  I saw a programme on PBS the other night on the historical roots of our belief in vampires. A woman. A woman is who first sparked the notion of blood-suckers. Countess Elizabeth Bathory kidnapped more than 600 young women and had them brought back to her castle in Transylvania. She believed that if she bathed in the blood of young virgins, she would attain immortal life and retain her failing youth.
Found in her dungeon were over 600 young women, dead and drained of blood. (If she were a lesbian, she wouldnt have had to kill a single one. A-thank you) It seems the intermarrying practice of folks within her family produced a significant number of mental conditions. Psychosis and evil geniuses, most notably the sadistic Elizabeth. Her husband was of an equally sadistic ilk. Heres what I found: While fashionably fighting the Turks and attempting to gain information from prisoners captured, her husband employed a horrid device of torture: clever articulated claw-like pincers, fashioned of hardened silver; which, when fastened to a stout whip would tear and rip the flesh to such an obscene degree that even he, a cruel man, abandoned the apparatus in disgust and left it at the castle as he departed on yet another heroic foray. And some more information telling of her state of mind: Elizabeth was not alone in her 'unusual' interests. Aware of Elizabeth's complex preoccupations, and amused by them, her aunt had introduced her also to the pleasures of flagellation (enacted upon desolate others of course), a taste Elizabeth quickly acquired.
Equipped with her husband's heinous silver claws, she generously indulged herself, whiling away many lonely hours at the expense of forlorn Slav debtors from her own dungeons. The more shrill their screams and the more copious the blood, the more exquisite and orgasmic her amusement. She preferred to whip her 'subjects' on the front of their nude bodies rather than their backs, not only for the increased damage potential, but so that she could gleefully watch their faces contort in horror at their most grim and burning fate. She soon began to be consumed with her complex about her aging appearance. While lashing out at a female servant, she drew blood from the young womans cheek. At the place on Elizabeths body that the blood splattered, she swore that her skin looked more youthful. And thus the obsession began. She drank the blood of the beautiful, and she washed herself in the blood of the others. Each girl was bound and hung by their ankles, their throats slit and the blood drained for Elizabeths bath.
She preferred the blood to retain the warmth of their young bodies, still sticky and crimson from a fresh slaughter. Every once in a while, an especially beautiful young girl would be found. Elizabeth would sometimes drink her blood from a ceremonial gold goblet. Yet she moved on to the more ghastly; she drank from the stream directly as the body hung upside down screaming and turning pale. She was eventually found out after moving on to more elite women (and after throwing drained bodies over the castle walls one night).
But because of her aristocratic status, she was not condemned to arrest. Instead she was imprisoned in her castle, enclosed by impenetrable walls, where she died four years later. Disgusting and fascinating. And somehow perversely erotic. Blood is beautiful; however I tend to faint if I see it outside the context of someones menstruation. Its the sadism that interests me. Embraced too far, of course. But still incredible. 
