ERZESBETH BATHORY

Erzesbeth Bathory  

        Between the end of the XVI century and the beginning of the XVII century, lived in Hungary the beautiful Erzesbeth Bathory (1560 -1614), also called Elizabeth. She was related on her father's side with the Polish royal family, and with the family of the famous Stephen Bathory. Her father died when she was still a child. At the young age of 15 she got married with the noble count Ferencz Nadasdy, and she bore him four children. One of the passions of the countess and her husband was black magic. Their castle of Csejthe, in Hungary, became a focal point for wizards, witches and alchemists, who couldn't practice their craft freely, as they were persecuted by the inquisition. Soon one of the greatest dreams of Elizabeth was to discover the secret of eternal youth. She began having young virgins from the nearby villages abducted to her castle, where she was using them to carry out her erotic and bloody rituals. She was having violent fits. In these occasions she was ferotiously beating the abducted girls, with the goal of "healing" from her sickness, which was very probably of psychological origins. As a matter of fact, the only way for her to feel better was to "rape" the abducted girls. Driven by a mystical ecstasy deriving from such actions, the countess was killing her victims, to bathe in their blood afterwards. Moreover, Elizabeth was practicing vampirism. Throughout the aristocratic society of the time, and not only in Hungary, the belief that bathing in the blood of young virgins could actually lengthen life and youth was quite widespread. Also in Italy, the counts Borromeo were allegedly familiar with such practices in their mansions in Lombardy. Elizabeth's atrocities lasted for years.  
When one of her victims managed to run away from the dungeons of her castle, the decline of the bloody countess began. King Matthew II of Austria had to intervene. He already had been quite suspicious for a while that something terrible was happening, but until then he believed it wasn't appropriate to react. Gyorgy Turso, captain of the royal guards, took control of the castle of Cseithe. He was shocked when he discovered the remains of hundreds of victims in the dungeons. Many girls were found alive, still imprisoned in the jails of the dungeons. Some were severely wounded, some were in slightly better conditions. At the end of the trial that involved the countess and her accomplices, 610 victims were found. Those who still remained faithful to Elizabeth were accused of witchcraft and condemned to burn at the stake. The sentence of the countess was commuted to life imprisonment in her bedroom in Csejthe castle. In March 1614 her room was bricked up, but she continued receiving food every day through a small gap on the wall. After five months she was found dead. She never revealed to anyone the exact procedure of the bloody rituals she was taking part in inside her castle, and she brought those secrets with her to the grave.  

Translated by Sionnach