Ellizabeth Bathory - The Blood Countess

Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), was a Hungarian noblewoman, born into one of Hungary's most influential families. As with most European aristocratic families the Bathory family had its share of mental illness due to years of inbreeding. Elizabeth herself began having epileptic fits at approximately age of four.

Elizabeth was a very spoiled child who was raised by nannies who's only job was to to cater to her every need. Despite her odd personality, no one could deny that Elizabeth was a very intelligent young woman.

At the age of eleven , Elizabeth became engaged to Count Fernencz Nadasdy, a famous war hero whose sadistic nature would ultimately earn him the nickname of "The Black Hero of Hungary."

Since Her husband was frequently away, Elizabeth became quite bored and looked for ways to busy herself. Now in her early twenties, Elizabeth, discovered that torturing servants filled this void for her. There really is no clear reason to support why the Countess enjoyed tormenting others and taking pleasure in their pain the way she did. But once she got a taste of it, she was unstoppable. It seemed that her preferred prey was the female teenage population of her village.

She devised hideous tortures for them such as ripping their bodies apart and setting them on fire. On days when she felt kinder, she would delight in humiliating girls by forcing them to strip naked and perform their duties in front of men.
When her husband returned home from war, he often "played" with his wife and joined in with the torture, but even he with his dark reputation could not equal her brutality. As Elizabeth got older, it seems she only got worse and developed even more cruel tortures. One such was what she called her "honey torture" where she would strip a young girl and cover her complete with honey then tie her outside to leave her to be eaten by bugs and other prey. A slow and horrible death. Another such death was saved for winter months when a young girl again would be stripped naked and then buckets of water would be poured over her, over and over again until the girl eventually froze to death within her ice prison.

One day, some of her associates - witches really, known as Dracula, Helena Jo and Dorka, told her that bathing in the blood of virgins was virtually the fountain of youth, Elizabeth really flipped and a horrifying ritual began. Girls by the hundreds were kidnapped, brought to the castle, and drained of their blood. Oftentimes, Elizabeth would bite their necks and breasts herself, drinking the blood and eating the flesh from their open wounds. This is why, years later, the story of Elizabeth Bathory inspired Bram Stoker to write his famous Dracula novel.

The countess' story doesn't end there, she didn't stop until she killed somewhere around 650 young women and annihilated the peasantry and had to move to the aristocracy. At this point

she was brought to trial along with her accomplices. They were executed for their crimes but due to her noble birth, Elizabeth's life was spared execution in that form. She was ordered to live out her live in her castle, with no visitors, totally alone. She was escorted to her room and was then sealed in, with only a small hole left for the passage of food and air. She died there three years after the beginning of her sentence. The tower room where she was imprisoned is still standing as part of the ruins of Csjethe castle.