On a hill above the village of Čachtice in western Slovakia stand the ruins of a castle with one of the darkest reputations in Europe. Its most famous owner, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, is remembered as the Blood Countess, accused of torturing and killing young women and, in the legend, of bathing in their blood. Here is what the records say, and where history ends and legend begins.
Who she was
Elizabeth Báthory, Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian and Alžbeta Bátoriová in Slovak, was born on 7 August 1560 at a family estate in Nyírbátor, in the Kingdom of Hungary, into one of its most powerful noble families. On 8 May 1575 she married Ferenc Nádasdy, a leading nobleman and soldier. Čachtice, then called Csejte, was part of the Nádasdy household given to her at the wedding. Nádasdy died on 4 January 1604, leaving Elizabeth a wealthy widow with large estates.
The accusations and the arrest
Rumours that young women, many of them servants, were dying in her households had circulated for years. In 1610 the Palatine of Hungary, György Thurzó, the highest official below the king, investigated. At the end of December 1610 he arrested Elizabeth together with four of her servants.
The servants were tried in two hearings, on 2 and 7 January 1611, with many witnesses. Dorottya Szentes and Ilona Jó had their fingers torn out with red-hot pincers and were burned alive. János Újváry was beheaded, and Katarína Benická was sentenced to life imprisonment. Elizabeth herself was never put on trial. She was kept a prisoner in Čachtice Castle for the rest of her life. On the evening of 20 August 1614 she complained of cold hands, and the next morning, 21 August, she was found dead.
How many victims?
Nobody knows. The testimony spoke of 80 murders. The famous figure of 650 comes from a servant called Susannah, who claimed that a court official, Jakab Szilvássy, had seen a list of names in the countess's private book. The book was never produced, and Szilvássy never mentioned it in his own testimony.
The blood-bath legend
The story that Elizabeth bathed in the blood of young women to keep her beauty is the best-known part of her legend, and the least reliable. It first appeared in print in 1729, in Tragica Historia by the Jesuit scholar László Turóczi, more than a century after her death. The trial records do not contain it. Writers of the 18th and 19th centuries repeated and embroidered it, and it has followed her ever since, together with her nickname.
Murderer or victim of a plot?
Historians still disagree. Many accept that serious crimes took place in her households. Others, such as László Nagy and Irma Szádeczky-Kardoss, have argued that she was the victim of a politically motivated frame-up by relatives and rivals who stood to gain her lands and fortune. Because she was never tried, her own side of the story was never heard in court.
Was she a vampire?
No. Elizabeth Báthory was a real woman, not a creature of folklore, and the 1611 records describe cruelty, not the undead. Modern fiction, films and pop culture turned her into a vampire queen, often side by side with Dracula, and that image has made her one of the most famous women of her century.
Čachtice today
Čachtice Castle was built in the 13th century to guard the road to Moravia. It was captured by the rebels of Francis II Rákóczi in 1708, burned down in 1799 and left to decay. Restored, it was opened as a tourist attraction in 2014, and the Slovak director Juraj Jakubisko's 2008 film Bathory brought new visitors to the ruins. You can walk up from the village and look out over the same valley the countess saw from her prison.
The vampires of the Mortvane Registry are pure fiction, and gentler company. If the castle and the candlelight appeal to you, meet The Velvet Aristocrat or take the vampire quiz. More creatures of our corner of Europe are in Creatures of Slavic Folklore.