No, Dracula Wasn’t Based on Vlad the Impaler

Рет қаралды 2,547

Күн бұрын

Uncover the Irish origins of Bram Stoker's vampire. It was Abhartach, a tyrannical Celtic chieftain who fed on the blood of his subjects (according to Irish folklore) who inspired the Gothic-horror icon Dracula-not the Wallachian warlord Vlad III a.k.a. Vlad Dracula a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler.
Intro 00:00
Abhartach: The Bloodthirsty Irish Tyrant Who Was Killed With a Wooden Sword and Buried Upside Down 03:12
Devil in the Details: Other Evidence for Dracula’s Irish Origins 06:37
Real-World Stakes: Dracula as Social Commentary 09:06
Note: A text-version of this essay, “Dracula's Irish Origins: Was Bram Stoker's Vampire Actually Inspired by the Celtic Chieftain Abhartach?” is available over at IrishMyths.com: irishmyths.com/2021/09/25/dra...
Want to meet more monsters from Irish mythology? Check out…
Irish Monsters in Your Pocket: A Tiny Little Book About Irish Dragons, Werewolves, Vampires, Banshees, Headless Horsemen, & Other Beastly Beings: a.co/d/4e2Db4U
Samhain in Your Pocket: A Tiny Little Book About the Celtic Origins of Halloween: a.co/d/1mbig1A
Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy: a.co/d/4kl8rmp
Music credit:
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/..., CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Пікірлер: 41

@overlookers 9 ай бұрын

In _"Dracula's Guest",_ the early cut opening of the novel that would be found and published later, the traveling Jonathan Harker is led astray into an abandoned Bavarian village and then cemetery. Where he encounters an unrelated female vampire or revenant that an overseeing Dracula dispatches in wolf form. There's a possibility this cut female entity was a reference to Ireland's other folkloric vampire, _Dearg Due,_ or more likely the earlier _Carmilla._

@sandorsbox 8 ай бұрын

Vlad Draculea was not a fascist. He was a feudalist. The idea of fascism wasn't even conceived for centuries after Vlad Tepes died. He may have been a tyrant in the eyes of some, but we need to stop using the term fascist to describe anyone we think is a jerk.

@rorschach1985ify 3 ай бұрын

Agreed. I don't know why that term was used, even Britain at the time cannot be called fascist, more imperialistic.

@BrianLamar-es3my Ай бұрын

So it's okay to impale innocent peoples

@PeacocksEye 9 ай бұрын

Fascinating- was the choice for Transylvania just a want to put it off in a distant land and then the real life figure lines up enough with the Irish one he was basing it on that it became relatively interchangeable?

@johnnzboy 9 ай бұрын

Super interesting - at first I thought that you were taking a break from examining Irish myths and looking a little further afield but you brought it back to your overarching topic - I should've trusted you :)

@jamesoneill2933 5 ай бұрын

The analogy of Britain's diminishing strength or power was the equivalent of the counts detestation of sunlight. Beyond the Pale a particularly anti Irish phrase in it's original context, with the Crowns waning power outside of Dublin, with the exception of what became, Northern Ireland , Britain's Renfield.

@pensador6953 9 ай бұрын

never knew any of that, delighted in learning it subscribed.

@kevinyoka4258 3 ай бұрын

That’s why it’s better to hear from the author himself rather than making assumptions.

@angelogforte6971 9 ай бұрын

Loving the content can I make a couple of suggestions in bram stokers time there was no border in Ireland and its Derry.

@rociomiranda5684 8 ай бұрын

Read Chapter 18 . "This must have been that Voivode Dracula that made war against the Turk". And Dracula's talks with Jonathan. Let’s put it this way: Vlad III is not Stoker's Vanpire, but Stoker's Vampire is Vlad III.

@Jim-Mc 8 ай бұрын

Yeah it's clearly meant to be him. The only part contrary to it is how Van Helsing talks so much about his vast education and his being a skilled sorcerer. Since of course I've never heard Vlad III ever did any occult practices.

@thefurrybastard1964 9 ай бұрын

Excellent video, Sir.

@trasamsung3761 9 ай бұрын

Great video!

@darraghmcconn Ай бұрын

This is fantastically interesting. Never knew any of this

@jamesoneill2933 5 ай бұрын

Droch fhuile or , bad blood in English is fitting for a language which had survived all attempts to be killed off , should breathe immortality into the eponymous Count for all time Oh the irony. Despised and denied not only by a covetous British literary society , but the entire English establishment.

@TheVorran 8 ай бұрын

"Let's see Paul Allen's manuscript."

@sexualtyrannosaurus230 9 ай бұрын

I never understood why people who believe Stoker didn't base his Dracula off the historical Vlad III Dracula ignore the lines spoke by Van Helsing in Chapter 18 of the novel - "He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land." I'm not saying Stoker knew much about the historical Vlad III, or Transylvania in general, but those lines from Van Helsing have always convinced me that Stoker was associating what little he did know with his fictional vampire. Vlad III was a voivode, he won notoriety against the Turks, and fought along the Danube on the frontier of Turkey. All those three claims point to the historical Vlad, not to the idea that Stoker just stole the name.

@rociomiranda5684 8 ай бұрын

Dracula himself tells Jonathan about the battles against Turkish invaders, and speaks of his brother's betrayal, which is part of Vlad's real history.

@sexualtyrannosaurus230 8 ай бұрын

@@rociomiranda5684That too. I don't know why Elizabeth Miller and others who claim that Stoker was inspired in no way by Vlad III act like those passages don't exist.

@Jim-Mc 8 ай бұрын

Ditto, that's VERY specific. Who knows exactly why Stoker picked him but it's definitely a fictional version of the man himself.

@doppelganger3992 8 ай бұрын

Always heard Stoker took the Dracula name from Vlad but nothing else.

@chris3738 9 ай бұрын

Convincing, but how about the fact that the novel is actually set in a Transylvanian castle? Do you believe that to be a coincidence? I think it’s quite likely that Stoker conflated two unrelated myths and derived a new figure from them.

@thefurrybastard1964 9 ай бұрын

Fun fact, Romanians hate Dracula because Vlad the Impaler is a national hero, and the Romanians see Dracual as an insult to his memory.

@johnmanno2052 7 ай бұрын

But it was during that famous party with Lord Byron, the Shelleys and Dr Polidori where we got both Frankenstein and his creation and the vampyr. Surely Stoker read that, no? Except he made the vampire straight, instead of the original gay (or at least not especially straight) version

@billypathy 3 ай бұрын

Interesting as hell...

@narknit6609 9 ай бұрын

Very enlightening and enjoyable to learn more context about the creation of one of the most notorious monster creatures. I definitely can see the cross over for Dracula depicting the life sucking effects of fascist leadership. Makes for an even more compelling story.

@Irelandforever609 7 ай бұрын

Dracula was from Kerry Ireland There a glen is named after him back there I'm a cork man who grew up listening of stories long ago

@sosopath Ай бұрын

👍

@ironrex6979 9 ай бұрын

This sounds like a massive stretch

@JesusRocksTryPrayin 9 ай бұрын

ANNOYED SO ANNOYED! LIKE *sees movie titled byzantium* EXCITED! THERE IS NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH MEDIA BOUT THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE!!! SO COOL *it's a vampire movie.* :( :( :( no dice!

@BrianLamar-es3my Ай бұрын

Dude you don't do your research much as I don't like vampires and I opted for werewolves instead because vampires been getting too much Fame media and they be putting the werewolves on the back burner when the werewolves even ain't got a chance to celebrate their moment in the sun which they need to now and I hope to do so from the way I heard it but I'm still good did his research and don't be doing that to a guy who's been dead for a century

@intellectually_lazy 9 ай бұрын

well, maybe not, but they called vlad tepes that, and transylvania and wallachia are geographically adjacent with some overlap on account of borders shifting over time, so sorry, dracula was at least somewhat based on vlad the impaler. i'll see myself out. you can keep the click

@user-ig3cy4uf3s 9 ай бұрын

No Dracula wasn't based on vlad Dracula.... right

@hardluck8732 9 ай бұрын

I think the video made a good case.

@user-ig3cy4uf3s 9 ай бұрын

@@hardluck8732 I think all the video did was show that there was more than one influence.

@jamesoneill2933 5 ай бұрын

Also the Irish ,Droch fhuile becoming , Bad blood ,in English, the term itself, bad blood, in Ireland anyway , was used in reference to land disputes, grazing livestock in particular. Also the term , beyond the pale , itself an originally anti Irish slur , was the analogy which gave rise to the diminishing power of the vampire and aversion , to sunlight, the further from Dublin, the less power the , crown exercised , with the exception of course , of the North of Ireland, Britain's Renfield.