AN IRISH CIVIL SERVANT WHO TOOK AN OBSCURE ROMANIAN PRINCE & MADE HIM A PARASITICAL LEGEND

Pictures from store fronts in Mt. Dora http://www.mountdora.com/ Nothing much going on here. Worked all day yesterday–am reorganizing things and the place looks like an explosion. HELP Got breakfast sandwiches from Dunkin’ Donuts https://www.dunkindonuts.com/dunkindonuts/en.html

There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.

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Guess who’s the most watched: Check it out:

http://www.ibtimes.com/outlander-tv-series-most-watched-amazon-prime-2015-sam-heughan-becomes-sci-fi-2070771

OF COURSE—hoping I’d find this on the other side:

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!

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TODAY, as promised, we continue with Vampires and in particular the creator of our modern genre: Bram Stoker.

As we saw yesterday vampires are not new or peculiar to the European (especially English speaking) mindset and legend, they had been around in legend and folk beliefs which resulted in staked corpses and archeological finds of stones wedged in same’s mouths to name a few.

THEN in 1819 we have our first real vampire book THE VAMPYRE written by John Polidori (John William Polidori (7 September 1795 – 24 August 1821) was an English writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Polidori). While there had been a growing interest in the vampire during the early 19th century (Carmilia for one and a “penny dreadful” Varney the Vampire as another example of the early interest.) it was this story that is credited as the first true vampire story and not a myth or folk tale as had been the norm before this.

“I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting.”

ABRAHAM “BRAM” STOKER (1847-1912)

Born in Dublin, he at 16 he entered Trinity College (still Dublin) graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree (and honors) in science (1870) and became a civil servant at Dublin (where else?) Castle. He became a drama critic (unpaid) and became an editor of the Irish Echo (also unpaid) in 1874, He obtained a masters in 1875. He wrote his first horror piece (“The Chain of Destiny in the Shamrock) that same year.

He (finally) left Dublin in 1878 to become manager of the Lyceum theater in London (which he did apparently get paid for) and continued to write, including a group of children stories in 1882 and a novel in 1889. Rumor has it that a nightmare of a raising vampire after he read Camilla gave him the inspiration to write the book that made him famous. It was published to mixed review in 1897. After the Lyceum was destroyed by fire he began to begin writing full time and produced several novels. None save The White Worm has survived the age and none (few do) reached the height of Dracula–though Ken Russell made a movie of White Worm in 1992.

In 1905 he had a stroke an developed Bright’s disease, his health continued to deteriorate until his death in 1912. He was not a wealthy man and left his wife on the edge of poverty.

“Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor’s clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner?”

The Real Dracula: Vlad the Impaler: “Stoker certainly drew on popular Central European folktales about the nosferatu (“undead”), but he also seems to have been inspired by historical accounts of the 15th-century Romanian prince Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler. Born in Transylvania (1431) as the second son of the nobleman Vlad II Dracul, he took the name Dracula, meaning “son of Dracul,” when he was initiated into a secret order of Christian knights (at age 5)(known as the Order of the Dragon. (In Romanian, Dracul means “dragon.”)” http://www.livescience.com/48536-vlad-the-impaler-dark-secrets.html

When the Turkish Empire threatened to invade his land, Vlad II (Dracula’s father) sent him and his younger brother to the Sultan’s court as hostage to his pledge to be his vassal Vlad went on to become an officer in the Turkish Army and was placed on the throne as a puppet ruler (by the Sultan) on his father’s murder, but that only lasted a few months when Hungry invaded and deposed him. But eventually he impressed the Hungarians enough to put him back on the Wallachia throne, which he took possession of when he drove the Turks out.

His life and history is of a man who was cruel, brutal and bloody to an excess in a time when the world and particularly his little part of it were known for their cruelty and excess of violence, torture and almost constant state of war.

“Killed in December 1476 fighting the Turks near Bucharest, Romania, Dracula’s head was cut off and displayed in Constantinople.” His coffin was exhumed in 1931 and….The contents were taken to the History Museum in Bucharest but have since disappeared without a trace, leaving the mysteries of the real Prince Dracula unanswered. ” http://www.infoplease.com/spot/dracula1.html

“As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me… a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal.”

and when Mild mannered Irish Clerk meets vicious Transylvanian ruler they produced a name that would live in infamy:

DRACULA: A name that has long been our definition of Vampire. It has been said that though he spent years researching this book, Stoker’s chronicle was not even a best seller (at least initially—though there was an extremely successful play made of it during the author’s life time.), and yet it went on to reach a height that few authors ever reach and his book is still in print and very much a part of the world’s literature over 100 years after his death. Many feel that the real power of his book “lies in the then-shocking imagery of biting, blood and the vampire’s hypnotic power over women.” (Vampire by Joules Taylor)

Count Dracula “He is considered thus to be both the prototypical and the archetypical vampire in subsequent works of fiction. …. The character has subsequently appeared frequently in popular culture, from films to animated media to breakfast…” cereals….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Dracula

“In appearance, Count Dracula is described as being a “tall old man, clean shaven, save for a long white mustache and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of color about him anywhere.” …Dracula sporting a large, bushy Victorian mustache and having a profuse head of dense, curly hair, massive eyebrows, and peculiarly sharp white teeth, especially the canine teeth. ” http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/dracula/character-list

“When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demonaic fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.”