Tag: BramStoker
The Legend of Dracula – Tracking the vampire at Transylvania
Tales of the supernatural had been circulating in Romanian folklore for centuries when Irish writer Bram Stoker picked up the thread and spun it into a golden tale of ghoulishness that has never been out of print since its first publication in 1897. To research his immortal tale, Stoker immersed himself in the history, lore and legends of Transylvania, which he called a “whirlpool for the imagination.” Some say that Transylvania sits on one of Earth’s strongest magnetic fields and its people have extra-sensory perception. Vampires are believed to hang around crossroads on St. George’s Day, April 23, and the ... Read more
Dracula’s Castle, the splendid 13th-century Transylvanian palace is hardly forbidding
Bram Stoker never visited here. And as far as anyone can tell, there are not now and never have been any vampires in residence. So why is Bran Castle, a lovely, 13th-century palace near Brasov in Transylvania, known far and wide as Dracula’s Castle? Blame a mishmash of expediency, misconception and a yearning to connect in some way with the most notorious character in English fiction. The conventional wisdom goes like this: Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, basing his vampire count on real-life, 15th-century Romanian nobleman Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), who was infamous for skewering his enemies on stakes. Tepes lived in Bran Castle, which ... Read more