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Elizabeth Bathory is often looked upon as one of the true sources of the vampire legends. Although there is some debate as to whether she bathed in the blood of virgins or simply covered herself in it, there is no doubt that she used it to help try to keep herself young.



Elizabeth Bathory was born in Hungary in 1560. Her parents George and Anna Bathory belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Hungary, with her cousin being the prime minister, another relative a cardinal, and her uncle Stephan later became the King of Poland. Probably caused by heavy inbreeding between the leading families at the time, the Bathory family also contained some very strange and often twisted people. One of her uncles was known to be a devil-worshipper, several members were regarded as insane and her Aunt Klara was an open bisexual who always had a house full of 'ready girls'.



Elizabeth's introduction to torture and sadism started early in her life when she witnessed the death of a visiting gypsy accused of selling his children. After a night of torture in which his screams were constant and heard around the castle, he was taken at dawn for his execution. This involved being sown into the belly of a freshly killed horse and left to die. Needless to say this made a lasting impression on Elizabeth and reinforced the already strongly ingrained belief that commoners lives were cheap.



At the age of 15 Elizabeth was married to Ferenc Nadasdy. After the marriage they moved to Castle Csejthe, a large mountaintop fortress overlooking the village of Csejthe in the north-western part of Hungary. Being poorly educated but very athletic Ferenc was a warrior and spent much of his time away from the castle, leaving Elizabeth to her own devices.



Although beatings, often severe, were common on servants by the nobility, Elizabeth started to take this to extremes in her early 20's. Finding that she enjoyed the screams and humiliation of others she developed increasingly harsh and sadistic ways to 'punish' her servants. The punishments were varied and brutal, from sticking pins in the lips, limbs and under the fingernails to ripping their flesh with heated pincers. One of her more severe punishments was to drag the girls naked into the snow and have them doused with iced water until they froze to death.



Her husband would often help Elizabeth with her tortures on the rare and brief returns from his campaigns, even teaching her new tortures. However he is said to have not had Elizabeth's appetite for pain and often had to leave her to continue when the screams became too much. Another of Elizabeth's favourite punishments at this time would be to either sew a servants mouth together or force it so far apart that the lips would rip. She would use this on a servant that spoke when they were not meant to.



Upon Ferenc Nadasdy's death in 1604, and presumably with nobody left to restrain her hobby, Elizabeth's tortures and excesses became even more extreme. Hailed as a beauty she became obsessed with her age and looks. When an unfortunate servant girl managed to pull Elizabeth's hair whilst brushing it, Elizabeth hit the girl so hard that blood splashed on her hand. As she wiped the blood off, she noticed that the skin touched by the blood had regained the smooth, youthful complexion for which it had once been famous. Turning to her friends and accomplices in her torture games, known as Darvulia, Helena Jo, and Dorka, they assured that indeed the blood of young women, especially virgins, could restore her looks.



From that day on Elizabeth Bathory's excesses grew and so did the number of girls tortured and killed. One of her favourite games was to place the victim in a spherical cage too small to stand up in. This would hang by chains from the ceiling so that it could be swung. Inside the cage was covered in spikes and the swinging motion would cause the victim to thrown around the cage, tearing the flesh from their body as it scraped against the spikes. Elizabeth would then stand underneath and cover herself in the blood as it sprayed from the victims body.



It wasn't long before suitable peasant girls became hard to find and she turned to minor nobility for her blood. This combined with the body disposal becoming increasingly careless meant the authorities had to act. For mainly political reasons Elizabeth escaped a trial and instead was walled up in her room in the castle, with just a small hole for light and another for food. Of her friends and accomplices, Ilona Joo and Dorottya Szentes had their fingers ripped off with red hot pincers before they were thrown alive onto fires. The others were beheaded and their corpses burnt on the same fires.



Elizabeth lasted for several years sealed in her room before being found dead one day by a guard in 1614. Many believe that her death was the result of being deprived of virgins blood that gave her youth for so many years. During her reign of terror 650 girls and women were tortured and killed.