea of how 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.360 dumb I am. Yeah on this whole thing. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.160 I had a friend in high school, as a Romanian national, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.320 who would always insist that he was Wallachia, not just 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.840 not Romania. Like Wilaki is like the center of what 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:59.280 becomes the state of Romania. And so the other big 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.160 power in the You've got Hungary on one side, and 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.800 like the Holy Roman Empire, which is like, you know, 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.240 kind of governing the major Christian states in that region. 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.000 And then the other big power is the Ottoman Empire. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.040 And the Ottomans have not taken Constantinople yet, but they're 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.800 they're working on it, right, They're in the process of 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:22.600 making Constantinople into Istanbul. You can refer to that. They 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.679 might be Giant Song if you want a little bit 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:30.400 more information on that. It's pretty pretailed history exactly too many. Yeah, 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.840 so Constantinople has not gotten the works yet, but the 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:38.680 Turks are in the process, so they are making constant 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.560 incursions into this chunk of Eastern Europe. They control some 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:44.480 of the surrounding territories. And like when you read like 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.480 weirdo right wing dudes with like Twitter accounts that are 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.240 named I don't know, like cultural critic or whatever, they 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:53.839 tend to like. They always like to frame this as 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.559 this bone deep clash of religions and cultures that are 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:59.520 just completely different and can never live together. That's not 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.040 what anyone living through it sees it as. 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:02.280 Right. 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.800 If you are actually living in the area at this point, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.120 your life is a lot more muddled. Vlad the Impaler's father, 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.000 who is Vlad the Second, who's going to wind up 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:14.000 ruling Volakia, he spends most of his life allied to 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.520 the Ottomans, right like, he is an Ottoman vassal, and 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.840 he is also he's fighting when he goes to war, 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.880 he's often fighting on behalf of Sultan Morad the second, 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:25.280 And a lot of people go back He's going to 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.000 go back and forth. His son's going to go back 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.240 and forth. A lot of people in this border area 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.320 are like, well, right now, it looks like the Ottomans 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.120 are a better bet, so I'm an automan vessel. And 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.160 then like, oh, now the holy Roman Emperor seems like 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.600 he's got you know, some shit on his he's got 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.400 some weight behind him, so I'm going to go over there. 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.320 That's just how people are right like it. It doesn't 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.600 make any sense to be super rigorous about it, because 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:46.560 that'll just get you killed. 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:46.960 Sure. 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:51.080 So it is from the Emperor Sigismund that the family 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.400 gets their imposing title Dracule. Dracuel is not like a 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.960 last name. It is a title that they are given. 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.280 And obviously that's the root of the word Dracula. If 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.040 you've seen that new movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter, 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.360 which is about one chapter in the bram Stoker Dracula 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:10.720 book where Dracula travels over to this little coastal English 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.360 town on a boat. Doesn't go well for the people 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.040 on the boat. The crate that he's loaded under the 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.880 ship in has a dragon on it. That's because the 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.280 word dracul means dragon, although in Romanian it can also 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.240 mean devil. Both are It's kind of like it means 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:31.640 both and yeah, the reason why he gets that title 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.160 is that Sigismund is trying to get Vlad the Second, 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:37.640 Glad the Impaler's dad, and a couple of these other 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.120 kings and stuff who are sort of on the fence. 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:41.680 A lot of them kind of go back and forth 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.080 between him and the Ottomans. He wants to get them 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.640 locked in on his side, right because he's trying to 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:48.680 build up a solid He's trying to like make sure 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.840 his power base stays solid. And so he creates this 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:56.800 nightly order called like the Order of the Dragon, and 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.400 Vlad the Second is one of the guys he brings 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:04.520 into this. Most kind of layman's histories of Vlad the 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.200 Second and of Lad the Impaler will describe the Order 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.120 of the Dragon this way. And I'm going to quote 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.400 from an article by the Warfare History Network quote a 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:14.640 group of European leaders who were sworn to defend the 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.920 Holy Roman Empire against infidels. Now again, that kind of 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.240 leans into a lot of popular conceptions about how this 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.600 period of time works. Some of the sources I've read 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.040 kind of make it look again a lot more muddled. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.960 There's a pretty interesting book on Vlad the Impaler by M. J. Trow, 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.960 who is a crime novelist. And we'll talk about our 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.000 historian that we have as a source here in a second, 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.600 but he describes the order and he has some pretty 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.120 good sources to back this up in more mafioso terms, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.240 So not this alliance of Christians against the infidels, but 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.960 more of like a system of mutual aid designed by 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.560 Sigismund to tie regional rulers to him and to each 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.680 other to reinforce his own power. More of like a 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.920 secret society right where it's like, get this impressive and 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.640 this title will kind of bind them to me and 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:05.640 to each other and will promise to like help each 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:07.679 other out. I'm trying to make this kind of like 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:11.480 intimate cultural bond to set us all together, but more 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.280 because I want them. I want them to feel like 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.720 they have a sense of like owing me something. 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.880 Right, and they do because that nickname is awesome name. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.840 If I get to call myself the fucking Dragon, yeah, 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.680 I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be like if Kentucky were 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.199 to award me the rank of colonel. You know, if 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.240 I could be at Kentucky colonel, I would I would 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.679 be much more pro Kentucky than I currently yea. 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.159 And you would have. Yeah, the branding is just incredible 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.480 and great that they had a sense of it at 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:42.720 the time. I love that. It was just like, well, 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.160 if you want to like have this cool nickname, yeah, 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.359 then you gotta be cool with Sigis Mandy. Yeah. Yeah. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.439 It's like a you know, a five year old creating 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.000 a club that's like the super Cool Ninjas. Yeah that 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:58.199 like you get to call yourself a super cool Ninja 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.560 if you join up, Like hell yeah, that's worked from 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:02.639 the beginning of time. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.119 Yeah, because like I think every man, I think I 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.520 speak for literally the entire male population when I'm like, 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.440 we all want to be nicknamed the Dragon. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.000 The Dragon. But if kind of our only goal, yeah, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.520 like if you were to introduce yourself as the Dragon, 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.080 people would be like you give yourself that nickname? Yeah right, yeah. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.640 But if you're like, no, man, somebody else said I'm 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.679 the Dragon and like they're the Holy Roman Emperor, then 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.280 you're in. Then you're in, you know, like in like Flynn, 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.760 I guess that's that's really the goal here, and it's 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.440 I don't know, it's debatably successful, but that's where they 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.359 get the nickname from. Now we have basically no real 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.359 information on the kind of childhood that Lad would have 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.840 experienced our lad, not Lad the second his dad. There 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.439 are some things we can infer his family was extremely wealthy. 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.359 These guys are nobility, right, They're they're bowyers, which is 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.959 like what you call nobles in in in this region. 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.320 They have numerous servants and body guards. And for most 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.639 of Ladd's early childhood he's effectively like his dad is 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.639 the governor of Transylvania for Hungary, watching for a Turkish incursion. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.359 We don't know who his mother was. It's possible she 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:17.919 was like basically a prostitute. This is not like normal 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:19.639 in like Western Europe and what not. That would make 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.720 him like a bastard, right, like in a literal. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:23.560 Sense federal master. 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.239 That's not the case in this part of the world, right, 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.920 Wallachian in Transylvanian culture, certainly in this period is not 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.560 very pro woman and so and to the extent that, 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:34.960 it doesn't really matter who your mother is. 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:35.280 Right. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.000 What determines whether or not you are a legitimate and 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.320 that's in the parlance of the time, a legitimate son, 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:42.879 right in order to like inherit and stuff, is just 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.520 who your dad is. Right, It doesn't actually matter who 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.520 your biological mother is. So Vlad is his dad's actually 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.679 is an illegitimate son, So it's not. One of the 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.479 things about this is that there's this quasi aristocratic democracy thing, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.639 where like winding up in charge is the result of 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.960 a bunch of these other boyers supporting you having a job. 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.840 So the fact that Vlad the Second is like an 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.000 illegitimate son probably doesn't really hurt him because he's able 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:08.680 to get a lot of support to put him in power. 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.560 But Glad the Impaler is his dad's like legit son, 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:14.960 and he's the second son of the family under his 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.640 elder brother Mercea. His youngest brother, Radu is also known 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.800 as the handsome and m J. Trout writes, quote, yeah, 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:23.640 he's hot as hell. 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:25.720 MJ. 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.280 Trow writes about his about all of their upbringing. Actually, 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.680 he would have had a steward to organize the servants, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:33.800 order the food and the wine, and regulate the day. 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:36.880 Numerous skivvies would be employed to cook, clean and sew. 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.000 The male children would have learned to give orders and 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.000 adopt the airs and grace is expected of men that 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.159 one day rule an entire country, however small by modern standards. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.600 Yes, the one picture of Vlad the impaler that I've 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.000 always seen. The main thing that I take away from 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:54.320 it is that he looks like a rich guy from 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.320 another era. Yeah, he's for sure bobbles and like just 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.280 various fancy news. His hair is like looks like it 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.320 has been combed by someone who is not him for 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:10.560 like hours a day. Oh yeah, the thing he's wearing 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.040 makes him look like a Christmas tree ornament. Yeah, that's 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:16.520 kind of his overall. 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.800 His mustache. What do you think of the mustache mustache? 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.480 I always assume that's just from another era. Yeah, And 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.720 it also looks like he might have taken one of 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.840 his locks and just like put it across his upper lip. 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:33.800 So there's a serious curl going on on. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.879 His I'm imagining there's like a backstory to that mustache. 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.720 Like if you guys have watched Brea Hercule Perro movies 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.119 like the second the second one opens with like the 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:48.240 the gritty backstory of a mustache. It's amazing anyway, That's 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.600 what I imagine. So in his book, M. J. Trow 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.600 cites two historians, Fluorescue and McNally, who write this about 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.000 Flats upbringing. There were the usual distinctions that followed the 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:03.639 feast days, puppets, ambulant artists, acrobats, mini singers, and in 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.280 summer there were ball games, running and jumping contests, and 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.400 games on quadrilateral swings made of red cloth and fashioned 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:11.320 in the form of a pyramid. In the winter, they 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:16.439 hunted eagles with sling shots the Sigasuarrez slopes on primitive 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:20.760 double runner sleds trapped hairs. That is pretty cool. Eagles 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:21.640 with sling shots. 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:23.800 Eagles with slingshots is red. 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.960 The degree of deadly skills you had to have even 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.240 to be like a pampered rich kid in this era 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:30.119 is amazing. 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.520 Like you're just fucking bull saying an eagle with your 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:39.320 so funny shooting eagles out of the fucking clear blue sky. Yeah, 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:41.000 sling fucking. 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.440 Rock and a piece of elastic. Yeah, amazing. 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.040 And they didn't have elastic, so it was just like 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:49.000 a slid like you had to swing it around and 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:52.119 like it David's style, right, Yeah, probably. 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.440 I think maybe they had more modern slingshots than I 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.480 don't know. I'm not a slingshot expert. In fourteen thirty six, 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.439 the ruler of Wallachia, Vlad the Second's brother, died of 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.560 natural causes. Now he had spent. Vlad's brother, had Laed. 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:08.960 The second's brother had been the kind of guy whose 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.919 primary focus was not pissing anyone off too much. So 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.400 he had tried to be friendly with the Hungarians because 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:17.520 they're right next door. But he'd also paid tribute to 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:20.239 the Sultan and been in a military alliance with them. 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:22.080 And this is the kind of thing where like nobody 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:24.359 trusts each other. So when you're in a military alliance 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:26.399 with a guy like the Sultan, you send them a 0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:29.720 bunch of your family members, right, your family, some other nobles, 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:32.480 and you send him to Istanbul. And that's like your 0:23:32.480 --> 0:23:34.600 guarantee of good behavior. If you don't keep up with 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:36.960 the treaty, they'll kill your family, you know, Like that's 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.520 the way it goes here, everyone, Robert here, I fucked 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:42.520 this up. I misspoke. Obviously, the Ottomans had not captured 0:23:42.640 --> 0:23:46.000 is Stanbul at this point, which we talk about later 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:48.840 when they do. Believe the capital of the Ottoman Empire 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:53.880 at this phase was Adirney edr Ine. That's how it's anglicized. 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:56.720 But if you keep up with the treaty, the family 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:58.560 is a pretty good life, right, Like they're not locked 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:02.280 in a cell or whatever in court. They generally attend 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:04.560 like schools and whatnot in the area. Like it can 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.440 be a pretty decent experience depending on where you are. 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.320 This puts it in a whole new perspective that you 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:13.560 guys made me send my kids to yeah, stay with 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:16.239 Sophie while we recorded this. That is that is the 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:20.560 case you said, case go sideways? Yeah, okay, yeah, in 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.280 case you to support another group of advertisers. 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:24.160 That's right. 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:30.440 So Vlad the second his brother dies and he becomes 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:33.719 the ruler of Wallachia next, and he does this with 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:37.040 the backing of Sigismund. Right, Sigismund was not happy with 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:39.720 Lad the Second's brother. He's like, this guy is in 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:41.920 an alliance with the Sultan. I'm not a big fan 0:24:41.960 --> 0:24:43.840 of the Sultan. I want to put a guy on 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:46.879 the Wallachian throne who's like my dude, right, and who I. 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:48.600 Holy Roman Empire? 0:24:48.840 --> 0:24:51.560 Yes, yes, he's the holy and the king of Hungary. Right, 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:54.520 got you know you can. He's a triple threat, at 0:24:54.600 --> 0:24:57.200 least a double threat, probably triple. I assume there's another 0:24:57.240 --> 0:24:59.600 threat to him. 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:01.200 Holy Roman Empire or or the Dragon. They're the ones 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:03.120 who came up with that idea. To let them call 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:05.400 them those dragons. Okay, yeah, yeah. 0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:08.679 So the family, the Dragon family moves to the capital 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:12.800 of Wallachia, tiergo Viste, and into a big fancy castle. 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:15.720 Now Glad, being paler age six or seven, starts his 0:25:15.880 --> 0:25:18.119 night training at this point, which is like every little 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:19.760 boys dream. I think we all wish we could have 0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:21.720 trained this a night when we were six or seven. 0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:25.359 Oh ak, yeah, okay, yeah, so cool. 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:27.400 But I thought like they were like, okay, you're now 0:25:27.440 --> 0:25:30.199 ready to do battle at night like a ninja, Like 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:32.400 that is what he's going to wind up doing under 0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:34.800 cover of darkness. This is this is when we do 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:37.680 our nighttime seals training. 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:40.359 It is you have to start early, not just for 0:25:40.440 --> 0:25:42.919 a kid. But oftentimes I'm not one hundred percent sure 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:44.159 if this is the way, but I think it is 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:46.000 the way that they do in Willachia. But like even 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:48.760 going back to the ancient Greece, if you're the kind 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:51.200 of dude who, because of your position in society, you're 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:53.720 going to be expected to fight on horseback. You are 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:58.040 often raised like with your horse, because it takes sometimes 0:25:58.040 --> 0:26:01.479 ten fifteen years to like really train a military horse 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:05.080 to be able to because like horses don't want to 0:26:05.119 --> 0:26:07.520 fight right like, they don't. They don't want to charge 0:26:07.520 --> 0:26:10.639 a bunch of angry armed men. That's scary for a horse, 0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:14.560 so you have to it. Often, like these societies, like 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:16.359 this is the case with the Macedonians back in the 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:19.359 time of Alexander, they spend a lot of their childhoods, 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:21.840 like both kind of growing up and training with their 0:26:21.880 --> 0:26:24.680 horses so that they can fight together, because it takes 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:26.240 that long to make a good war horse. 0:26:26.400 --> 0:26:29.320 Yeah, it's been a constant struggle with me and my horse. 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:35.320 My horse is more into the arts, yeah, and dressage. Yeah, 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:38.040 and yeah hates when I just try and ride it 0:26:38.080 --> 0:26:39.000 into a fist fight. 0:26:39.280 --> 0:26:42.520 No, you have tried to invade Persia several times and 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:44.000 your horse just won't see it. 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:47.200 It's not going well. It's not going well. Yeah, very 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:47.879 bad at it. 0:26:48.520 --> 0:26:51.359 This period in his life where he's kind of living 0:26:51.440 --> 0:26:54.600 in tigiv Ste, he's training on being a knight. It 0:26:54.680 --> 0:26:57.800 ends pretty quickly for little baby Blaid the Impaler, because 0:26:57.800 --> 0:27:00.760 in fourteen thirty seven, when he's some between seven and 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:05.000 nine years old, probably the Emperor Sigismund dies and his 0:27:05.160 --> 0:27:07.960 plans to create this grand anti Ottoman alliance kind of 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:10.760 crumble the whole order of the Dragon thing. They keep 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:13.000 the title, They're always going to use that title. That's 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:16.040 fucking do. It's not going anywhere, you know, it doesn't 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:18.960 really mean much in the now that Sigismund's died, and 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:21.400 there's this like kind of right as he dies, there's 0:27:21.400 --> 0:27:25.000 a peasant uprising in Wallachia that's pretty brutal to put down, 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.520 weakens them militarily, and then there's a wave of plagues, 0:27:28.600 --> 0:27:32.120 probably spread by rats, that hits right at the same 0:27:32.160 --> 0:27:34.840 time and kills just a fuck load of people. So, 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:38.760 you know, get rid of rats people. It just makes sense. Now, 0:27:39.080 --> 0:27:41.520 Glad the Second, Glad the Impaler's dad has no choice 0:27:41.520 --> 0:27:43.560 but to make the same decision that his brother had 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:47.240 made and bin the knee to the sultan right now. Thankfully, 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:51.520 Marad the Second is a pretty cool dude as sultans go. 0:27:52.040 --> 0:27:56.240 He's famous for being tolerant, particularly of like heretical religious 0:27:56.240 --> 0:27:58.600 sects in his own country. Right there's all these like 0:27:58.640 --> 0:28:02.679 little weird religious groups that have some take on you know, 0:28:04.160 --> 0:28:07.240 the corona or whatever. That's like kind of very much 0:28:07.520 --> 0:28:09.800 not in the mainstream, and like a lot of other 0:28:09.880 --> 0:28:12.720 sultans probably would have punished them, but Morad is just 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:14.679 kind of like interested in that sort of stuff, so 0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:17.080 he he'll give them money, He'll like support them and 0:28:17.119 --> 0:28:19.199 be like, yeah, I just am kind of curious what 0:28:19.200 --> 0:28:20.760 you're gonna I just want to let you cook, you know, 0:28:20.880 --> 0:28:22.960 like tell me some shit. You know, there's not TV 0:28:23.119 --> 0:28:26.560 back then, so maybe like encouraging heretical religious sects is 0:28:26.680 --> 0:28:28.000 kind of like funding Netflix. 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:32.720 Y what these crazy fuckers. He's also known as being 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:35.600 super nice to his slaves, which is again kind of 0:28:35.640 --> 0:28:38.320 the like are you a good person? It doesn't mean 0:28:38.400 --> 0:28:40.920 like not having slaves. It means are nice to them, right, 0:28:41.160 --> 0:28:41.640 nice to it. 0:28:41.920 --> 0:28:46.200 Yeah, But that said, as that probably suggests, good dude 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:49.400 is a relative term when we are talking about medieval rulers, 0:28:49.440 --> 0:28:51.920 and as relatively chill as Marat is, he's still the 0:28:52.000 --> 0:28:54.640 kind of dude who punishes his enemies by impaling them 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:57.239 in mass because that's just kind of how the Ottomans be, right, 0:28:57.280 --> 0:28:59.960 everybody's got their own ways of like killing your enemies. 0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:02.440 The Ottomans, one of the things they like to do 0:29:02.520 --> 0:29:05.760 is impale. That's not They're not the only people doing impaling, right, 0:29:05.800 --> 0:29:09.120 Impaling's popular. Everybody We always like a good impaling. Oh yeah, 0:29:09.160 --> 0:29:11.440 but yeah, lots of different ugly none of the ways 0:29:11.440 --> 0:29:13.680 people kill each other in the Middle Ages are nice. 0:29:14.160 --> 0:29:17.000 Yeah, they like to really make a show of it, 0:29:17.040 --> 0:29:20.360 make a meal. Yeah. Yeah. Of the thing, So when 0:29:20.400 --> 0:29:22.880 you say impale, is that just like run through with 0:29:22.920 --> 0:29:24.000 a sword or. 0:29:25.440 --> 0:29:28.440 And sharp stick going going through you in a way 0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:29.840 that's unpleasant. 0:29:29.600 --> 0:29:31.720 And then gravity doing some work? Is that? 0:29:31.840 --> 0:29:34.000 I think gravity often I mean the same way that 0:29:34.080 --> 0:29:36.520 like that's what kills you to an extent when you 0:29:36.520 --> 0:29:39.920 get like crucified, right, yes, yeah, that whole process. 0:29:40.480 --> 0:29:42.280 So do they impale you and then just like let 0:29:42.320 --> 0:29:44.840 you slide down a like do they put it upright? 0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:47.880 Is that what when they're when we're saying someone's an 0:29:47.960 --> 0:29:51.720 impaler because I am again still trying to get the 0:29:51.800 --> 0:29:53.880 nickname to go, and I'm trying to see like what 0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:57.440 type of impaling I could do to like get this 0:29:57.960 --> 0:30:01.840 ship to finally catch on, Like is it a big 0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:05.959 wooden stick? Sharp wood stick? And then you put it 0:30:06.120 --> 0:30:08.560 upright and they're just kind of like hanging there in 0:30:08.600 --> 0:30:13.240 the air. Yeah, Like yeah, Jason X, the. 0:30:13.360 --> 0:30:15.920 You're kind of are letting them slide down it. It's 0:30:16.000 --> 0:30:20.120 often a punishment for like crimes against the state, right 0:30:20.800 --> 0:30:23.400 it is. It is a particularly nasty one, so people 0:30:23.440 --> 0:30:27.280 who like it threatens sort of the stability of the 0:30:27.320 --> 0:30:32.000 government often do it. There's a few different ways. It's 0:30:32.040 --> 0:30:33.960 one of those things where sometimes people are dead when 0:30:33.960 --> 0:30:35.520 they do this and you're just kind of doing it 0:30:35.560 --> 0:30:41.040 as a show of force. Sometimes it's a very quick death, 0:30:41.200 --> 0:30:43.600 right like you're And there's a couple of different ways. 0:30:43.840 --> 0:30:46.720 There's like through the abdomen or whatnot, like directly to 0:30:46.760 --> 0:30:48.920 the heart. There's like the reverse way. There's like putting 0:30:48.920 --> 0:30:53.000 it basically going in through the outdoor, so to speak. 0:30:53.240 --> 0:30:55.520 I'm sure you can kind of guess what I'm saying. 0:30:55.240 --> 0:30:59.200 There through the butt hole for the butt yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:30:59.360 --> 0:31:01.320 And there's a but you know, it can it can 0:31:01.400 --> 0:31:03.600 be the kind of thing where like you die pretty quickly, 0:31:03.680 --> 0:31:05.000 or it can be the kind of thing where. 0:31:04.800 --> 0:31:07.000 It's like slow and it takes days. That sort of 0:31:07.040 --> 0:31:08.760 depends on the region and what you did. 0:31:08.960 --> 0:31:11.920 Okay, so that will that sort of thing will get 0:31:11.920 --> 0:31:15.920 people's attention. Yeah, I can understand where somebody who does 0:31:15.960 --> 0:31:17.720 that a lot would get a nickname. 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:20.280 It'll get your attention. But back to what we were 0:31:20.320 --> 0:31:23.760 saying about like where this lands within the morality of 0:31:23.760 --> 0:31:28.160 the time. Pretty common. A lot of states do impaling, right. Basically, 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.959 any ruler has the potential to impale a dude if 0:31:31.000 --> 0:31:33.560 they commit the right crime in this, especially in Eastern 0:31:33.560 --> 0:31:36.760 Europe and in kind of like Middle East North Africa, 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:39.480 a lot of this, a lot of impaling going on, right, 0:31:40.080 --> 0:31:42.280 and that they're not the only ones. Western Europe has 0:31:42.320 --> 0:31:45.480 it's impaling traditions too, don't get me wrong, And this 0:31:45.520 --> 0:31:47.480 has gone on. I think the Assyrians are some of 0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:49.520 the first people we know we're doing in paling. So 0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:51.560 this has always been a popular way to get rid 0:31:51.600 --> 0:31:55.000 of people you don't like. So Marad the Second, pretty 0:31:55.080 --> 0:31:59.400 nice guy, also an impaler. Vlad the Second signs a 0:31:59.440 --> 0:32:02.560 treaty with because he's like, well, Sigismund's down now he's 0:32:02.560 --> 0:32:05.479 still going by Vlad Dracul. Don't get me wrong here, Okay, 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:10.040 smart man understands branding. Yeah, he gets branding. So in 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:14.400 fourteen thirty eight, the year after Sigismund dies, the Sultan 0:32:14.640 --> 0:32:18.600 goes to war with Transylvania with the Hungarians right, and 0:32:18.680 --> 0:32:21.640 Vlad the Second has to join on his side and 0:32:21.680 --> 0:32:24.520 winds up fighting against the people he had just been governing. 0:32:24.960 --> 0:32:27.080 Now he's willing to do this because he doesn't really 0:32:27.080 --> 0:32:29.360 have any other option, but his heart is not in it. 0:32:29.400 --> 0:32:33.560 And within a couple of years he's like publicly, you know, 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:36.840 a vassal of the Ottomans, but he's also covertly supporting 0:32:36.880 --> 0:32:40.720 an anti Ottoman alliance led by John Hunyati, who's the 0:32:40.760 --> 0:32:44.760 Transylvanian governor for the Hungarians. There's this series of battles. 0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:47.560 Hanyati does pretty well against the Ottomans, they win a 0:32:47.600 --> 0:32:50.320 few of them, and this causes problems for the Dracule 0:32:50.360 --> 0:32:54.000 family because like now they've picked the wrong side of 0:32:54.040 --> 0:32:56.440 this conflict, right, they bet on the Ottomans. The Ottomans 0:32:56.480 --> 0:32:58.720 aren't doing great so far. And I'm going to quote 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:01.640 now from a biography of life Lad Tepees by Kurt Trepto, 0:33:01.960 --> 0:33:05.120 who is an American historian from Miami Beach, Florida. 0:33:05.360 --> 0:33:05.880 Quote. 0:33:06.360 --> 0:33:10.200 After Hanyati defeated Ottoman forces in Transylvania in March fourteen 0:33:10.280 --> 0:33:13.600 forty two, vlad Dracule was called to Adrianople to demonstrate 0:33:13.640 --> 0:33:17.000 his loyalty to his suzerain, leaving his eldest son Mercea 0:33:17.040 --> 0:33:19.560 as governor in Wallachia. As a result of what he 0:33:19.600 --> 0:33:22.800 considered to be Dracul's treachery, the Sultan imprisoned the prince 0:33:22.800 --> 0:33:25.880 at Gallipoli and ordered an attack on Wilakia. This new 0:33:25.880 --> 0:33:28.560 Ottoman assault was again repulsed by Henyati, who used the 0:33:28.600 --> 0:33:32.280 occasion to install his protege Besab the Second on the throne. 0:33:32.560 --> 0:33:35.960 Realizing the danger posed to the Empire if Hanyati controlled Volakia, 0:33:36.200 --> 0:33:38.600 the Sultan decided to release Vlat Dracul at the end 0:33:38.600 --> 0:33:41.080 of fourteen forty two, but required him to leave his 0:33:41.120 --> 0:33:44.960 two youngest sons as hostages. So there's this kind of 0:33:45.040 --> 0:33:49.160 you see how messy this is, right, Yeah, Sultan gets 0:33:49.200 --> 0:33:52.160 angry that he's been supporting the Hungarians, so he arrests 0:33:52.640 --> 0:33:55.760 Vlad the second. Vlad the second son is in charge 0:33:55.760 --> 0:33:58.840 in Wallachia for a while, but then the Hungarians push 0:33:58.960 --> 0:34:01.120 him out of power and stick a new guy on 0:34:01.160 --> 0:34:03.400 the throne. And the Sultan's like, well, I guess this 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:06.160 family there's still my best bet, right, So I'm just 0:34:06.200 --> 0:34:08.759 going to take his kids as hostages and hope that 0:34:08.760 --> 0:34:10.680 that works to keep him loyal, right. 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:13.480 Right, Yeah, I think that inspires a lot of loyalty 0:34:13.480 --> 0:34:15.279 and people generally like it when you do that. 0:34:15.600 --> 0:34:18.680 Yeah, that's a big, big big fans. So vladd and 0:34:18.719 --> 0:34:21.480 his sexy brother Radu are going to be the hostages here. 0:34:21.880 --> 0:34:25.200 Now. Is this how last names happened back then? Because 0:34:25.200 --> 0:34:28.919 it feels like we're going from their old last name 0:34:29.080 --> 0:34:32.279 to like the Dracule family. Was it just a thing 0:34:32.320 --> 0:34:36.240 where people were like, actually, this is cooler. Somebody called 0:34:36.280 --> 0:34:36.600 me this. 0:34:36.840 --> 0:34:38.680 I don't think that they would have been called the 0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:42.320 Dracule family. It's more that because the dad has this title, 0:34:42.360 --> 0:34:45.080 when he dies, the one who inherits it is going 0:34:45.120 --> 0:34:47.799 to be Dracula, which is like son of the dragon. Okay, 0:34:47.800 --> 0:34:50.399 basically right, that's that's the way I was just it's 0:34:50.440 --> 0:34:52.720 fun to use this name a lot because it's pretty 0:34:52.760 --> 0:34:56.200 fucking cool. So I just said Vladin his sexy brother 0:34:56.239 --> 0:34:58.600 Radu would be those hostages. I probably shouldn't have said 0:34:58.600 --> 0:35:01.279 that about Radhu because I have to know something uncomfortable 0:35:01.320 --> 0:35:05.359 here about our historian source Kurt Trepto. So again, we've 0:35:05.400 --> 0:35:07.520 got the two books I read. One is by this 0:35:07.600 --> 0:35:09.720 guy who is you know, it's a pretty good pop 0:35:09.840 --> 0:35:12.360 history book, but it's not perfect. And the other is 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:15.400 this book by Kurt, who is definitely a historian. He 0:35:15.480 --> 0:35:19.320 is a fulbright scholar and an expert on Romanian history. 0:35:19.400 --> 0:35:23.040 He is somebody who certainly has the academic credentials to 0:35:23.120 --> 0:35:25.799 back up his book. Unfortunately, a scholar is not the 0:35:25.840 --> 0:35:28.160 only thing that he is, because as I was writing 0:35:28.200 --> 0:35:30.719 this episode, I came upon a two thousand and seven 0:35:30.840 --> 0:35:33.719 article by the History News Network that notes about Kurt 0:35:33.760 --> 0:35:36.680 Trepto quote he was sentenced to the maximum of seven 0:35:36.760 --> 0:35:39.800 years in December two thousand and two for offenses involving 0:35:39.840 --> 0:35:42.560 two girls aged ten and thirteen, who we invited to 0:35:42.719 --> 0:35:45.560 his home in Lasi. A Romanian woman convicted of being 0:35:45.560 --> 0:35:48.680 his accomplice is still in prison. Trepto, who looked visibly 0:35:48.719 --> 0:35:51.520 emaciated as he left the prison, declined to comment. The 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:54.240 historian was released early because he wrote a book entitled 0:35:54.280 --> 0:35:56.560 The Life and Times of Vlad Dracul while he was 0:35:56.560 --> 0:36:00.520 in prison. His lawyer, Livu Broun said the book September 0:36:00.520 --> 0:36:02.600 two thousand and three until October two thousand and six 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:06.239 was counted as community service, Bron told reporters. Bron told 0:36:06.280 --> 0:36:08.360 the court during his trial that his client had sex 0:36:08.480 --> 0:36:10.400 only with the thirteen year old girl and that he 0:36:10.440 --> 0:36:11.720 did not know she was a minor. 0:36:12.560 --> 0:36:16.840 So there's a lot there. Oh my god, that is 0:36:17.040 --> 0:36:23.959 uh uh something else. Yeah, I didn't primary source here. Yeah, 0:36:24.040 --> 0:36:27.239 it's he is a historian. He's a fulbright scholar. He 0:36:27.280 --> 0:36:30.880 also wrote his Dracula book as fucking community service for 0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:34.200 being a pedophile. I'll se a pedophile. Yeah, you know, 0:36:36.480 --> 0:36:38.520 I don't know what else to say about that. I 0:36:38.560 --> 0:36:41.800 figured I should live much to say. 0:36:43.520 --> 0:36:48.279 You know, Trepto's book is okay. Treu is a better writer, right, 0:36:48.360 --> 0:36:50.440 but he's not a historian. And I did find a 0:36:50.440 --> 0:36:52.279 couple of minor errors in there, so I wanted to 0:36:52.280 --> 0:36:54.320 like read both of them. And then as I was 0:36:54.360 --> 0:36:57.440 writing the script, I learned that unfat pleasant reality. The 0:36:57.560 --> 0:37:00.960 lesson here should be obvious. Never check your word right. 0:37:01.480 --> 0:37:02.759 There you go, there you go. 0:37:03.040 --> 0:37:06.799 Then you won't learn stuff like this. Yeah, absolutely so. 0:37:07.400 --> 0:37:09.879 In the time when Vlad the second had been out 0:37:09.920 --> 0:37:12.759 in Automan captivity, he had lost control of Wallachia to 0:37:12.840 --> 0:37:15.239 one of his many noble rivals. He took it back 0:37:15.280 --> 0:37:19.200 in fourteen forty three, and our friend the pedophile historian 0:37:19.280 --> 0:37:21.480 notes that this is probably because he was a pretty 0:37:21.520 --> 0:37:25.719 popular ruler. From what we can tell captivity was not 0:37:26.080 --> 0:37:31.080 like bad for the dracul brothers, right, the Draculas, the Draculai, 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:34.920 the Dracules La. Anyway, they learned how to fight in 0:37:34.960 --> 0:37:38.680 the Ottoman style. Now, Solad future of Lad the Impaler 0:37:38.719 --> 0:37:40.600 has now learned how to fight as a European night 0:37:40.640 --> 0:37:42.520 and how to fight as an Ottoman. Right, so he 0:37:42.520 --> 0:37:44.919 gets a whole new set of weapons. He's having fun 0:37:44.960 --> 0:37:47.480 different kind of like classes on that sort of stuff. 0:37:47.800 --> 0:37:50.400 There's some evidence that they converted to Islam for a 0:37:50.440 --> 0:37:53.960 period of time. This is unclear. Vlad the Impaler is 0:37:54.000 --> 0:37:56.480 gonna like mix and match faiths a bunch. He's a 0:37:56.560 --> 0:37:59.000 little bit like that one character from The Mummy who's 0:37:59.040 --> 0:38:01.239 just got like all the religion symbols. Right, He's going 0:38:01.320 --> 0:38:03.640 to be Orthodox, he's going to be Catholic for a while, 0:38:03.680 --> 0:38:06.400 he's going to be probably may have been Muslim for 0:38:06.440 --> 0:38:06.840 a while. 0:38:07.200 --> 0:38:10.759 So you know, bumper sticker, you know. Yeah, he's a 0:38:10.880 --> 0:38:14.840 very coexist kind of guy, Lad the Impaler. Yeah, so 0:38:15.239 --> 0:38:17.920 things go less well. He's you know, while Lad the 0:38:17.960 --> 0:38:21.360 Impaler and and Radu are are hanging out with a sultan, 0:38:21.440 --> 0:38:23.840 things are not going great for his father, Lad the 0:38:23.880 --> 0:38:28.439 Second Hunyati, the Hungarian leader is not a forgiving kind 0:38:28.480 --> 0:38:32.520 of dude. And once it becomes clear that yet again, 0:38:32.920 --> 0:38:37.040 the mister Dracule has backed the Ottomans, Transylvania goes to 0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:40.359 war with Wolakia of Lad the Second loses this war, 0:38:40.440 --> 0:38:44.000 he gets captured and is executed alongside his eldest son, 0:38:44.040 --> 0:38:48.680 who had ruled in his stead while he was out fighting. No, no, 0:38:48.719 --> 0:38:51.920 that's Marseilla. I don't think he's particularly handsome. He gets 0:38:51.960 --> 0:38:54.520 so while his dad is losing this ward to Transylvania, 0:38:54.880 --> 0:38:58.400 like a bunch of these boyers in in Tigovitay, like 0:38:58.600 --> 0:39:01.240 see where the wind is blowing. And so they capture 0:39:01.280 --> 0:39:04.440 his son Mercea and they they kill him by burying 0:39:04.520 --> 0:39:09.120 him alive, and they are there's some suggestion among scholars 0:39:09.160 --> 0:39:11.840 that maybe this is part of how that myth about 0:39:11.880 --> 0:39:16.080 like Dracula being being buried alive. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Maybe 0:39:16.080 --> 0:39:18.640 that's part of it, right. I feel like, if you're 0:39:18.840 --> 0:39:24.680 executing the eldest son and the next eldest is Vlad 0:39:24.800 --> 0:39:27.880 the Impaler, I guess he probably doesn't have that nickname. 0:39:28.040 --> 0:39:30.040 He doesn't have that. Yeah, he's not impaling yet if 0:39:30.080 --> 0:39:33.800 he's given off even like the slightest of impaling vibes. 0:39:34.080 --> 0:39:36.640 I don't know if he's like trained as both like 0:39:37.360 --> 0:39:40.680 in Eastern and Western fighting, and is like fighting as 0:39:40.719 --> 0:39:43.440 a knight with one hand. He is like Jean Clade 0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:48.120 van Dam in an early nineties movie, right, exact, just 0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:50.320 like kind of but I don't know. 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:53.719 I say this a lot, listeners. If you are executing 0:39:53.760 --> 0:39:56.319 a family for their loyalties to the Sultan. 0:39:56.120 --> 0:39:58.480 Says all the time, Yeah, keep an eye out. Does 0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:00.000 one of them look like they might be an empale? 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:03.480 Maybe don't do that execution, you know, keep him second 0:40:03.520 --> 0:40:07.560 in line, is all I'm saying. So, uh, it's unclear 0:40:07.680 --> 0:40:10.680 if Laude and Radu are free or still with the Sultan. 0:40:10.719 --> 0:40:13.239 They probably are still with the Sultan when their dad 0:40:13.239 --> 0:40:17.640 and brother get killed. But whatever the case, Vlad winds 0:40:17.760 --> 0:40:20.920 up going back to Murad and is like, Hey, they 0:40:21.000 --> 0:40:22.600 killed my family. I need to go. 0:40:22.640 --> 0:40:24.840 Do you know a pretty dope vengeance quest thing? I 0:40:24.840 --> 0:40:27.280 feel like I'm a good guy to have a vengeance quest. 0:40:27.320 --> 0:40:29.400 You know, all of this, all this martial arts training 0:40:29.440 --> 0:40:33.440 and shit I got Can I have some dudes, you know, 0:40:33.600 --> 0:40:37.040 some like some like fighting dudes, right, and Marad is like, Yeah, 0:40:37.080 --> 0:40:39.480 they'll probably work out pretty well for me. Have some dudes. 0:40:40.719 --> 0:40:41.560 So you know. 0:40:41.800 --> 0:40:44.160 Part of why this is noteworthy is that not long 0:40:44.200 --> 0:40:46.320 after his death he's going to become a symbol first 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:48.879 of sort of resistance to the Ottomans and eventually of 0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:51.719 like Romanian independence. He's going to get this reputation is 0:40:51.760 --> 0:40:54.600 like the shield of the West from the marauding Ottomans, 0:40:55.200 --> 0:40:56.880 and his memory is used. You can find a lot 0:40:56.920 --> 0:40:59.720 of weird right wing culture warriors with Vlad the Impaler 0:40:59.760 --> 0:41:02.319 shit to this day. It's worth noting he only gets 0:41:02.360 --> 0:41:05.480 to power because he's cool with the Sultan right on 0:41:05.640 --> 0:41:07.960 both sides. Yeah, yeah, he's a both set, which is 0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:10.680 very much in line with other rulers and with how 0:41:10.719 --> 0:41:13.080 his dad had played things, you know, Yeah, and his 0:41:13.200 --> 0:41:14.280 uncles had played things. 0:41:14.480 --> 0:41:17.200 Yeah, you do whatever is going to allow you to 0:41:17.239 --> 0:41:20.560 survive to the next day. Yeah, it's a rough time 0:41:20.600 --> 0:41:23.800 out there, yeah, exactly. So this works. 0:41:24.200 --> 0:41:26.960 He winds up being coming the ruler of Wallachia for 0:41:27.040 --> 0:41:29.359 what will be the first of three times. He is 0:41:29.360 --> 0:41:31.879 in and out of there several times. The first piece 0:41:31.920 --> 0:41:35.239 of documented evidence we have from Vlad the Impaler is 0:41:35.239 --> 0:41:38.200 this letter he writes right after he comes to power. 0:41:38.280 --> 0:41:40.920 It's the first documented like piece of writing that was 0:41:40.960 --> 0:41:43.200 done by his hands. And this is not like a 0:41:43.200 --> 0:41:46.520 big deal, but it's interesting that this first Lad the 0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:49.440 Impaler letter is written on All Saints Day or Halloween 0:41:49.560 --> 0:41:50.560 of fourteen forty eight. 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:54.240 That's kind of cool. Yeah, a man knows his brand. 0:41:54.400 --> 0:41:59.440 That's incredible branding, right, that's the visionary site. Yeah, oh 0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:02.880 my god. So he is seventeen when this happens and 0:42:02.960 --> 0:42:06.320 all probably and he is already a hardened combat veteran, 0:42:06.760 --> 0:42:08.879 but he is not going to be ruler for very long. 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:12.000 Within two months of taking power, one of his regional 0:42:12.120 --> 0:42:15.480 rivals invades Wallachia and forces young Vlad the Not Yet 0:42:15.480 --> 0:42:18.680 an Impaler to flee the scene. So by Christmas of 0:42:18.719 --> 0:42:20.600 fourteen forty eight, he is out of power. 0:42:20.880 --> 0:42:23.160 But with that nickname, they should have known he was 0:42:23.200 --> 0:42:25.239 going to be an impaler. Yeah, and his name is 0:42:25.360 --> 0:42:27.680 Lad than not Yet an Impaler. You got to keep 0:42:27.760 --> 0:42:30.640 checking his Wikipedia page to see if it's it's safe 0:42:30.760 --> 0:42:33.399 to fuck with him. Yeah, still not, but I've got 0:42:33.560 --> 0:42:36.280 bad things are coming for us. Yeah. 0:42:36.400 --> 0:42:38.319 Yeah, that's the that's the moment in the movie, like 0:42:38.320 --> 0:42:40.600 they're checking their smartphones as they wait for the battle 0:42:40.600 --> 0:42:43.400 to start, and they're like, oh shit, it just got updated, 0:42:43.440 --> 0:42:45.920 and like the mods aren't reverting it, guys, we might 0:42:45.960 --> 0:42:46.440 be fucked. 0:42:47.840 --> 0:42:49.279 Bad news. 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:52.520 So Ladsman the next couple of years bouncing around kingdoms 0:42:52.560 --> 0:42:55.480 ruled by his relatives in Moldova, cementing alliances, building a 0:42:55.480 --> 0:42:58.600 base of power. By fourteen fifty two, he's reconciled with 0:42:58.719 --> 0:43:01.799 him Hanyati and he's promised to serve the Hungarians as 0:43:01.840 --> 0:43:05.480 defender of Wallachia. So he betrays the Sultan. Now this 0:43:05.600 --> 0:43:08.200 is a bad time to betray the Sultan because right 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:12.280 after he's like, nah, I'm totally team Hungary, Constantinople falls 0:43:12.320 --> 0:43:16.160 to the Turks, which is not a great position to 0:43:16.160 --> 0:43:18.560 be in. Right this whole place, like this is where 0:43:18.719 --> 0:43:20.439 you know, if you're fighting with the Turks and things 0:43:20.480 --> 0:43:22.880 go badly, you can retreat in the direction of Constantinople. 0:43:22.960 --> 0:43:25.120 That's going to stop being an option for these guys 0:43:25.360 --> 0:43:29.680 very soon. So by July of fourteen fifty three, lad 0:43:29.719 --> 0:43:34.000 has retaken power in Wallachia by personally hacking to death 0:43:34.200 --> 0:43:37.400 the guy who had usurped the throne from him, probably 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:40.520 single combat, which is pretty cool. Right, Yeah, that is 0:43:40.520 --> 0:43:40.920 how I. 0:43:40.920 --> 0:43:46.240 Became the host of this podcast, right, Yeah, it was combat. 0:43:46.600 --> 0:43:51.080 Yeah yeah, so just hacking to pieces, that's right, hacked 0:43:51.120 --> 0:43:54.839 two pieces. So in fourteenth makes a statement, Yeah yeah, 0:43:54.840 --> 0:43:59.279 that's the best way to hack someone to pieces. O guy, Yeah, 0:43:59.400 --> 0:44:02.200 to that other guy, to the taptain of this podcast. 0:44:02.400 --> 0:44:04.040 Yeah yeah, you guys will take my kids. 0:44:04.239 --> 0:44:06.239 So that's right, that's right, that's why we do it. 0:44:06.760 --> 0:44:09.720 So fourteen fifty seven is the year when which Vlad 0:44:09.760 --> 0:44:12.759 will commit the first massacre that kind of starts his 0:44:12.880 --> 0:44:16.560 reputation off with a bang. As this history should drive home, 0:44:16.600 --> 0:44:19.200 there's a lot of turnover and willocke in politics, right. 0:44:19.440 --> 0:44:21.600 His family is in and out of power constantly, and 0:44:21.600 --> 0:44:23.040 a lot of this has to do with the boyers, right, 0:44:23.120 --> 0:44:25.960 these local nobles who are the rulers support system and 0:44:26.040 --> 0:44:29.000 his primary threat, right, because you can't rule without the 0:44:29.000 --> 0:44:32.359 support of the boyers. But also they're always, you know, 0:44:32.600 --> 0:44:35.799 angling to get someone in who's better, right, better for them, 0:44:36.640 --> 0:44:38.480 So I Vlad eventually gets kind of tired of this 0:44:38.520 --> 0:44:41.520 whole game, and in Easter of fourteen fifty seven, he 0:44:41.600 --> 0:44:44.239 invites all of his boyers for a big feast and 0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:50.600 while they're eating, he kills the yeah, don't Yeah, somebody's 0:44:50.600 --> 0:44:53.000 like in the bathroom, like you know, just kind of 0:44:53.000 --> 0:44:55.160 freshening up and checks his phone. It's like, oh shit, 0:44:55.200 --> 0:44:57.480 they changed his Wikipedia guys, we got to bounce. 0:44:59.040 --> 0:45:03.600 Oh man. I'm going to quote from it called the Feast, Yeah, yeah, exactly, 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:05.240 real red wedding vibes. 0:45:05.960 --> 0:45:09.759 I'm going to quote from a contemporary account here. While 0:45:09.760 --> 0:45:12.680 all the citizens were feasting and the younger ones were dancing, 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:15.680 he Dracula surrounded them the boyars led them together with 0:45:15.719 --> 0:45:17.719 their wives and children, just as they were dressed up 0:45:17.719 --> 0:45:20.000 for Easter, to Ponari, where they were put to work 0:45:20.040 --> 0:45:22.240 until their clothes were torn and they were left naked. 0:45:22.640 --> 0:45:25.760 So basically, he makes them build his castle. These like nobles, 0:45:25.760 --> 0:45:28.760 he forces, enslaves them, forces them to build his castle, 0:45:28.960 --> 0:45:30.840 and then he impales them to death, right them and 0:45:30.880 --> 0:45:31.320 their wives. 0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:32.279 All these dudes and their. 0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:36.040 Wives killed shit out of them, right, ugly stuff. Now, 0:45:36.080 --> 0:45:38.640 there's a lot of stories of impalement from his reign. 0:45:39.120 --> 0:45:40.560 This is kind of the first one, but you're going 0:45:40.640 --> 0:45:42.839 to get a lot more. The most commonly told one 0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:45.360 is that he wins this big victory against the Turks, 0:45:45.400 --> 0:45:48.560 and he has maybe tens of thousands of their soldiers 0:45:48.560 --> 0:45:51.200 impaled on the road leading to his capital, which is 0:45:51.239 --> 0:45:53.640 so frightening that the Sultan in his army retreat rather 0:45:53.680 --> 0:45:56.879 than advance further into Wallachia. It's impossible to know how 0:45:56.920 --> 0:46:00.600 precisely true that all is, but again to a lot 0:46:00.600 --> 0:46:02.560 of these weird right wing myths about the guy, it's 0:46:02.600 --> 0:46:06.000 worth noting if he did impale the Sultan's army, which 0:46:06.000 --> 0:46:08.920 is pretty likely, most of the guys, if not all 0:46:09.000 --> 0:46:11.480 of them that he impaled, would have been like Christian Europeans, 0:46:11.719 --> 0:46:13.880 because that's how the Ottoman army works, right, Like a 0:46:13.880 --> 0:46:16.920 lot of their soldiers are these kind of like local 0:46:17.200 --> 0:46:19.480 levees and stuff, often who are basically given to them 0:46:19.520 --> 0:46:21.400 as like this is part of if you're allied with 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:24.560 the Ottomans, you send them an x number of kids 0:46:24.600 --> 0:46:26.520 every year, right, and they train a lot of these 0:46:26.560 --> 0:46:31.080 guys up as soldiers. Now, it's kind of unclear how 0:46:31.120 --> 0:46:35.400 many people I've lad the Impaler kills, but it's a shitload. 0:46:35.480 --> 0:46:39.040 Fifty thousand is probably a pretty good low estimate. Some 0:46:39.239 --> 0:46:41.360 higher estimates are up to like one hundred thousand people, 0:46:41.960 --> 0:46:45.480 and most of these are various forms of execution, including impalement. 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:49.680 But despite again this reputation, he starts to get as 0:46:49.680 --> 0:46:52.000 the shield of the West. The majority of the people 0:46:52.040 --> 0:46:55.080 that he's going to kill are his own folks, right, 0:46:55.560 --> 0:46:57.959 you've got your boyers. Obviously, he kills a few hundred 0:46:58.000 --> 0:47:01.560 of them. He kills a lot of purported spies and criminals, 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:04.200 and also just kind of anyone he thinks is a 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.640 danger to his rule. Vlad the Impaler early on is 0:47:07.640 --> 0:47:09.040 going to be like, you know, what's going to keep 0:47:09.040 --> 0:47:11.680 me in power is becoming a law and order guy. Right, 0:47:12.080 --> 0:47:15.560 So he declares war on the homeless population, on beggars 0:47:15.640 --> 0:47:18.759 and stuff indigence. He gathers a huge number of these 0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:20.880 guys up and he burns them all to death, and 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:24.319 like a barn. Basically truly a right wing hero, this 0:47:24.320 --> 0:47:26.600 guy is. He is very much a right wing era. 0:47:28.160 --> 0:47:30.120 He is again a law and order guy. His royal 0:47:30.160 --> 0:47:33.560 propaganda Burea will spread all these stories about like, oh, 0:47:33.640 --> 0:47:35.800 you know, this merchant came to a town that that 0:47:36.560 --> 0:47:39.600 Dracula was controlling one day and was like, somebody stole 0:47:39.640 --> 0:47:43.640 my gold, and Dracula, you know, would do something brutal 0:47:43.719 --> 0:47:46.120 to get it. Back right, like because there's you don't 0:47:46.120 --> 0:47:48.080 commit crime, right, there's one of this One of the 0:47:48.080 --> 0:47:50.520 common stories you hear is that like there's this watering 0:47:50.560 --> 0:47:53.880 post for people like traveling through a rural area and 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:57.360 Dracula leaves this ornate golden cup there. And it's the 0:47:57.400 --> 0:47:59.560 point that he does this is that like, as long 0:47:59.600 --> 0:48:01.920 as the is there, you know that he's in power 0:48:02.000 --> 0:48:05.800 because nobody would dare steal anything when when Dracula's running 0:48:05.840 --> 0:48:08.800 the shit right almost certainly just like bullshit. 0:48:08.920 --> 0:48:09.680 But that's the story. 0:48:09.760 --> 0:48:11.520 One of the stories that gets told about this guy, 0:48:11.960 --> 0:48:13.000 the reality. 0:48:12.800 --> 0:48:15.600 Myth like the yeah, the good branding got him, a 0:48:15.640 --> 0:48:20.160 myth about him being good at branding. Yeah, exactly, that's 0:48:20.200 --> 0:48:23.480 a but that that's a cool story, a cool story. 0:48:23.640 --> 0:48:24.279 Golden cup. 0:48:24.760 --> 0:48:28.239 Again, probably not true because while he's in charge, there's 0:48:28.280 --> 0:48:31.080 a bunch of uprisings. People are in fact not too 0:48:31.160 --> 0:48:34.200 scared to piss off Dracula. Right, maybe they should have been, 0:48:34.239 --> 0:48:36.799 because these don't go well. But I'm going to quote 0:48:36.800 --> 0:48:39.040 again from Troe, who is our source, that is not 0:48:39.160 --> 0:48:44.360 a priminal quote. The villages of satuln Hosman and Casults 0:48:44.400 --> 0:48:46.200 were burned to the ground by his cavalry and the 0:48:46.200 --> 0:48:49.160 supporters of Lad the Monk were butchered. Who is one 0:48:49.200 --> 0:48:51.799 of these uprising leaders? A lot of lads Bode was 0:48:51.840 --> 0:48:55.120 totally destroyed. Talm's left blazing, and it's people hacked like 0:48:55.200 --> 0:48:58.440 cabbage in the town square. Merchants who are now expected 0:48:58.480 --> 0:49:00.720 to sell their wares at the specified towns of Tigovi 0:49:00.840 --> 0:49:04.920 State Tigsor and simplelun Cabbage like cabbage. 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:07.160 Yeah, hacked like cabbage. 0:49:07.520 --> 0:49:11.600 Hacked like cabbage, Yeah, just to pieces shredded. Merchants who 0:49:11.600 --> 0:49:13.520 are now expected to sell their wares at below the 0:49:13.560 --> 0:49:16.240 market rate were rounded up for non compliance and according 0:49:16.239 --> 0:49:19.080 to these Saxon accounts, impaled by the road or boiled 0:49:19.080 --> 0:49:21.840 in cauldrons. The young men to whom it was claimed, 0:49:21.880 --> 0:49:23.919 had been sent to Alakia to learn the language, were 0:49:23.960 --> 0:49:28.080 likewise executed quite simply because they were clearly spies and 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:30.160 the Sacks. And the reason he brings that up is 0:49:30.160 --> 0:49:32.840 that like a bunch of these German types have like 0:49:32.920 --> 0:49:36.080 moved into Romania over the preceding generation. So there's like 0:49:36.440 --> 0:49:39.640 German communities in a bunch of the cities in Wallachia. 0:49:40.080 --> 0:49:42.719 And as is always the case, these guys, a lot 0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:44.799 of them become like merchants, right, So these are kind 0:49:44.840 --> 0:49:47.600 of like your upper middle class merchant class, and a 0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:50.320 lot of these towns, that's a good group of people 0:49:50.440 --> 0:49:52.520 to blame all your problems on. So Lad's going to 0:49:52.600 --> 0:49:54.920 really do a lot of murdering of these German types. 0:49:55.000 --> 0:49:56.960 And so that's where a lot of the stories of 0:49:57.080 --> 0:49:59.839 him come from. Is these these especially these monks who 0:50:00.080 --> 0:50:04.480 like flee from him. You know, he fairly brutal to them, 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:07.680 rain and they tell these they exaggerate these stories, right, 0:50:07.719 --> 0:50:09.759 he certainly did some fucked up shit, but they're also 0:50:09.840 --> 0:50:12.720 they're trying to like spread propaganda about this guy because 0:50:12.719 --> 0:50:13.560 he killed their friends. 0:50:13.600 --> 0:50:16.879 So they're also they're they're pumping it up a little bit, right, right, 0:50:17.120 --> 0:50:19.439 But does that help or does that just like make 0:50:19.520 --> 0:50:23.399 him more terrifying and people want to I. 0:50:23.320 --> 0:50:26.360 Mean, it's why he has this rep right, just because 0:50:26.400 --> 0:50:29.960 of these German germanic like monk accounts of his fatality. 0:50:30.080 --> 0:50:32.920 The monks had burn books, but they also were some 0:50:32.960 --> 0:50:35.160 of the only people who knew how to write, ye 0:50:35.239 --> 0:50:37.279 is that right? Yeah? So like a lot of this 0:50:37.320 --> 0:50:40.600 stuff is just the guy who was meanest to monks 0:50:40.680 --> 0:50:45.200 becomes a great historical monster. Just because monks knew how 0:50:45.239 --> 0:50:47.360 to write. Yeah, we say a lot. History is written 0:50:47.360 --> 0:50:49.280 by the victors, but it's also written by the people 0:50:49.280 --> 0:50:51.680 who know how to write, and so you've got a 0:50:51.719 --> 0:50:55.520 real advantage if you're the monks in that regard, you know. Yeah, 0:50:55.560 --> 0:50:58.400 so yeah, flat Again, as we noted above, he's not 0:50:58.480 --> 0:51:00.480 just impaling people. He'll boil alive. 0:51:00.880 --> 0:51:03.759 He's got some more creative methods though. But impalement gets 0:51:03.800 --> 0:51:07.120 a lot of attention right in part because it's it's 0:51:07.480 --> 0:51:09.600 kind of identified with the East, even though they're not 0:51:09.600 --> 0:51:11.880 the only people who do it. And the most infamous 0:51:11.880 --> 0:51:15.799 story of Lad the impaling some people comes after a 0:51:15.840 --> 0:51:18.680 military victory he won against his his rival with a 0:51:18.760 --> 0:51:21.960 very silly name, Dan the Third. He's like, he's got 0:51:21.960 --> 0:51:25.040 all these wild ass Hungarian Romanian names, and then there's 0:51:25.080 --> 0:51:29.160 just Dan hanging out there, like yeah, all these guys, 0:51:29.320 --> 0:51:32.400 you've got Vlad the Dracule and then like yeah, and 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:34.280 then there's Dan the Third. 0:51:34.360 --> 0:51:37.839 Dan. They don't like, who is going to win that one, 0:51:39.080 --> 0:51:46.319 DrAk or Dan the Third the Third Dan? Yeah? Third? 0:51:47.040 --> 0:51:48.360 So he beats this ship. 0:51:48.360 --> 0:51:52.120 And yeah, this Dan at a town called Brassov quote. 0:51:52.560 --> 0:51:54.799 It was here that the inhabitants were impaled in large 0:51:54.840 --> 0:51:57.360 numbers as the chapel of Saint Jacob burned to the ground. 0:51:57.600 --> 0:52:00.600 According to the poet Mikhel b him, the the impaler 0:52:00.680 --> 0:52:02.680 sat at a table in the open air and mopped 0:52:02.719 --> 0:52:04.960 up from his plate the blood of his writhing victims. 0:52:05.120 --> 0:52:07.360 The boyer, who complained of the foul stinch, was impaled 0:52:07.400 --> 0:52:11.600 higher than the rest. Now most yeah, pretty cool. 0:52:11.680 --> 0:52:15.080 Yeah, mainly like watching everybody get impaled and killed and 0:52:15.160 --> 0:52:16.919 complained that it smelled bad. 0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:20.919 Yeah, well, and someone who was going to be Yeah, 0:52:21.000 --> 0:52:21.799 it's fun. 0:52:21.920 --> 0:52:28.120 Yeah. I gotta tell you, man, this place smells like shit. Yeah. Yeah. 0:52:28.360 --> 0:52:31.840 So most of the Wallachians he massacred are again Germanic 0:52:31.920 --> 0:52:34.120 residents who have come to make up a significant chunk 0:52:34.120 --> 0:52:36.440 of the mercantile class during a series of migrations in 0:52:36.520 --> 0:52:38.880 previous centuries. And it's from a bunch of these guys 0:52:38.880 --> 0:52:41.160 that we get the stories of lad teppers that take 0:52:41.239 --> 0:52:43.840 him from he's just another guy in a pretty brutal 0:52:43.880 --> 0:52:46.919 area to like fucking Dracula. And I'm going to quote 0:52:46.920 --> 0:52:51.040 now from the Warfare History Network. Dracula's atrocities in Transylvania 0:52:51.080 --> 0:52:54.000 caused a tremendous backlash in the German community, which began 0:52:54.040 --> 0:52:57.640 to disseminate vicious propaganda against him. After extensive interviews with 0:52:57.680 --> 0:53:00.640 the survivors of the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre, German poet 0:53:00.680 --> 0:53:04.080 Michael Beaham wrote the story of a bloodthirsty madman called 0:53:04.160 --> 0:53:08.000 Dracula of Lachia. In his poem, Biham describes the Vlad 0:53:08.040 --> 0:53:10.960 as dining amongst his impaled victims after the massacre. He 0:53:10.960 --> 0:53:13.440 even accuses Lad of dipping his bread in their blood. 0:53:13.680 --> 0:53:17.120 The genesis of the enduring association of Dracula with vampires. 0:53:17.480 --> 0:53:21.080 Vlad's horrific link to Transylvania as undoubtedly why Victorian novel 0:53:21.120 --> 0:53:23.680 Bram Stoker later chose to turn the real life Wallachian 0:53:23.719 --> 0:53:28.680 prince into a fictional Transylvanian count. So that's one argument 0:53:28.760 --> 0:53:30.360 is to like where the German this comes from. And 0:53:30.680 --> 0:53:33.480 some of the stories about Vlad are certainly true or 0:53:33.480 --> 0:53:35.719 at least had a germ of truth, right, But the 0:53:35.719 --> 0:53:38.040 whole legend of him is this bloodthirsty monster is the 0:53:38.080 --> 0:53:41.200 result of an effective propaganda campaign, not just by his enemies. 0:53:41.200 --> 0:53:43.120 They're one of them, right, These Germans want to turn 0:53:43.200 --> 0:53:45.440 him into a monster. The fact that he is so 0:53:45.520 --> 0:53:48.080 horrifying also helps to turn him into this like anti 0:53:48.120 --> 0:53:52.120 Turkish figure, like the Shield of the West. But the 0:53:52.120 --> 0:53:55.240 fact that he's so famous too. He's going to later 0:53:55.400 --> 0:53:59.000 primarily under Chouchescu, who is the We've done episodes on Chouchescu, 0:53:59.040 --> 0:54:02.120 the communist dictator in kind of the mid to late 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:05.799 twentieth century. He's going to become this figure of Romanian nationalism, 0:54:05.840 --> 0:54:08.600 right because he's just like your first famous guy kind 0:54:08.600 --> 0:54:10.680 of that you can call the Romanian figure. 0:54:11.560 --> 0:54:18.320 So the blood sucking of Dracula originated with like dipping, 0:54:18.600 --> 0:54:21.919 like with kind of a like part time we're gonna 0:54:21.920 --> 0:54:22.200 get it. 0:54:22.239 --> 0:54:25.200 We're going to get into that. There's more to the 0:54:25.200 --> 0:54:27.680 blood sucking. But the first time you've got kind of 0:54:27.760 --> 0:54:32.640 Dracula directly like tied to drinking blood is this story 0:54:32.719 --> 0:54:35.200 of Laddy and Paler dipping his bread in blood, which 0:54:35.200 --> 0:54:39.280 again is almost certainly a lie because like, you kill people, 0:54:39.280 --> 0:54:40.640 but do you drink their blood? 0:54:40.719 --> 0:54:44.120 Really? I don't know, pretty gross. I wouldn't, so wouldn't, 0:54:44.160 --> 0:54:46.480 But I also love dipping my bread and stuff, and 0:54:46.520 --> 0:54:50.480 it's like such are to go about drinking blood? I mean, 0:54:51.160 --> 0:54:56.719 but also very much less badass. I dip some. 0:54:56.640 --> 0:54:59.239 Bread bread out of blood every now and then. I 0:54:59.239 --> 0:55:01.839 bet you could make a nice blood gravy that would 0:55:01.880 --> 0:55:04.280 be pretty rich, but probably a little salty. 0:55:04.320 --> 0:55:06.680 Of the most British, I've tried the hell out of that. 0:55:06.800 --> 0:55:11.120 Yeah, I'll do anything with blood, those weirdos. So, speaking 0:55:11.160 --> 0:55:15.080 of the British, our advertisers are not the British, so 0:55:15.680 --> 0:55:18.080 you can feel good about spending your money with them. 0:55:18.160 --> 0:55:20.799 We have been working on just getting the British to 0:55:20.920 --> 0:55:22.359 sponsor the show. Yeah. 0:55:22.920 --> 0:55:28.160 Yeah, it's not going great. Yeah, but we'll keep We'll 0:55:28.239 --> 0:55:34.400 keep pressing the flesh. Don't worry. 0:55:35.400 --> 0:55:36.080 We're back. 0:55:36.560 --> 0:55:39.360 So Vlad is going to go to war with his 0:55:39.440 --> 0:55:42.320 former allies the Turks in fourteen fifty nine. The Pope 0:55:42.360 --> 0:55:45.000 calls a crusade, and Vlad is the only European head 0:55:45.040 --> 0:55:46.960 of state to be like, yeah, I'll do that. Everyone 0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:48.719 else is like, I feel like we tried a lot 0:55:48.719 --> 0:55:50.960 of crusades and most of them didn't go well. 0:55:51.440 --> 0:55:54.560 So just Robert from my frame of reference, up to 0:55:54.600 --> 0:55:58.160 this point, the wars are being waged, or you know, 0:55:58.239 --> 0:56:01.040 when he's going in and like takeing out a rival 0:56:01.280 --> 0:56:04.560 and killing his whole town. How many people, Like, is 0:56:04.600 --> 0:56:08.799 it like sometimes thousands? Yeah, thousands, Okay, yeah, sometimes, Like 0:56:08.920 --> 0:56:12.440 again we're talking thousand to one hundred thousand total. That's 0:56:12.480 --> 0:56:15.360 he's going to massacre. And remember reading something about like 0:56:15.480 --> 0:56:18.719 ancient Greek warfare where it was like the towns were 0:56:18.760 --> 0:56:22.360 like so it was more on in line with like 0:56:22.400 --> 0:56:24.960 a high school football rivalry, like a lot of the 0:56:25.000 --> 0:56:27.399 towns and like the warring and like it was like yeah, 0:56:27.440 --> 0:56:29.719 and then they like came to our town, and you know, 0:56:29.800 --> 0:56:32.520 it's just like these small communities going to war with 0:56:32.560 --> 0:56:35.719 one another, which I don't really have a frame of 0:56:35.920 --> 0:56:39.760 reference for because war in the modern context is so massive. 0:56:40.320 --> 0:56:42.960 Yeah, I mean, this is definitely smaller than modern wars. 0:56:43.000 --> 0:56:45.800 But he is killing a lot of people of these towns. 0:56:45.840 --> 0:56:48.799 You're probably talking dozens or hundreds of executions, but like 0:56:49.960 --> 0:56:52.360 he is, he is going to execute tens of thousands, 0:56:52.360 --> 0:56:56.680 So like it's not not purely like this little shit either. 0:56:57.280 --> 0:57:00.920 Yeah. Yeah, so it almost makes it like area, you know, 0:57:01.120 --> 0:57:07.520 it's pretty Yeah, everyone gets Whitely murdered in a massacre. 0:57:07.560 --> 0:57:09.920 Yeah, yeah, that's that is kind of how you have 0:57:10.000 --> 0:57:12.520 to do it. Anyone left alive, that's like a threat 0:57:12.520 --> 0:57:16.760 to your your power potentially, so he breaks his treaty 0:57:16.760 --> 0:57:19.880 with the Sultan fourteen fifty nine. And part of this 0:57:19.920 --> 0:57:23.440 treaty is that every you know, so often Wailakia has 0:57:23.480 --> 0:57:26.960 to send several thousand young boys to serve as janissaries, right, 0:57:27.000 --> 0:57:29.560 which is like this Turkish elite military unit made up 0:57:29.560 --> 0:57:33.160 of like the kids of their rivals basically. And the 0:57:33.200 --> 0:57:35.800 way vlad announces we're not friends anymore is when the 0:57:35.800 --> 0:57:40.680 Sultan sends recruiting officers, Vladim pales them. And then when 0:57:40.720 --> 0:57:43.040 the Sultan is like what the fuck and he sends 0:57:43.040 --> 0:57:46.360 some diplomats to be like, hey, bro, what's going on. Lad, 0:57:47.760 --> 0:57:50.560 It's not going to go great. Vladd nails their turbans 0:57:50.560 --> 0:57:53.600 to their heads, which is going to piss off the 0:57:53.600 --> 0:57:55.400 Sultan a lot. That would piss me off if I 0:57:55.440 --> 0:57:58.520 sent diplomats and somebody nailed their their hats to their heads, 0:57:58.560 --> 0:58:00.640 I wouldn't be thrilled time. 0:58:01.600 --> 0:58:04.640 If it's cool, it's cool, don't get me wrong. That's 0:58:04.640 --> 0:58:06.440 a cool thing to do if you're a bad guy. 0:58:06.680 --> 0:58:08.640 You know, if you're a bad guy and you're really 0:58:08.720 --> 0:58:12.320 leaning into it. Yeah, Also, like maybe don't send the 0:58:12.360 --> 0:58:15.480 second wave of I feel like the first sends a 0:58:15.520 --> 0:58:19.320 message what we do. We think that he just didn't 0:58:19.560 --> 0:58:23.800 like the recruiters specifically, and was like, these silver tongued 0:58:23.840 --> 0:58:27.160 foxes will come and uh cool him down. 0:58:28.080 --> 0:58:30.600 I'm not gonna maybe this isn't the case. I'm not 0:58:30.640 --> 0:58:33.320 a not an expert here, but if I'm in charge, 0:58:33.480 --> 0:58:36.840 right and this happens, first thought I'm gonna have is like, oh, 0:58:36.880 --> 0:58:39.160 I could promote some guys I don't like to diplomats and. 0:58:39.080 --> 0:58:40.040 Get rid of the fuckers. 0:58:41.240 --> 0:58:41.560 I could. 0:58:41.640 --> 0:58:43.600 I could drop a few of these dudes, you know, 0:58:44.000 --> 0:58:47.400 just you my top diplomatic. Yeah, you're the you're the 0:58:47.400 --> 0:58:49.760 head of foreign policy. I got a gig for you now. 0:58:50.920 --> 0:58:55.400 So you breed like an elite fighting group made of 0:58:55.440 --> 0:58:56.880 your enemy's children. 0:58:57.120 --> 0:59:00.360 Yeah, that's the janissaries, right, not necessarily like like you're 0:59:00.440 --> 0:59:03.560 the rulers, but like basically, if you're a vassal to 0:59:03.600 --> 0:59:05.720 the Ottomans, you send them some kids every year, and 0:59:05.760 --> 0:59:07.280 there's some rules like it's not going to be your 0:59:07.280 --> 0:59:09.320 only son. If you only have one kid, they're not 0:59:09.320 --> 0:59:12.160 going to take that kid generally, and it's not the 0:59:12.200 --> 0:59:14.680 oldest usually, I think is one of the other rules. 0:59:14.680 --> 0:59:16.360 Like they they try because they don't want to piss 0:59:16.400 --> 0:59:19.040 people off too much. But like they take these kids 0:59:19.040 --> 0:59:21.200 in and they raise them and train them to be 0:59:21.360 --> 0:59:24.240 like elite soldiers, the Janisaries. 0:59:23.760 --> 0:59:32.560 Your spare kids, your kids, Yeah, soldiers maybe if you 0:59:32.800 --> 0:59:39.720 if you fuck around. Yeah, weird time, weird situation myself 0:59:39.760 --> 0:59:44.720 as one of any of these people. And it seems like, uh, 0:59:44.800 --> 0:59:47.920 and I'm not gonna lie a fucking waking nightmare. 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:50.200 Yea to live at this time. Yeah, the past is 0:59:50.240 --> 0:59:53.040 not just a foreign country, but almost like a different planet. 0:59:53.680 --> 0:59:55.160 It's wild of the ship. 0:59:55.280 --> 0:59:56.120 Yeah. 0:59:56.160 --> 1:00:00.120 Anyway, they go to Wark Vlad with the Turks, and 1:00:00.760 --> 1:00:03.000 the thing about Lad the Impaler that we definitely know is, 1:00:03.080 --> 1:00:06.600 by I think all accounts, he's a really good military leader. 1:00:06.640 --> 1:00:09.800 He's like really very good at running an army. He 1:00:09.920 --> 1:00:12.640 is outnumbered this whole time, often two to one, but 1:00:12.680 --> 1:00:16.160 he wins regular victories against the Sultan, and obviously when 1:00:16.160 --> 1:00:19.080 he captures Sultan's troops, he's got impale a shitload of 1:00:19.120 --> 1:00:22.680 these guys. But it's also the Sultan's army is very 1:00:22.720 --> 1:00:26.000 big and Vlad's is not, and so he suffers pretty 1:00:26.040 --> 1:00:29.440 high casualties over the course of this fighting, and eventually 1:00:29.520 --> 1:00:33.080 the elites back at the capitol are like, so, we're 1:00:33.120 --> 1:00:35.360 just burning all of this money fighting this war that 1:00:35.400 --> 1:00:38.480 we cannot, Like, the Ottoman Empire is much bigger than Wallachia. 1:00:38.880 --> 1:00:41.160 We've already burnt through a lot of our army. You 1:00:41.200 --> 1:00:44.760 are eventually going to lose this thing. So let's get 1:00:44.840 --> 1:00:46.919 rid of this guy, because we don't want to keep 1:00:46.960 --> 1:00:48.959 doing this shit, right, We want to do this stuff 1:00:49.000 --> 1:00:53.360 that's fun, not slowly, slowly lose a war of grinding attrition. 1:00:54.040 --> 1:00:57.720 So they overthrow Vlad. They put his sexy brother Radu 1:00:57.880 --> 1:01:02.000 in charge, and winds up having to like flee the 1:01:02.040 --> 1:01:05.720 scene after this battle and ends up in the care 1:01:05.760 --> 1:01:08.880 of the Hungarian king, and he's like, hey, could you 1:01:08.960 --> 1:01:11.040 give me an army to like take back power? And 1:01:11.080 --> 1:01:13.520 the King of Hungary is like, dude, you you and 1:01:13.560 --> 1:01:15.920 your family are the least reliable people on the planet. 1:01:15.920 --> 1:01:18.400 Why would I do that? Right, Like, why would I 1:01:18.440 --> 1:01:20.720 do that? You can't be trusted, None of you can. 1:01:22.280 --> 1:01:24.280 So if Lad SPAN's twelve years as the King of 1:01:24.360 --> 1:01:28.680 Hungary's prisoner, writer Mark Mark Longo notes quote that he 1:01:28.880 --> 1:01:32.120 wiled away his time torturing and impaling rodents he caught 1:01:32.120 --> 1:01:37.040 in his quarters. Maybe true, maybe not fun story either 1:01:37.080 --> 1:01:39.720 way and on brand, you know, good. Good for him, 1:01:39.760 --> 1:01:41.640 he's at least preventing the next plague by getting rid 1:01:41.680 --> 1:01:42.320 of those rats. 1:01:43.920 --> 1:01:49.080 I done it. I'm not a big rat guy. Not 1:01:49.120 --> 1:01:52.080 a big rat guy. He did a it's like done 1:01:52.120 --> 1:01:57.280 an article at Cracked. I think where just about how 1:01:57.320 --> 1:02:00.680 like wondrous rats are, Like, they're so smart and sourceful, 1:02:01.320 --> 1:02:05.120 and they're also a pretty big danger though. Yeah, even 1:02:05.120 --> 1:02:09.000 in a pet post ratituoy world, though, I would like, 1:02:09.200 --> 1:02:13.280 at an instinctual level, rather they all die right now. 1:02:13.880 --> 1:02:18.440 Yeah, that's that's gonna be popular with certain quarters, unpopular 1:02:18.520 --> 1:02:18.760 with some. 1:02:19.280 --> 1:02:23.200 Yeah. I mean, like intellectually I wouldn't do it because 1:02:23.320 --> 1:02:24.720 balance in nature. 1:02:24.440 --> 1:02:27.919 But like my gut is just like ugh anti rat. Yeah, 1:02:28.120 --> 1:02:30.760 I read too many stories about the Black Plague to. 1:02:30.640 --> 1:02:31.919 Trust him too, I think. 1:02:32.240 --> 1:02:36.440 Yeah, So he catches a lucky break Vlad because his 1:02:36.520 --> 1:02:40.520 brother loses power in fourteen seventy three and vlad Or 1:02:40.640 --> 1:02:42.960 Rodhu gets replaced by a guy who wants to be 1:02:43.000 --> 1:02:48.160 friendly with the Ottomans. So with Hungarian backing, Vlad is 1:02:48.240 --> 1:02:50.640 able to retake the throne from this guy who's overthrown 1:02:50.680 --> 1:02:53.920 his brother in fourteen seventy six, and he takes power 1:02:53.960 --> 1:02:57.040 for the third time, which lasts about two months, after 1:02:57.080 --> 1:02:59.040 which he is found decapitated in a field. 1:03:00.160 --> 1:03:04.640 Is yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's like the ending of a 1:03:04.760 --> 1:03:07.160 no country for old men man, right, he just like 1:03:07.600 --> 1:03:12.840 having very killed at Jones, walks onto the sun said, 1:03:13.600 --> 1:03:18.120 then gives the monolog It'll do till the mess gets here. Yeah, exactly, 1:03:18.200 --> 1:03:21.280 it's part but good yeah, good line, a lot of 1:03:21.280 --> 1:03:24.640 good lines. So he came back, did did power for 1:03:24.680 --> 1:03:27.040 a little bit longer, and then they they took him out. 1:03:27.360 --> 1:03:30.680 Yeah, then they took him out. Yeah, it's a it's like, uh, 1:03:30.840 --> 1:03:34.280 you know that banned the scorpions Jack, Yeah, of course, 1:03:34.360 --> 1:03:36.560 it's like when they It's like when after they broke 1:03:36.640 --> 1:03:38.680 up and then came back. It's just like that, don't 1:03:38.720 --> 1:03:40.520 look up the scorpions. I don't know if that's true. 1:03:41.720 --> 1:03:44.840 So and then we're found beheaded in a field somewhere. 1:03:44.880 --> 1:03:45.080 Yeah. 1:03:45.080 --> 1:03:47.120 Maybe, yeah, that that is what happened to the people 1:03:47.120 --> 1:03:51.160 who wrote Rock You Like a Hurricane. It is also 1:03:51.200 --> 1:03:53.600 worth noting that, like, you know, during this period of 1:03:53.600 --> 1:03:56.000 time where he's this military leader of lad his his 1:03:56.120 --> 1:03:59.320 big move is attack people at night. Also feeds into 1:03:59.360 --> 1:04:01.960 the vampire. Right, He's this blood drinking dude who comes 1:04:01.960 --> 1:04:04.320 after at the night, you know, at night his brother 1:04:04.400 --> 1:04:07.120 got buried alive. You can see some of the pieces 1:04:07.160 --> 1:04:09.120 of this, but there's a lot more to the story 1:04:09.160 --> 1:04:11.840 about how he goes from this dude, who is again 1:04:11.920 --> 1:04:17.160 pretty standard brutal Eastern European medieval leader to Dracula, the 1:04:17.200 --> 1:04:21.200 guy recently played by Nicholas Cage in a fairly fun movie, 1:04:22.040 --> 1:04:23.000 The Renfield Movie. 1:04:23.040 --> 1:04:27.000 I enjoyed it. Nicholas picture Nicholas Cage for this entire 1:04:27.080 --> 1:04:30.800 story well, and Nick Cage and Nick Holt need to 1:04:30.800 --> 1:04:35.480 be in more things together. Both both fascinating faces, both 1:04:35.520 --> 1:04:39.080 of those guys. So back to the story. So we're 1:04:39.080 --> 1:04:41.600 going to talk about how he goes from this European 1:04:42.000 --> 1:04:46.160 military leader to the Dracula guy. And to do that 1:04:46.200 --> 1:04:48.640 we have to, thankfully finally get to move from the 1:04:48.680 --> 1:04:52.959 shady environs of ill documented old history into a well 1:04:53.000 --> 1:04:56.800 trod field of solid folklorist research. And my main source 1:04:56.840 --> 1:05:00.080 here is the book The Vampire, a New History by 1:05:00.120 --> 1:05:04.919 English professor Nicholas Groom. Groom also writes articles about Nick 1:05:04.960 --> 1:05:08.120 Cave as a folklorus. This is another thing he's interested in, 1:05:08.240 --> 1:05:11.920 and I think that's pretty back. Yeah, definitely a vampire. 1:05:12.280 --> 1:05:14.880 I will say, I think higher odds that Nick Cave 1:05:14.920 --> 1:05:17.360 has drank the blood of his enemies than Vlad the Impaler, 1:05:17.680 --> 1:05:21.320 like almost certainly, Like I have trouble imagining Nick Cave 1:05:21.400 --> 1:05:23.640 drinking anything that's not the blood of his enemies. But 1:05:23.640 --> 1:05:26.440 of course, yeah, that's kind of his vibe, that is 1:05:26.480 --> 1:05:29.040 his vibe. Definitely mopped it up with a nice pa. 1:05:29.480 --> 1:05:32.160 Oh yeah, he's a waste not kind of guy. That 1:05:32.200 --> 1:05:36.000 thing you know about Nick Cave. Murder Ballads, great album, 1:05:36.040 --> 1:05:39.800 everybody check it out. Got a good song about Staggerly anyway. 1:05:40.440 --> 1:05:43.560 Groom This Folklorus notes that the origins of the word 1:05:43.680 --> 1:05:48.480 vampire are somewhat controversial. It is often credited to coming 1:05:48.480 --> 1:05:52.480 from the French term avante paree, which means ancestor, but 1:05:52.600 --> 1:05:56.520 this is inaccurate. The terms most likely origins are in 1:05:56.560 --> 1:06:00.560 the Lithuanian word vompti, which means to drink, and the 1:06:00.680 --> 1:06:05.040 Serbo Croatian vampire or the Old Russian word upir, both 1:06:05.040 --> 1:06:09.160 of which are names right now. While the word vampire 1:06:09.320 --> 1:06:13.160 is quite modern, stories of blood sucking undead monsters that 1:06:13.200 --> 1:06:16.600 can change shape are about as old as civilization. It's 1:06:16.600 --> 1:06:19.760 often noted that the ancient Egyptian deity sec Met had 1:06:19.800 --> 1:06:24.560 some vampiric traits, but just drinking blood that doesn't make 1:06:24.600 --> 1:06:28.000 you a vampire, right. That trait is old in folklore, 1:06:28.080 --> 1:06:30.439 so it gets kind of put into vampires because we've 1:06:30.440 --> 1:06:33.240 always had blood drinking monsters and gods in our myths. 1:06:33.760 --> 1:06:37.800 But the most direct precursor to the actual like cryptid 1:06:37.800 --> 1:06:42.040 basically monster, the vampire comes from Serbia, where the term 1:06:43.440 --> 1:06:47.640 vukodlak refers to both a vampire and a werewolf. Right, 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:51.600 And it's worth noting considering how often these two go 1:06:51.680 --> 1:06:54.320 together in like our modern horror stories. R Like you, 1:06:54.760 --> 1:06:57.520 they come from the same origin, right, Vampires and werewolves 1:06:57.520 --> 1:06:59.320 were originally the same thing. 1:07:00.000 --> 1:07:00.360 Make sense. 1:07:00.360 --> 1:07:04.160 They're both they both eat people, and they're both like 1:07:04.760 --> 1:07:07.880 chained shape in the monsters right into animals, right, both 1:07:07.960 --> 1:07:10.400 the vampires into bats, were wolves into wolves. 1:07:10.480 --> 1:07:13.880 So they started like like, so I have a five 1:07:13.960 --> 1:07:16.560 year old and when he's playing, he's like, and then 1:07:16.600 --> 1:07:18.400 I can do this, and then I can also do that, 1:07:18.520 --> 1:07:20.280 and like sometimes it turned into a wolf, and then 1:07:20.320 --> 1:07:21.800 I can turn then I have wings and I have 1:07:21.840 --> 1:07:24.280 a and then I'm a bat. Like originally it was 1:07:24.320 --> 1:07:27.439 all just like somebody doing that. Yeah. 1:07:27.800 --> 1:07:30.240 Look, the winter is long. You spend most of it 1:07:30.320 --> 1:07:32.840 sitting inside your shack, hoping the wolves don't get you, 1:07:32.880 --> 1:07:35.960 and eating I don't know whatever, like fucking shit you 1:07:36.040 --> 1:07:39.760 managed to save from harvest time. There's not much to do, 1:07:40.120 --> 1:07:42.680 and you're drinking, so you're going to wind up telling 1:07:42.720 --> 1:07:45.960 a lot of stories about bullshit. Yeah, yeah, just kind 1:07:46.000 --> 1:07:50.480 of like adding stuff to it over time. Now, while 1:07:50.520 --> 1:07:54.600 the word vampire again, vampire is very modern, this is 1:07:54.640 --> 1:07:57.760 not an old concept like what we consider a vampire. 1:07:58.280 --> 1:08:02.040 So both kind of the werewolf and vampire mists we 1:08:02.080 --> 1:08:05.360 have today started off as these kind of like the vukodlac, 1:08:05.440 --> 1:08:08.880 this Serbian mythical creature, and they split pretty recently as 1:08:08.960 --> 1:08:12.800 groom rites quote. There is, however, a significant distinction to 1:08:12.840 --> 1:08:15.400 be made in the English language. In English, the werewolf 1:08:15.440 --> 1:08:18.479 was established by medieval times as a human shape changer, 1:08:18.760 --> 1:08:22.080 with origins and Anglo Saxon and possibly Old Norse culture, 1:08:22.280 --> 1:08:25.200 as well as in classical accounts of the disease of licanthropy. 1:08:25.479 --> 1:08:28.719 The word vampire, however, was adopted in the seventeen thirties 1:08:28.760 --> 1:08:33.120 to describe a contemporary wonder. And this is really interesting 1:08:33.160 --> 1:08:36.680 to me because the concept we have of a vampire 1:08:36.920 --> 1:08:41.080 is inherently modern. You don't get a vampire with just 1:08:41.080 --> 1:08:43.360 just with people telling stories in the woods. 1:08:43.439 --> 1:08:43.639 Right. 1:08:44.040 --> 1:08:48.240 The concept of a vampire inherently brings comes out of 1:08:48.280 --> 1:08:52.719 this sudden explosion in scientific understanding and knowledge that occurs 1:08:52.760 --> 1:08:55.559 in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which come with both 1:08:55.840 --> 1:08:58.880 not just an understanding of like German disease theory, which 1:08:58.920 --> 1:09:01.360 is part of the vampire higher myth, right, this disease 1:09:01.400 --> 1:09:04.920 that gets spread through biting blood. But yeah, yeah, it 1:09:04.960 --> 1:09:08.519 comes with an increased appreciation of understanding of like the 1:09:08.560 --> 1:09:12.040 importance of blood in a medical and a forensic sense. 1:09:12.160 --> 1:09:12.400 Right. 1:09:12.720 --> 1:09:15.599 The seventeen hundreds is when we start to use blood 1:09:15.640 --> 1:09:17.320 to convict people of murders. 1:09:17.400 --> 1:09:17.559 Right. 1:09:17.920 --> 1:09:20.840 Obviously you're not doing DNA tests then, right, But in 1:09:20.920 --> 1:09:25.000 seventeen forty one, this English murderer James Hall gets convicted 1:09:25.040 --> 1:09:27.320 because he kills a guy and he can't clean up 1:09:27.360 --> 1:09:29.360 all of the blood, right, So there's like blood from 1:09:29.400 --> 1:09:31.479 the murder, and it's also on some of his stuff. 1:09:31.680 --> 1:09:33.600 And this is like, I think the first time, or 1:09:33.640 --> 1:09:36.200 at least one of the first times that like blood 1:09:36.240 --> 1:09:39.600 as forensic evidence was used to convict a dude, is. 1:09:39.600 --> 1:09:42.040 It because like, prior to that, just everything was covered 1:09:42.040 --> 1:09:44.880 with blood. All this there's a lot of blood. Yeah, right, 1:09:45.160 --> 1:09:48.080 I just slipped in some blood, Yeah, stepping out of 1:09:48.120 --> 1:09:51.120 my house. Well I don't know where blood came from. Yeah, yeah, 1:09:51.120 --> 1:09:54.040 I'm sure there were other times where that connection was made, 1:09:54.040 --> 1:09:56.040 but this is like a famous case, and it's famous. 1:09:56.040 --> 1:09:58.400 It's also like really noteworthy in the history of forensics, 1:09:58.680 --> 1:10:02.439 and that's part of what's going to build to us 1:10:02.479 --> 1:10:04.040 understanding vampires. Right. 1:10:04.560 --> 1:10:08.840 Another key aspect, key ingredient to creating the vampire is 1:10:08.880 --> 1:10:11.479 the birth of print journalism, right, which plays a major 1:10:11.600 --> 1:10:16.400 role in disseminating these true crime stories. The vampire is 1:10:16.439 --> 1:10:19.679 a concept is inherently linked to true crime because starting 1:10:19.680 --> 1:10:22.320 in the seventeen hundreds, in particular, we get all of 1:10:22.320 --> 1:10:26.320 these viral news stories about serial killers and murderers. And 1:10:26.320 --> 1:10:29.679 this really takes off in the eighteen hundreds because true 1:10:29.680 --> 1:10:31.960 crime has always been a reliable moneymaker and that's a 1:10:32.000 --> 1:10:35.559 big part of this myth. Bloom cites a book published 1:10:35.560 --> 1:10:40.000 by demonologist George Sinclair in sixteen eighty five who describes 1:10:40.040 --> 1:10:42.559 the murder of a man named Spalding in a town 1:10:42.640 --> 1:10:47.120 of called dal Keith. And this he describes a murder 1:10:47.120 --> 1:10:49.960 committed by a man named Spalding in a town called Dalkeith, 1:10:50.240 --> 1:10:54.400 and Spalding gets caught and hung but reanimate several times. Right, 1:10:54.720 --> 1:10:57.759 they don't quite kill him successfully, so he keeps coming back. 1:10:58.240 --> 1:11:00.320 And this is sort of one of the story that 1:11:00.360 --> 1:11:03.639 contributes to the birth of the vampire myth, right, because 1:11:04.200 --> 1:11:06.799 it's really noteworthy. This guy is this, commits this brutal 1:11:06.880 --> 1:11:09.080 murder and then you can't kill him, right. It's kind 1:11:09.080 --> 1:11:12.040 of like the rasputant stories. It gets spread a lot, right, 1:11:12.080 --> 1:11:14.880 and so people start like talking about it, and it's 1:11:14.920 --> 1:11:18.120 in their mind consciously or subconsciously as they're continuing to 1:11:18.120 --> 1:11:20.360 spend these folklore stories about monsters. 1:11:20.760 --> 1:11:23.519 Yeah, and it's like that there is I think an 1:11:23.640 --> 1:11:29.599 under rated like blurriness to the barrier between life and death, 1:11:30.400 --> 1:11:33.559 like you see even today. And you know, it's just 1:11:33.600 --> 1:11:36.160 like at a certain point it's like I guess they're 1:11:36.200 --> 1:11:39.280 like pretty dead, right, Yeah, like there there. You know, 1:11:39.320 --> 1:11:41.840 it's like you don't know when a work of artist, 1:11:41.880 --> 1:11:45.200 the artist is just like done when they're done. Yeah, 1:11:45.400 --> 1:11:49.960 and it's like yeah, so yeah, it makes sense to 1:11:50.000 --> 1:11:52.639 me that that would be a contributing factor because it's 1:11:52.680 --> 1:11:55.400 still kind of confounding, and I think something that people 1:11:55.439 --> 1:11:59.280 don't like to think about, yeah, from doctors, about like 1:12:00.160 --> 1:12:02.720 not wanting to do a DNA or not wanting to 1:12:02.720 --> 1:12:07.599 be resuscitated. It's because there's like this weird blariness where 1:12:07.600 --> 1:12:11.040 you can be like kept alive even though you're mostly dead. 1:12:11.720 --> 1:12:14.920 Yeah, And it's also you know, it's it's not uncommon 1:12:15.280 --> 1:12:17.840 for people to be buried alive back then, and it's 1:12:17.840 --> 1:12:20.559 also not uncommon for people to commit murder. And some 1:12:20.600 --> 1:12:23.240 folkloris there's a theory that a lot of monster myths 1:12:23.280 --> 1:12:25.439 in the vampire would be kind of chief among them 1:12:25.640 --> 1:12:28.439 have their origin and unreal crimes by like what we 1:12:28.520 --> 1:12:31.760 now call serial killers, right, and people somebody in your 1:12:31.800 --> 1:12:35.759 community who you've known surprises everyone by committing this brutal 1:12:35.840 --> 1:12:39.000 series of murders. It's really maybe you don't want to 1:12:39.040 --> 1:12:41.720 acknowledge that this. You could have just gotten this person wrong, right, 1:12:41.800 --> 1:12:44.080 somebody had something dark inside them that you didn't see, 1:12:44.080 --> 1:12:47.679 and they committed this terrible crime. So the more comforting 1:12:47.680 --> 1:12:49.920 thing to believe is that they've caught some sort of 1:12:49.960 --> 1:12:54.000 demonic infection, right, sure, you know, and you know, for 1:12:54.040 --> 1:12:55.960 a while people just say, yeah, demons in them. But 1:12:56.040 --> 1:12:59.720 like vamporism in this age of science, is a transmissible 1:12:59.760 --> 1:13:02.719 in and that can explain how somebody can do something 1:13:03.040 --> 1:13:05.960 seemingly out of character for them. Oh, this guy that 1:13:06.000 --> 1:13:08.240 we all knew killed his wife and kids in this 1:13:08.280 --> 1:13:12.839 horrible way. He's a vampire. He caught the vampire infection, right, Yeah, 1:13:12.840 --> 1:13:16.360 And because there's this growing understanding of like vamporism as 1:13:16.400 --> 1:13:19.599 an illness, there's a thing you can do as opposed 1:13:19.640 --> 1:13:22.080 to just being horrified at this, at this terrible crime. 1:13:22.479 --> 1:13:24.800 You execute the murderer, but you also have to ensure 1:13:24.800 --> 1:13:27.120 that he's not going to reanimate, right, which gives you 1:13:27.200 --> 1:13:29.240 some action that you can take that maybe makes you 1:13:29.280 --> 1:13:30.799 feel like you're protecting yourself. 1:13:31.160 --> 1:13:34.000 Right, So you just hang some garlic around their neck. 1:13:34.120 --> 1:13:35.920 Well, that is one of the things that you do. Yeah, 1:13:36.120 --> 1:13:37.679 there's a couple of things that you do that play 1:13:37.680 --> 1:13:40.439 into the later myths. Right when somebody, when you think 1:13:40.479 --> 1:13:43.519 somebody is a vampire, you cut their head off often 1:13:43.640 --> 1:13:46.760 after you kill them, and you stake them. Not The 1:13:47.160 --> 1:13:49.400 initial version is not that the steak kills the vampire, 1:13:49.439 --> 1:13:51.639 but you stake them to their coffin so they can't 1:13:51.640 --> 1:13:52.760 get it, they can't get out. 1:13:52.800 --> 1:13:55.680 That's why. That's why I do it mainly, And but 1:13:55.720 --> 1:13:59.519 I did. I only rarely do the head cutting off thing. Yeah, 1:13:59.520 --> 1:14:01.599 well that's the way you got such a vampire problem, 1:14:01.800 --> 1:14:04.799 and that's why I'm my property is lousy with vampires. 1:14:05.240 --> 1:14:09.479 You to watch the Vampire Diary series, do I have 1:14:09.640 --> 1:14:10.280 you not? 1:14:11.280 --> 1:14:15.679 I mean, I'm a young person who is pop culturally engaged, 1:14:15.680 --> 1:14:18.559 so of course I've watched it and know exactly the 1:14:18.600 --> 1:14:19.799 reference you're talking about. 1:14:20.479 --> 1:14:23.160 Yeah, why don't you explain that reference just to the listeners? 1:14:23.160 --> 1:14:26.760 Know, Mitt Robert and I obviously know is one of 1:14:26.840 --> 1:14:32.920 the best television shows of all time. But the staking, yes, 1:14:32.960 --> 1:14:35.759 the head cutting off, yes, But the garlic myth? 1:14:36.439 --> 1:14:36.880 Yeah, myth? 1:14:37.160 --> 1:14:40.040 Okay, Well, I mean you would often stuff garlic in 1:14:40.080 --> 1:14:41.280 the mouth of the corpse too. 1:14:42.280 --> 1:14:44.320 You could also rip their heart out, that's the thing. 1:14:44.400 --> 1:14:46.720 Yeah, yeah, all sorts of stuff. People do a lot 1:14:46.720 --> 1:14:49.559 of different shit, and they do it not just as 1:14:49.600 --> 1:14:53.920 interesting because it's understood as a communicable infection. You don't 1:14:53.960 --> 1:14:56.240 just do this to the murderer. You do this too 1:14:56.280 --> 1:14:59.080 his victims too, because they might have caught it and 1:14:59.120 --> 1:15:00.479 you don't want them to re animate. 1:15:00.600 --> 1:15:00.800 Right. 1:15:01.240 --> 1:15:03.360 So again it's important to note this is all very 1:15:03.400 --> 1:15:07.240 tied to old folklore and superstitious beliefs about monsters, but 1:15:07.320 --> 1:15:09.720 it's also tied to medical science. You can look at 1:15:09.720 --> 1:15:11.240 all these things that become part of the lore of 1:15:11.280 --> 1:15:14.839 how you defeat a vampire as people trying to create 1:15:14.960 --> 1:15:17.839 diagnostic and treatment criteria for a disease. 1:15:18.200 --> 1:15:21.360 Now evil, Yeah, it's the sixteen hundred, seventeen hundreds, early 1:15:21.400 --> 1:15:23.760 eighteen hundreds. They're not good at that yet, right, like 1:15:23.840 --> 1:15:25.320 they do. This is not I'm just saying this is 1:15:25.400 --> 1:15:28.160 rigorous science, but it is. It is born out of 1:15:28.160 --> 1:15:32.479 an attempt to do to think scientifically, right. That is 1:15:32.520 --> 1:15:35.640 an key aspect to it. A lot of the modern 1:15:35.840 --> 1:15:41.880 like serial killer psychological profiling stuff is also equally just 1:15:41.920 --> 1:15:42.719 complete bullshit. 1:15:42.800 --> 1:15:46.759 Yeah, lots of total bullshit, and it does I think 1:15:47.080 --> 1:15:50.880 a lot of our beliefs about like forensic science working 1:15:50.880 --> 1:15:52.360 a lot better than it does a lot of our 1:15:52.400 --> 1:15:55.679 desire to believe in like these competent hyper detectives does 1:15:55.720 --> 1:15:58.439 come out of like the same thing as the concept 1:15:58.479 --> 1:16:00.720 of a vampire, which is that, like, it's scary that 1:16:00.760 --> 1:16:03.880 people can commit murders and get away with them sometimes, 1:16:03.920 --> 1:16:06.760 and so it's comforting if you can find an explanation, 1:16:06.800 --> 1:16:09.200 even if that explanation a lot of it's nonsense, right, 1:16:09.560 --> 1:16:12.880 You know, forensic profiling is a flawed scientific field, but 1:16:12.920 --> 1:16:14.639 at least it provides an answer, you know. 1:16:14.560 --> 1:16:18.040 Bring the scientists in, Yeah, now, make us feel better. Yeah. 1:16:18.160 --> 1:16:21.160 Vamporism is not just people wanting to like make things 1:16:21.160 --> 1:16:24.200 seem comfortable. There are also good, at the time, pretty 1:16:24.200 --> 1:16:27.080 good scientific reasons to believe that vamporism might be a 1:16:27.200 --> 1:16:29.639 real illness. A lot of it comes from the fact 1:16:29.640 --> 1:16:33.080 that rabies explodes in large parts of Europe during the 1:16:33.080 --> 1:16:36.800 time in which vampires are born as a mythical creature. Right, 1:16:36.880 --> 1:16:39.840 there's these huge outbreaks. Animals will bite several people, and 1:16:39.880 --> 1:16:42.919 then those people rabies can cause you to get violently aggressive. 1:16:42.920 --> 1:16:46.559 They'll bite people and they'll transfer the disease to those people, right, 1:16:47.000 --> 1:16:50.280 And people who have rabies, there are certain things that 1:16:50.360 --> 1:16:52.799 seem kind of like vamporism in them. One of them, obviously, 1:16:52.880 --> 1:16:56.080 is this sudden, unexplained, violent aggression. They also have a 1:16:56.080 --> 1:16:58.400 fear of water, right, that's noted as like a side 1:16:58.400 --> 1:17:02.040 effective rabies. Vamp and folklore can't cross running water. 1:17:02.360 --> 1:17:05.000 Not true on the Vampire Diaries, Thank you so much. 1:17:05.400 --> 1:17:07.600 I'm glad the Vampire Diaries disagrees. 1:17:09.120 --> 1:17:12.799 So one fact check everything for us using the text 1:17:12.880 --> 1:17:16.120 of the Vampire Diaries. So you get. One thing that. 1:17:17.600 --> 1:17:21.439 Differentiates the vampire from other beasts of legend is that 1:17:21.880 --> 1:17:24.840 there isn't it. It is a scientific phenomenon. That is 1:17:24.880 --> 1:17:25.400 how it's seen. 1:17:25.439 --> 1:17:26.240 It is a disease. 1:17:26.320 --> 1:17:29.320 You diagnose people with a it's not a Boggin's out 1:17:29.320 --> 1:17:32.400 in the woods. It's an illness, right, And so there's 1:17:32.479 --> 1:17:35.799 diagnostic criteria and a lot of beliefs about how vamporism 1:17:35.880 --> 1:17:38.920 worked come from early attempts to grapple with germ theory 1:17:39.000 --> 1:17:40.640 and the like. It's the result of an attempt at 1:17:40.680 --> 1:17:43.919 scientific thinking that fails. And while a lot of monsters 1:17:43.920 --> 1:17:47.080 and stories drink blood, Dracula, I think is the first 1:17:47.080 --> 1:17:49.120 to suck it. So he's not just drinking it to 1:17:49.120 --> 1:17:51.160 get nourishment. He is sucking it and like that is 1:17:51.240 --> 1:17:54.880 providing him with like vital life force, right, And that 1:17:55.040 --> 1:18:00.360 is tied to an early understanding of blood transfusion. Right, 1:18:00.439 --> 1:18:03.320 that's we start transfusing blood into people in the late 1:18:03.439 --> 1:18:04.880 sixteen hundreds. 1:18:04.640 --> 1:18:07.320 Way too early. Yeah, we are not good at it. 1:18:07.680 --> 1:18:14.240 You want to get sixteen hundred blood because it's. 1:18:14.280 --> 1:18:17.280 As soon as people develop the hypodermic needle and realize 1:18:17.280 --> 1:18:20.559 that we can inject blood into our veins, it becomes 1:18:20.760 --> 1:18:23.920 just the quackest quack here. You think these like rich 1:18:23.920 --> 1:18:26.519 people today shooting their young kids blood into them are 1:18:26.560 --> 1:18:29.320 are quacks? Oh, let me read you from This is 1:18:29.360 --> 1:18:31.920 from Groom's book The Wild Story of a Guy named 1:18:32.040 --> 1:18:36.080 Arthur Koga Quote Coga, a thirty two year old divinity 1:18:36.080 --> 1:18:39.200 graduate of Cambridge University, was looked upon as a very 1:18:39.240 --> 1:18:43.559 freakish and extravagant man. On twenty third November sixteen sixty seven, 1:18:43.720 --> 1:18:46.360 he was treated to become more docile by receiving a 1:18:46.400 --> 1:18:49.680 blood transfusion from a Lamb Peppies who's like one of 1:18:49.720 --> 1:18:52.680 the doctors observed that the medical fraternity differ in the 1:18:52.720 --> 1:18:55.080 opinion they have of the effects of it. Some think 1:18:55.120 --> 1:18:56.760 it may have a good effect upon him as a 1:18:56.800 --> 1:18:59.720 frantic man by cooling his blood. Others that it will 1:18:59.720 --> 1:19:02.280 not have any effect at all. Coga saw the lamb 1:19:02.280 --> 1:19:06.439 as emblematic of meekness and humility, declaring in Latin, the 1:19:06.479 --> 1:19:08.880 blood of the sheep has symbolic power like the blood 1:19:08.880 --> 1:19:11.640 of Christ, for Christ is the lamb of God. And 1:19:11.800 --> 1:19:13.880 science there solid medical thinking. 1:19:14.080 --> 1:19:18.439 Yeah. The lamb's blood was transfused using quills and silver pipes, 1:19:18.640 --> 1:19:22.040 but Coga received a payment of twenty shillings, drank canary 1:19:22.080 --> 1:19:25.160 wine and smoked a pipe in celebration, and the operation 1:19:25.320 --> 1:19:28.240 was repeated on twelfth of December. Coga's mood was not 1:19:28.240 --> 1:19:31.479 noticeably softened by the treatment. However, some change has apparently 1:19:31.520 --> 1:19:33.920 taken place. He wrote a begging letter to the Royal 1:19:33.960 --> 1:19:37.200 Society complaining that he had been transformed into another species 1:19:37.439 --> 1:19:39.960 and was reduced to pawning his clothes, or, as he 1:19:40.040 --> 1:19:43.760 bombastically put it, he dearly purchases your sheep's blood with 1:19:43.760 --> 1:19:46.120 the loss of his own woolen. This sheep racked vessel 1:19:46.160 --> 1:19:48.760 of his like that of Argos. He addresses himself to 1:19:48.800 --> 1:19:52.599 you and the golden fleece. He signed himself Angus Coga 1:19:52.760 --> 1:19:54.880 or Coga the sheep. Wow. 1:19:55.200 --> 1:19:57.719 So this is probably a guy having like a mental 1:19:57.720 --> 1:20:00.280 health crisis and They're like, we've got to shoot full 1:20:00.280 --> 1:20:01.080 of sheep blood. 1:20:01.320 --> 1:20:04.360 You know what would help this? Yeah, he doesn't feel 1:20:04.400 --> 1:20:07.120 good after this and convinces himself it's because he's been 1:20:07.160 --> 1:20:11.479 turned into a sheep man. Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah, 1:20:11.520 --> 1:20:14.120 I have a I have a quick question for you. Sure, sure, Jack. 1:20:14.520 --> 1:20:17.240 So we've talked about this on my podcast, The Daily 1:20:17.320 --> 1:20:23.160 Zeitgeist with Miles Gray. Yeah, the model of vampire fangs. 1:20:24.120 --> 1:20:27.120 When you picture a vampire sucking blood, do you picture 1:20:27.160 --> 1:20:30.679 the fangs having little hollow tubes inside them? Yeah? Yeah, 1:20:30.880 --> 1:20:35.840 how the blood up like a reverse like snake fang. 1:20:36.240 --> 1:20:39.280 And I assume that that leads into their veins, right, 1:20:39.320 --> 1:20:41.559 and then that they get that blood in their veins. 1:20:41.560 --> 1:20:45.880 That's my assumption. Well, on the Vampire Diary, I feel 1:20:45.960 --> 1:20:48.760 like not on the Vampire Diaries, they kind of just 1:20:48.800 --> 1:20:53.679 look like pointy little teeth. They really makes sense. We 1:20:53.680 --> 1:20:56.000 we've always we've like talked about where we I think 1:20:56.080 --> 1:21:00.360 I got that from the Reese's peanut butter cup ed Yeah, 1:21:00.479 --> 1:21:05.519 where that is of most of my medical information? Yeah, 1:21:05.920 --> 1:21:09.360 because it doesn't really like we've we've asked this of 1:21:09.400 --> 1:21:11.679 a bunch of our guests, and like half of them 1:21:11.680 --> 1:21:14.120 are like, yeah, of course that's exactly what happens in 1:21:14.160 --> 1:21:17.200 my brain, and the other half are like, what are 1:21:17.240 --> 1:21:20.760 you talking about? Why would that be? It? Like you 1:21:20.840 --> 1:21:23.719 just they poke two little holes and then suck your blood, 1:21:24.240 --> 1:21:26.639 as it's said, They don't. They don't say I want 1:21:26.680 --> 1:21:27.880 to like have my. 1:21:28.920 --> 1:21:32.000 I want to suck your blood. I want to like 1:21:32.200 --> 1:21:35.120 drink your blood and have it go into my stomach. Yes, 1:21:35.640 --> 1:21:38.320 I think assuming that that line that I don't even 1:21:38.320 --> 1:21:40.479 know where that comes from. I think that's like, that's 1:21:40.520 --> 1:21:43.439 like Hanna bar Barrack cartoons in the seventies where he 1:21:43.560 --> 1:21:47.439 probably started saying that. But I do treat that as 1:21:47.520 --> 1:21:50.960 as vampiric fact for sure. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. 1:21:50.800 --> 1:21:52.960 But I was just I basically that is one of 1:21:53.000 --> 1:21:56.080 the first questions I ask everybody. Sure, the horror subject 1:21:56.120 --> 1:21:56.840 of vampire. 1:21:56.640 --> 1:22:00.680 Known for this, So by the seventeen hundreds, blood is 1:22:00.760 --> 1:22:03.880 a central topic of scientific discussion, and all of these 1:22:03.920 --> 1:22:08.960 factors are these intellectual people are shooting blood into each other. Right, 1:22:09.680 --> 1:22:12.280 there's the birth of true crime as a genre. You've 1:22:12.280 --> 1:22:15.759 got constant news stories that are just like lavish tales 1:22:16.040 --> 1:22:20.040 of bloody, gory murder. You've got this early understanding of forensics, 1:22:20.120 --> 1:22:23.800 this early understanding of germ theory, all of that is 1:22:23.880 --> 1:22:26.880 going to play a role in what's called the Great 1:22:27.040 --> 1:22:28.160 Vampire Epidemic. 1:22:28.200 --> 1:22:29.560 Were you aware that this was a thing, that we 1:22:29.640 --> 1:22:31.439 had a vampire epidemic? I was not. 1:22:31.960 --> 1:22:35.120 No, it's fucking dope. It runs from about seventeen twenty 1:22:35.160 --> 1:22:39.040 five to about the mid seventeen fifties, and it's basically 1:22:39.320 --> 1:22:42.120 there's a moral panic about vampires, kind of the same 1:22:42.160 --> 1:22:43.880 way we have it when like you get a terrorist 1:22:43.880 --> 1:22:47.920 attack and then suddenly people in like rural towns thousands 1:22:47.960 --> 1:22:51.679 of miles away are like they're coming for us next. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 1:22:51.880 --> 1:22:53.920 you get all this kind of stuff, right, or you'll 1:22:53.920 --> 1:22:56.479 get yeah, you'll hear a story about like a serial 1:22:56.560 --> 1:22:59.240 killer in fucking Idaho, and then like people will start 1:22:59.240 --> 1:23:02.360 flipping out, like I don't know, suburban Georgia that like 1:23:02.640 --> 1:23:05.559 their next human beings are not good at threat modeling. 1:23:05.920 --> 1:23:09.880 That happens with vampires, right. There's this suddenly, this explosion 1:23:09.920 --> 1:23:14.400 in vampire tales all around Europe, primarily Western and Eastern Europe. 1:23:14.800 --> 1:23:17.000 One write up on the Great Vampire Epidemic that I 1:23:17.040 --> 1:23:20.400 found by researchers from the University of Virginia credits the 1:23:20.400 --> 1:23:23.600 epidemic to outbreaks of both rabies and polagra. So you 1:23:23.640 --> 1:23:26.040 have a bunch of rabies outbreaks. Not hard to see 1:23:26.040 --> 1:23:28.479 why someone again not a rational that if there's a 1:23:28.560 --> 1:23:31.360 rabies outbreak in your town and someone's like, it's vampires, 1:23:31.360 --> 1:23:31.720 you'd be. 1:23:31.680 --> 1:23:35.840 Like, yeah, it seems like it sure looks like vampires. 1:23:36.080 --> 1:23:38.760 Pale guy who has blood all over his mouth which 1:23:38.840 --> 1:23:42.400 is crossing water eating people. Sure, yeah, it seems like 1:23:42.439 --> 1:23:43.200 a vampire to me. 1:23:43.439 --> 1:23:44.000 Pale guys. 1:23:46.200 --> 1:23:48.600 Glad you had like nice tans? What was they just 1:23:48.680 --> 1:23:49.400 looked normal? 1:23:50.240 --> 1:23:52.280 Yeah, they're just looked normal. Jack. 1:23:53.040 --> 1:23:57.920 Wow. Wow, Wow you said that like I was being Yeah. 1:23:57.120 --> 1:23:59.720 You're not you're not familiar with the sacred Text. The 1:24:00.000 --> 1:24:05.519 other disease out that contributes to vampire understanding is there's 1:24:05.560 --> 1:24:09.559 these these outbreaks of what's called polagra. Now, polagra is 1:24:09.560 --> 1:24:12.400 an illness. It's very new to Europeans, which is why 1:24:12.439 --> 1:24:14.719 it freaks them out right, because it hadn't existed, because 1:24:14.720 --> 1:24:17.200 it couldn't have because polagra is something you get as 1:24:17.200 --> 1:24:20.599 a result of eating too much corn or improperly prepared corn. Right, 1:24:20.640 --> 1:24:23.920 there's ways you have to prepare corn that we know 1:24:24.040 --> 1:24:26.639 about now in order to avoid getting pelagra. But corn 1:24:26.680 --> 1:24:30.000 has just it's this sexy new world crop that we 1:24:30.240 --> 1:24:33.000 import here and start putting in everything. And so people 1:24:33.040 --> 1:24:36.880 are getting pollagra because we're not used to corn yet, right, 1:24:37.920 --> 1:24:41.360 And pollagra has a lot of symptoms that seem similar 1:24:41.400 --> 1:24:44.760 to vamporism. You get a sensitivity to sunlight, right, you 1:24:44.800 --> 1:24:46.960 can't be out in the sun. You get burnt really easily, 1:24:47.040 --> 1:24:50.440 right obvious where that comes from. You get severe anemias. 1:24:50.439 --> 1:24:53.839 Some people with pelagra will crave blood. Now again, animal 1:24:53.840 --> 1:24:56.879 blood is often used in this period in various food sausages, 1:24:56.920 --> 1:24:59.400 so it's not weird that somebody would have access to it. 1:24:59.479 --> 1:25:01.599 But like people who can't be out on the sun 1:25:01.640 --> 1:25:06.080 and crave blood, not hard to see where that fits in, right, yeah, yeah, 1:25:06.120 --> 1:25:08.240 And I'm going to quote from the University of Virginia here. 1:25:08.800 --> 1:25:11.680 Epidemics link rabies to a large number of deaths in 1:25:11.720 --> 1:25:15.559 Eastern Europe, where vampire hysteria was particularly strong. Several hundred 1:25:15.560 --> 1:25:18.200 cases of the disease were recorded, spread initially by rabid 1:25:18.200 --> 1:25:20.800 wolves and then in at least some cases people. The 1:25:20.840 --> 1:25:22.840 wolf and the vampire have a well known link as 1:25:22.840 --> 1:25:25.719 being a creature the vampire can change into but further 1:25:25.800 --> 1:25:28.720 the disease is spread through biting. Victims avoid sunlight, and 1:25:28.720 --> 1:25:31.840 they can be repelled by strong odors, garlic being a possibility. 1:25:32.120 --> 1:25:34.160 The hysteria that started to spread into the rest of 1:25:34.200 --> 1:25:37.160 Europe led to the word vampire from the Serbian, first 1:25:37.280 --> 1:25:41.120 entering German as their vampire around seventeen twenty six and 1:25:41.200 --> 1:25:44.719 later into English vampire by seventeen thirty four at the latest. 1:25:45.560 --> 1:25:48.479 As this epidemic is spreading, people are convinced vampires are 1:25:48.479 --> 1:25:52.799 all over the place. They start decapitating all these suspected vampires, 1:25:52.880 --> 1:25:55.960 staking them to their coffins. They start executing people and 1:25:56.000 --> 1:25:58.640 then doing that to them because they believe that they're vampires, 1:25:58.840 --> 1:26:00.519 and they start doing that to all their victims. So 1:26:00.560 --> 1:26:03.599 there's this this God knows how many thousands of people 1:26:03.680 --> 1:26:06.400 get like dug up and decapitated and staked to their 1:26:06.400 --> 1:26:09.200 coffins because there's this belief that like they've caught the 1:26:09.280 --> 1:26:11.960 vampire sickness and this is the only way to stop it. Now, 1:26:12.000 --> 1:26:16.000 the real culprit is their corn, right, it's corn, and wolves, 1:26:16.080 --> 1:26:20.400 as it always is in history, can't handle their corn. 1:26:21.160 --> 1:26:23.759 But they don't know that yet because they're stupid old 1:26:23.800 --> 1:26:27.599 time people, right, not a smart new time people who 1:26:27.680 --> 1:26:34.759 understand diseasesn't always take precautions against them. They're dummies, stupid dummies. Anyway, 1:26:36.160 --> 1:26:38.800 the Great vampire epidemic of the mid seventeen hundreds is 1:26:38.880 --> 1:26:42.400 kind of like the last hurrah for believing in vampires 1:26:42.439 --> 1:26:45.280 on like a widespread cultural level is like an actual 1:26:45.479 --> 1:26:50.200 scientific illness. Because this kind of moral panic or hype 1:26:50.280 --> 1:26:53.880 or whatever around vampires, it leads scientific men, men of 1:26:53.920 --> 1:26:57.400 reasoning and understanding to finally reject vamporism wholly as a 1:26:57.439 --> 1:27:00.559 real disease as they gain an actual understanding about like 1:27:00.640 --> 1:27:03.600 what's causing their problems. Right, So this is in this 1:27:03.720 --> 1:27:06.519 kind of the late sixteen hundreds early seventeen hundreds, you 1:27:06.560 --> 1:27:08.720 can find a lot of quote unquote educated men who 1:27:08.720 --> 1:27:11.560 will argue it's an actual illness that stops after the 1:27:11.600 --> 1:27:16.000 Great vampire Epidemic. Now, the last crucial link in the 1:27:16.080 --> 1:27:19.760 chain from Vlad the Impaler to modern Dracula myths was 1:27:19.760 --> 1:27:23.720 the childhood of a guy named Bram Stoker. Bram is 1:27:23.760 --> 1:27:27.440 an irishman, and if you know anything about the eighteen hundreds, 1:27:27.600 --> 1:27:30.120 if you are an Irish child, in the eighteen hundreds. 1:27:30.200 --> 1:27:31.200 You're gonna see some shit. 1:27:31.479 --> 1:27:34.960 Things are good, right, have a good time famously chill 1:27:35.080 --> 1:27:37.040 time in Ireland eighteen hundreds. 1:27:37.120 --> 1:27:40.760 Yeah, so one of his first he's a sickly kid 1:27:40.800 --> 1:27:43.439 and also everyone around him is dying all the time, right. 1:27:43.479 --> 1:27:45.760 That is Bram Stoker's childhood, because he's an Irish kid 1:27:45.760 --> 1:27:49.280 in the eighteen hundreds. One of his first early memories 1:27:49.479 --> 1:27:53.320 is the great cholera outbreak in Ireland that occurs in 1:27:53.400 --> 1:27:56.719 this kind of in the early mid eighteen hundred periods. 1:27:57.479 --> 1:28:01.120 Cholera is an incredibly virulent illness that's spread initially by 1:28:01.160 --> 1:28:04.920 contaminated water. As a result, once it hits a city, 1:28:05.040 --> 1:28:08.759 like an urban area, it explodes. And this is cholera 1:28:08.880 --> 1:28:10.400 is one of these things. When it hits an area 1:28:10.439 --> 1:28:13.320 where you live, we're talking an end of days virus. 1:28:13.360 --> 1:28:15.720 This is like the shit we make movies about, right. 1:28:15.800 --> 1:28:19.320 Cholera is a fucking nightmare. And it hits the town 1:28:19.360 --> 1:28:21.920 of Sligo where the Stokers live in eighteen thirty two. 1:28:22.400 --> 1:28:25.720 Bram's mother Charlotte later recalled one evening we heard a 1:28:25.760 --> 1:28:28.439 missus Feene, a very fat woman who was a music teacher, 1:28:28.479 --> 1:28:31.120 had died suddenly, and by the doctor's orders, had been 1:28:31.120 --> 1:28:34.040 buried an hour after with blanched faces. Men looked at 1:28:34.040 --> 1:28:36.680 each other and whispered cholera. But the whispers the next 1:28:36.760 --> 1:28:39.320 day deepened into a roar, and in many houses lay 1:28:39.320 --> 1:28:41.920 one or two or three dead. One house would be 1:28:41.960 --> 1:28:44.120 attacked and the next spared. There was no telling who 1:28:44.120 --> 1:28:46.320 would go next. And when one said goodbye to a friend, 1:28:46.360 --> 1:28:48.880 he said it as if forever. Because one of the 1:28:48.920 --> 1:28:50.719 things about choler he mentions that she's fat. 1:28:50.760 --> 1:28:51.000 I don't. 1:28:51.080 --> 1:28:53.080 He's not like trying to fat shame or he's because 1:28:53.120 --> 1:28:57.400 that means healthy, right if that means that, like you're nourished, 1:28:57.680 --> 1:29:00.320 And it kills her like that because people you can 1:29:00.320 --> 1:29:02.760 get color and be dead in twelve hours, right like 1:29:02.800 --> 1:29:05.160 it is, And so it has this It is almost 1:29:05.200 --> 1:29:07.840 like a monster, like a vampire, is just sweeping through 1:29:07.840 --> 1:29:09.400 town in massacring families. 1:29:09.600 --> 1:29:12.880 That is the speed with which this thing kills. So 1:29:13.040 --> 1:29:16.760 Bram's earliest memories and the stories that adults tell them 1:29:16.760 --> 1:29:20.920 are about this implacable wave of death that is supernatural 1:29:20.960 --> 1:29:24.160 almost in its power and totality, and because it is 1:29:24.200 --> 1:29:27.120 so contagious, the need to there's this great need. You 1:29:27.240 --> 1:29:29.360 have to dispose of the corpses of the people that 1:29:29.400 --> 1:29:31.799 it's killing. You have to do it quickly. And because 1:29:31.920 --> 1:29:34.360 medical science still isn't great, a lot of living people 1:29:34.400 --> 1:29:36.680 get thrown into mass graves that they then dig out 1:29:36.720 --> 1:29:39.519 over they're put into morgues. They're found to later be alive. 1:29:39.640 --> 1:29:42.160 Some of them even survive through this because there's like 1:29:42.400 --> 1:29:47.120 very drunk during a cholera alcore roll into a mass grave. 1:29:47.280 --> 1:29:50.000 Yeah, but also, like you can see how this is 1:29:50.000 --> 1:29:55.240 all filming a part of a fertile uh like background 1:29:55.320 --> 1:29:57.080 for Bram Stoker, right, He's going to have all this 1:29:57.120 --> 1:30:00.880 stuff going around in his young mind. Now, Hoolera is 1:30:00.920 --> 1:30:04.280 also a disease of capitalism, right, And it's also a 1:30:04.320 --> 1:30:06.839 result of the new nature of life in these massive, 1:30:06.960 --> 1:30:10.000 crowded cities that are fueled by products from far away. 1:30:10.360 --> 1:30:16.000 So vampire is right, But it's also it's kind of 1:30:16.040 --> 1:30:18.640 worth noting for brand because he is when he is 1:30:18.680 --> 1:30:22.479 growing up, scientists don't believe in vamporism is a literal 1:30:22.479 --> 1:30:22.920 thing anymore. 1:30:22.960 --> 1:30:24.679 He wouldn't have been raised that this was a real 1:30:24.800 --> 1:30:26.799 literal thing. But it has. 1:30:26.720 --> 1:30:31.519 Become a cultural touchstone and it becomes deeply associated with 1:30:31.640 --> 1:30:34.960 capitalism and wealth in the late seventeen hundreds. By the 1:30:35.000 --> 1:30:37.840 time Bram is growing up, he's not hearing about vamporism 1:30:37.880 --> 1:30:41.760 as this real thing, right because he's a cosmopolitan young man. 1:30:42.120 --> 1:30:45.360 He is hearing about it in political treatises. It's being 1:30:45.479 --> 1:30:48.040 used as a metaphor for the greed of bankers and 1:30:48.120 --> 1:30:50.880 rapacious tax men. Right, because vampires suck blood. You can 1:30:50.960 --> 1:30:53.760 call a fucking tax man a blood sucker, right. That 1:30:53.920 --> 1:30:56.840 is his first the first time Bram is going to 1:30:56.920 --> 1:31:01.120 encounter vampires, it's going to be people writing about them 1:31:01.160 --> 1:31:04.000 as like a fill in for their their enemies generally, 1:31:04.080 --> 1:31:06.120 like these businessmen and whatnot. 1:31:06.160 --> 1:31:08.720 And idea that the taxman I do call him a 1:31:08.720 --> 1:31:11.800 bloodsucker every year on my taxi terms. That's right, that's right. 1:31:12.000 --> 1:31:15.120 But no, it's worth noting one of the major guys 1:31:15.160 --> 1:31:17.679 who spreads this kind of the use of the term 1:31:17.760 --> 1:31:20.640 vampire to describe, you know, bankers and the like is 1:31:20.720 --> 1:31:23.880 Karl Marx. He's a major figure in this period of 1:31:24.000 --> 1:31:28.280 like the popular conception of the vampire. Groom writes quote 1:31:28.680 --> 1:31:31.360 in the Class Struggles in France eighteen fifty, the French 1:31:31.439 --> 1:31:34.320 National Assembly is described as a vampire living off the 1:31:34.360 --> 1:31:37.960 blood of the June insurgents. Similarly, in the eighteenth Brumere 1:31:38.080 --> 1:31:40.720 of Louis Bonaparte eighteen fifty two, in a reversal of 1:31:40.800 --> 1:31:44.639 Edmund Burk's language condemning the French Revolutionaries, the bourgeoisie order 1:31:44.680 --> 1:31:47.400 has become a vampire that sucks out the rural workers 1:31:47.439 --> 1:31:50.040 blood and brains and throws them into the alchemists cauldron 1:31:50.640 --> 1:31:53.360 and Marx and a bunch of other guys who are 1:31:53.439 --> 1:31:57.760 proto socialists and socialist thinkers in this period use vampires 1:31:57.880 --> 1:32:01.639 to describe capitalism because it's like, it's pretty good metaphor, right, 1:32:01.800 --> 1:32:04.760 Like it's not. And this is where, if you'll notice, 1:32:04.800 --> 1:32:07.840 when we're talking about the Great Vampire epidemic, vampires aren't 1:32:07.880 --> 1:32:10.200 rich people. They're not powerful people. It's just whoever, right, 1:32:10.200 --> 1:32:15.360 it's a disease. Right now, This is how vampires become wealthy, 1:32:15.520 --> 1:32:19.120 cultured people, right is in this period of time they 1:32:19.160 --> 1:32:21.360 start being discussed in like the concept of a banker. 1:32:21.439 --> 1:32:24.840 That's why, ultimately, when Bram Stoker writes his Dracula book, 1:32:25.080 --> 1:32:27.920 he envisions Dracula as a count, right, not just a count, 1:32:27.920 --> 1:32:30.200 but like a real estate Baron. Right, A big chunk 1:32:30.240 --> 1:32:34.120 of the Dracula book is Dracula doing like real estate transactions. 1:32:34.200 --> 1:32:36.679 You know, he's like buying and selling properties and shit. 1:32:36.840 --> 1:32:43.360 Yeah, Sophie, Vampire diaries, do we have confirmation they're definitely. 1:32:43.920 --> 1:32:46.680 It depends on how old they are, like new vamps now. 1:32:47.240 --> 1:32:49.519 But they don't care about real estate because they can't 1:32:49.520 --> 1:32:49.960 afford it. 1:32:50.280 --> 1:32:53.600 But they do seek out like foreclosured houses, and like 1:32:53.640 --> 1:32:55.160 they kind of pick out like the best house in 1:32:55.160 --> 1:32:58.320 the neighborhood and they like take it over because they 1:32:58.360 --> 1:33:01.080 technically have to be invited in if it's a human 1:33:01.120 --> 1:33:01.679 owned house. 1:33:02.360 --> 1:33:04.519 Yeah. Yeah, so that part holds up. 1:33:04.560 --> 1:33:07.280 Okay, that does hold up. So a couple of things here. 1:33:07.360 --> 1:33:10.160 One is that the stories that Bram Stoker grows up 1:33:10.160 --> 1:33:12.360 with the vampires, it's both this mix of like he's 1:33:12.360 --> 1:33:16.320 a politically savvy, you know, guy who's plugged in. He's 1:33:16.360 --> 1:33:18.800 reading a lot of articles that are using the vampires 1:33:19.000 --> 1:33:21.960 as a sort of like an insult really to describe 1:33:21.960 --> 1:33:25.360 these like rapacious early capitalists. The other place he's going 1:33:25.400 --> 1:33:28.040 to encounter vampires is in kind of some of the 1:33:28.080 --> 1:33:31.760 first horror stories, right, and these are like one of 1:33:31.840 --> 1:33:35.000 the guys. Who is responsible for this is Lord Byron right, 1:33:35.000 --> 1:33:39.000 who in eighteen nineteen writes an article called The Vampire, 1:33:39.120 --> 1:33:41.640 a Tale by Lord Byron, and this is this is 1:33:41.720 --> 1:33:43.880 going to spread. This is a very popular story. These 1:33:43.880 --> 1:33:45.960 guys are kind of like some of the fact along 1:33:45.960 --> 1:33:49.519 with Poe, some of the foundational horror authors. And the 1:33:49.640 --> 1:33:54.040 Vampire is a really popular story by Lord Byron, and 1:33:54.080 --> 1:33:56.400 in fact it spreads. This is kind of a little 1:33:56.439 --> 1:33:58.240 bit of an aside, but it was too interesting not 1:33:58.360 --> 1:34:01.920 to mention. Byron published this thing in eighteen nineteen, and 1:34:01.960 --> 1:34:03.519 it's it takes you know. 1:34:03.920 --> 1:34:04.559 I'm actually just. 1:34:04.479 --> 1:34:06.400 Going to read a quote from this article in the 1:34:06.400 --> 1:34:10.280 conversation quote. The Vampire did away with the Eastern European 1:34:10.320 --> 1:34:12.680 peasant vampire of old. It took this monster out of 1:34:12.680 --> 1:34:15.439 the forest, gave him an aristocratic lineage, and placed him 1:34:15.439 --> 1:34:17.880 into the drawing rooms of the Romantic era England. It 1:34:17.920 --> 1:34:20.360 was the first sustained fictional treatment of the vampire and 1:34:20.400 --> 1:34:24.759 completely recast the folklore and mythology on which it drew. Now, 1:34:24.920 --> 1:34:27.599 this story is initially credited to Byron. It's later found 1:34:27.640 --> 1:34:29.200 out it was like a friend of his, this guy, 1:34:29.320 --> 1:34:32.040 John Polodori. But that doesn't really matter all that much 1:34:32.080 --> 1:34:34.800 other than that, like Byron kind of a fame hound. 1:34:35.000 --> 1:34:38.360 Yeah, with a cool name. People would rather cool vampire 1:34:38.400 --> 1:34:43.800 story be written by Polidori Byron rather than Hey, it's 1:34:43.880 --> 1:34:47.559 my boy, Johnny Pulidari, Yeah, j pol Yeah. 1:34:47.560 --> 1:34:50.599 So one of the things that I didn't know until 1:34:50.640 --> 1:34:52.719 I started doing that I was familiar with, like Byron 1:34:52.880 --> 1:34:54.920 and him getting credit and being by this other guy. 1:34:54.920 --> 1:34:57.120 It's like kind of the first vampire story in a 1:34:57.160 --> 1:35:01.519 modern sense. But there's actually another vampire book that gets 1:35:01.560 --> 1:35:05.720 that's extremely influential, that comes out before Bramstoker's Dracula, and 1:35:05.760 --> 1:35:10.360 it's an American response to the Polidari story, The Vampire. Right, 1:35:11.080 --> 1:35:14.040 And the title of this is The Black Vampire, A 1:35:14.120 --> 1:35:18.519 Legend of Saint Domingo by one Uriah Derek d' rc. 1:35:18.960 --> 1:35:19.240 Now. 1:35:20.120 --> 1:35:21.439 I think a lot of people are thinking about the 1:35:21.479 --> 1:35:24.120 movie Blackula, right, which is a black exploitation movie. But 1:35:24.200 --> 1:35:27.479 this is actually this is not we're not talking about 1:35:27.520 --> 1:35:30.479 like I don't know, Like, this is actually a serious 1:35:30.520 --> 1:35:35.479 and influential work of literature, right, And it's interesting because 1:35:35.840 --> 1:35:39.920 it is one of the first popular anti slavery narratives. Right, 1:35:39.960 --> 1:35:42.840 This is written in the early eighteen hundreds. It is 1:35:42.920 --> 1:35:46.439 the first American vampire story is of a black vampire, 1:35:46.800 --> 1:35:50.000 and it is also it might be the first short 1:35:50.000 --> 1:35:53.400 story to argue in favor of emancipation right. This is 1:35:53.439 --> 1:35:56.120 published fourteen years before Lydia Child is going to write 1:35:56.120 --> 1:35:58.400 a book called An Appeal in Favor of that class 1:35:58.400 --> 1:36:01.760 of Americans called Africans, which is kind of probably the 1:36:01.800 --> 1:36:04.320 first big anti slavery book. So it's one of the 1:36:04.360 --> 1:36:09.840 first popular pieces of literature arguing for emancipation right. It 1:36:09.920 --> 1:36:12.680 is not super well known, although you can find some 1:36:13.240 --> 1:36:15.720 You can find copies of it online. Now I'm going 1:36:15.760 --> 1:36:19.200 to quote again from the conversation here. Darcy's narrative begins 1:36:19.200 --> 1:36:22.000 with a slave owner, mister Person in what is now Haiti, 1:36:22.080 --> 1:36:24.880 repeatingly trying to kill a ten year old slave. Much 1:36:24.880 --> 1:36:28.000 as he tries, though the corpse keeps reviving. Person orders 1:36:28.040 --> 1:36:29.840 the child to be burned, but the boy moves with 1:36:29.920 --> 1:36:33.080 supernatural speed and miraculously causes the slave owner to be 1:36:33.080 --> 1:36:36.080 flung into the fire instead. Before mister Persone dies, his 1:36:36.120 --> 1:36:38.519 wife informs him that the cradle of their unbaptized son 1:36:38.600 --> 1:36:41.640 is empty apart from his skin, bones and nails. Some 1:36:41.800 --> 1:36:44.640 years later, we returned to person's widow, Euphemia, who is 1:36:44.680 --> 1:36:47.120 in mourning for her third husband. She is visited by 1:36:47.120 --> 1:36:49.880 two strangers, an extremely handsome black man dressed as a 1:36:49.920 --> 1:36:53.599 Moorish prince accompanied by a pale European boy. He charms 1:36:53.600 --> 1:36:55.800 her with his elegance and beauty and rapidly wins her 1:36:55.840 --> 1:36:59.080 hand in marriage, which takes place that evening. The same night, 1:36:59.240 --> 1:37:01.880 he reveals that he is a vampire and converts Euphemia 1:37:01.920 --> 1:37:04.680 to his bloodthirsty set. Married to a monster and now 1:37:04.720 --> 1:37:07.720 a monster herself, Euphemia learns that the prince's pale young 1:37:07.760 --> 1:37:11.479 companion is her vanished son, now also a vampire. And 1:37:11.520 --> 1:37:13.760 so part of what's going on here is like vampism 1:37:13.800 --> 1:37:18.000 is kind of standing in as like this thing that 1:37:18.040 --> 1:37:19.960 people are judged for in the same way they're judged 1:37:20.000 --> 1:37:21.639 for like interracial marriages and stuff. 1:37:21.680 --> 1:37:21.720 Like. 1:37:21.760 --> 1:37:24.200 There's a lot going on in this story. It's also 1:37:24.360 --> 1:37:27.320 very much like a sympathetic narrative about the Haitian Revolution. 1:37:28.120 --> 1:37:30.600 I had no idea this book existed, but this is 1:37:30.640 --> 1:37:33.439 the first American vampire right as well as this black 1:37:33.520 --> 1:37:37.960 vampire in this early pro emancipation narrative America loves to 1:37:38.000 --> 1:37:39.200 forget about great shit. 1:37:39.320 --> 1:37:42.760 Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. I think that's pretty neat. 1:37:42.920 --> 1:37:45.960 It seems relevant, it seems relevant all these different themes. 1:37:46.120 --> 1:37:48.679 Huh yeah. And was it not popular at the time 1:37:48.800 --> 1:37:49.519 at the time, or. 1:37:49.640 --> 1:37:51.760 It is it is it's reasonably popular at the time. 1:37:51.800 --> 1:37:54.160 It's not huge, obviously, it gets kind of like forgotten 1:37:54.200 --> 1:37:56.240 for the most part because it's not a touchstone. But 1:37:56.360 --> 1:37:59.439 it's not like an unsuccessful story, I don't think. But 1:37:59.479 --> 1:38:01.719 it's not going to be nearly as successful as Bram 1:38:01.800 --> 1:38:05.320 Stoker's Dracula. And you know Bram, one of the things, 1:38:05.520 --> 1:38:07.840 he's the manager of a theater, right, that's how he 1:38:07.880 --> 1:38:10.599 makes a job money in his early life. So he's 1:38:10.760 --> 1:38:14.160 he probably he reads, you know, Polidars the Vampire. He 1:38:14.320 --> 1:38:17.679 also when he's kind of you know, doing this this 1:38:17.680 --> 1:38:20.080 this gig managing a theater, he comes across this book 1:38:20.400 --> 1:38:22.360 that had been written in eighteen twenty by a British 1:38:22.439 --> 1:38:26.439 politician about the history of Wallachia and Moldavia. And because 1:38:26.560 --> 1:38:29.839 lad the Impaler has become this sort of the Shield 1:38:29.840 --> 1:38:32.559 of the West type figure and also this demonized figure 1:38:32.560 --> 1:38:35.200 by the Germans, this book has a lot of stories 1:38:35.280 --> 1:38:38.680 about the brutality of lad the Impaler. So, you know, 1:38:38.960 --> 1:38:42.080 bram Stoker is becomes he's kind of obsessed with this 1:38:42.200 --> 1:38:44.760 area that becomes Romania. He reads a lot about it. 1:38:45.040 --> 1:38:48.360 He's also reading these stories about you know, cultured vampires, 1:38:48.400 --> 1:38:51.760 getting these like rants about the vampires the symbol of capitalism, 1:38:51.760 --> 1:38:55.960 and all of this kind of fuses together to create 1:38:56.479 --> 1:38:59.400 the Dracula that he writes in his book Dracula in 1:38:59.439 --> 1:39:03.000 eighteen nine, right, and that is eighteen ninety something like that. 1:39:03.000 --> 1:39:06.040 That's how we get Dracula. That's where he comes from, everybody. 1:39:05.920 --> 1:39:08.920 And that's he's just kind of pulling a cool name 1:39:09.120 --> 1:39:11.240 from this history book that he's reading. It's too cool. 1:39:11.320 --> 1:39:13.040 Yeah, he reads this and he's like, well, that's too 1:39:13.040 --> 1:39:14.960 cool a name to not use. I gotta I gotta 1:39:14.960 --> 1:39:17.839 call him fucking and he's got This guy is so brutal. 1:39:17.920 --> 1:39:20.439 I want this to be a scary monster. Dude, this 1:39:20.479 --> 1:39:23.040 guy scary as shit. Like, yeah, let's go for it. 1:39:23.120 --> 1:39:25.760 You know, is the is the impaling and the like 1:39:25.880 --> 1:39:29.559 staking the vampire? Like are those two suspected two have 1:39:29.680 --> 1:39:35.400 been yinked? I think they? I mean, it certainly fits together, right, Yeah, 1:39:36.080 --> 1:39:39.640 and then the chocolate cereal with marshmallows, Like does it 1:39:39.680 --> 1:39:40.840 where does that come up? 1:39:41.360 --> 1:39:41.479 Uh? 1:39:41.600 --> 1:39:46.880 Well, marshmallows, Jack, are the blood of uh candy, So 1:39:47.600 --> 1:39:53.519 oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah that makes sense though. Anyway, Jack, 1:39:53.640 --> 1:39:57.800 that is the story of the vampire. You gotta got 1:39:57.800 --> 1:40:01.240 a name. How you feeling. I'm feeling good, Man, Like 1:40:01.320 --> 1:40:05.639 I'm a little bummed out because the guy did impale 1:40:05.640 --> 1:40:09.639 a lot of like he earned number of people, sure, 1:40:09.840 --> 1:40:14.760 like I was not. I think I'm gonna stop trying 1:40:14.760 --> 1:40:17.160 to get people to call me Jack the Impaler because like, 1:40:17.240 --> 1:40:20.479 I don't think I can impale that many people. Jack, 1:40:21.600 --> 1:40:25.479 I just the nickname that ended up sticking. Sleepy Jack 1:40:25.520 --> 1:40:30.080 the pumpkinheaded bitch is like terrible, It's not good, and 1:40:30.160 --> 1:40:32.360 I just wish people would stop calling me that. 1:40:32.479 --> 1:40:34.479 But I'm going to tell you something Jack that my 1:40:34.520 --> 1:40:37.280 grandma told me, which is that you're never going to 1:40:37.360 --> 1:40:40.000 be judged by the number of people you were impaled. 1:40:40.160 --> 1:40:42.639 You're always going to be judged by the last person 1:40:42.680 --> 1:40:44.120 you impaled, right. 1:40:43.960 --> 1:40:49.240 And and the people you impale will not remember how many, 1:40:49.760 --> 1:40:52.599 They will remember how you made them feel. Yeah, when 1:40:52.640 --> 1:40:58.160 you when you were impaling them. Yeah, Grandma was so wise. 1:40:58.640 --> 1:41:00.960 I have so many of her saying written down. He 1:41:01.040 --> 1:41:04.920 said that a lot of them, almost all of them 1:41:04.960 --> 1:41:09.840 had to do with him paling. Actually, it's really strange. Yeah, 1:41:09.920 --> 1:41:13.400 what a what a tale. There's a lot of political 1:41:13.439 --> 1:41:15.639 stuff happening in the middle in the middle there that 1:41:16.360 --> 1:41:21.320 I was not fully aware of or able to wrap 1:41:21.360 --> 1:41:27.840 my head around. But yeah, it's Bromstoker. Also an awesome name. 1:41:28.320 --> 1:41:32.960 This story full of cool names and yeah, and then 1:41:33.000 --> 1:41:36.639 people were shitty names that nobody remembers, like Dan the Third, 1:41:37.040 --> 1:41:40.920 Dan the Third and John and whatever the fuck whoever. 1:41:42.520 --> 1:41:44.960 Is not a bad last name, but he really, he 1:41:45.040 --> 1:41:48.160 really was fucking falling down on that first ass name. 1:41:48.439 --> 1:41:54.000 Yeah, John, just don't name your kids John John Damn. Yeah. 1:41:54.520 --> 1:41:58.200 Isn't there also a John something that wrote vampire vampire 1:41:58.640 --> 1:42:04.880 or vamp pull the door or whatever? Come on something 1:42:04.960 --> 1:42:06.240 like Brohm Stoker? 1:42:06.720 --> 1:42:10.080 Yeah, or Lord Byron. I'm a Lord Byron Truther just 1:42:10.120 --> 1:42:13.480 because I would rather say that name than John Polidori. 1:42:14.680 --> 1:42:19.160 What a dweb Anyway, it's funny there there are like 1:42:19.200 --> 1:42:23.400 conspiracy theories that like Lord Byron actually wrote Mary Shelley's 1:42:23.400 --> 1:42:26.920 Frankenstein and like would just like let her take the credit. 1:42:27.200 --> 1:42:29.439 This motherfucker like didn't even write the one that he 1:42:29.560 --> 1:42:36.320 supposedly write. Lord Byron just put his cool name on things. Yeah, 1:42:36.680 --> 1:42:39.479 I'm sure there's some Lord Byron heads who are gonna 1:42:39.479 --> 1:42:44.600 get mad at me for saying Byron. Yeah, the Byronians, 1:42:44.600 --> 1:42:46.120 What a bunch of drips. 1:42:46.360 --> 1:42:49.360 Yeah me, I'm a Dan the Third Stand. I'm a 1:42:49.439 --> 1:42:51.599 Dan stand baby the third. 1:42:52.360 --> 1:42:59.760 Yeah, oh, Dan the Third. All right, everybody? Well, Happy Halloween. 1:43:00.439 --> 1:43:04.680 Halloween everyone listening? You know, plug Jack Attack. Yeah, you 1:43:04.720 --> 1:43:10.479 can find me over five days a week at a 1:43:10.520 --> 1:43:15.519 podcast called The Daily Zeitgeist that I record Miles Gray 1:43:16.120 --> 1:43:20.920 and we also do an NBA podcast called Miles and 1:43:21.000 --> 1:43:24.519 Jack Got Mad Boosties. It is an official partnership with 1:43:24.560 --> 1:43:30.080 the NBA that I have to think the NBA regrets. Yeah, 1:43:30.400 --> 1:43:34.320 just it's it's a very silly podcast. Yeah. 1:43:34.520 --> 1:43:38.000 You can also check out my partnership with the NBA, 1:43:38.840 --> 1:43:41.800 which is has nothing to do with the sport is 1:43:42.400 --> 1:43:46.160 an illegal gambling operations. So yeah, check that out too. 1:43:46.439 --> 1:43:48.840 There you go. Well, thank you guys for having me on. 1:43:49.160 --> 1:43:54.840 And yeah, happy all hallows Eve, Happy Halloween. Everybody go 1:43:54.920 --> 1:43:57.800 out and cast some mischief, you know, mayhem. 1:43:57.439 --> 1:44:00.320 Yeah, yeah, don't impale any one. 1:44:00.760 --> 1:44:03.040 Do not impale. And I'm going to tell you that 1:44:03.160 --> 1:44:07.360 look impale if you if your heart tells you it's 1:44:07.400 --> 1:44:11.160 the right thing to do. Yeah, yeah, well maybe yeah, yeah, 1:44:11.160 --> 1:44:13.200 no I should say that thing. Sophie said, no, don't 1:44:13.240 --> 1:44:16.680 do that. Ye'll do that. But it's just there's so 1:44:16.800 --> 1:44:19.479 many people. He impaled, going to catch up. 1:44:19.520 --> 1:44:20.519 We're ending it. 1:44:21.080 --> 1:44:22.160 I believe it's over. 1:44:22.439 --> 1:44:29.639 Bye. But Behind the Bastards is a production of cool 1:44:29.720 --> 1:44:32.559 Zone Media. Or more from cool Zone Media, visit our 1:44:32.600 --> 1:44:36.160 website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on 1:44:36.200 --> 1:44:39.680 the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.