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SPEAKER_00: Hey, it's Jenny. We're currently gearing up for a brand new season of Womanica. Until then, we're bringing you our favorite episodes featuring villains, troublemakers, magic, and mystery in honor of October. Now onto the episode.
SPEAKER_01: Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Brittany Martinez, a producer here at WMM, and I'm so excited to be introducing this best of episode of Womanica. Today's episode originally came from our villainess's theme in August 2019. This Womanican was a 16th century Hungarian countess who allegedly murdered hundreds of local young women and bathed in their blood. Some even say she was the inspiration for Dracula. I read a lot of horror novels, and hearing that this woman had an influence on the modern vampire genre is so interesting to me. Now here's host Jenny Kaplan to talk about Elizabeth Bathory.
SPEAKER_00: Elizabeth was born in 1560 into an extremely prominent Protestant family of Hungarian nobility. Her family controlled the territory of Transylvania, and her uncle Stefan was king of Poland. We know very little about Elizabeth's early life, other than the fact that she was raised at her family's castle. In 1575, when Elizabeth was just 15, she married the son of another powerful Hungarian family and moved into a castle given to the couple as a wedding gift from her husband's family. Elizabeth had four children, and as far as we can tell, her life appeared to be relatively normal until her husband's death in 1604. That's when rumors started circulating that Elizabeth was committing acts of murder and extreme cruelty in the castle. People apparently found it hard to believe. For five years, accounts that peasant women had been murdered were ignored. Finally, in 1609, claims that Elizabeth had murdered noble women started attracting actual attention. King Matthias of Hungary felt it necessary to investigate and ordered a noble named Georgi Thirzo to find out what was happening. Georgi took depositions for more than 300 witnesses and survivors living in and around Elizabeth's castle, who supposedly verified the stories of serial murder and sadism. He also found physical evidence, not the least of which was the presence of dead, dying, and mutilated girls imprisoned in the castle. Based on the interviews and the physical evidence, he determined that Elizabeth had tortured and murdered more than 600 young women with the assistance of her loyal servants. Elizabeth and her servants were arrested on December 30th, 1609. Two years later, the servants were put on trial, and three were executed. Elizabeth herself was never tried, likely because this would have been a public embarrassment. Instead, she was put under house arrest in her own castle, where she remained until her death. The story of the countess who murdered hundreds of young women in her castle quickly made its way into the national folklore, and over the centuries, the story evolved. For example, many versions of the Elizabeth Bathory story claimed that she murdered young girls so that she could bathe in the blood of virgins as some sort of beauty treatment. Others claim that she had vampire-like tendencies and needed to drink their blood. These and other claims were generally recorded years after Elizabeth's death and are not historically reliable. Still, Elizabeth's infamy persists to this day. She's often compared to Vlad the Impaler, and some insist that she served as the source material for the masterpiece novel, Dracula. While documents exist from the 1611 trial supporting accusations against Elizabeth, many modern scholars question the veracity of such evidence. Elizabeth, after all, was a powerful woman of her time, made more so by her control of her husband's massive estate after his death. It's interesting to note that King Matthias owed Elizabeth a rather large debt. That debt was forgiven in exchange for letting Elizabeth's family manage her captivity. As such, historians have suggested that the acts attributed to her may have been politically motivated slander designed to allow her relatives to appropriate her vast landholdings. Regardless, Elizabeth Bathory is certainly a name to be remembered in the books of history. All month, we're bringing you the best of villainy, magic, and mystery. Tune in tomorrow for another of our favorite episodes. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
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