The Tigress of Cachtice

German

In the evening light, the vaguely recognizable building curved into the distance. The foggy estate itself was lost in the nothingness of the Carpathian Mountains. The horizon was dominated by a looming, ponderous mass of indeterminate shapes, barely penetrated by a futile sun. Millions of years old, the mountains bit into the soft, pale flesh of the sky, forming a lump of concentrated malevolence.

The caravan of dreams traveled through the castle below, led by all kinds of strange figures, jugglers and charlatans in dark clothes. This horrible dream came from the sleep of Countess Báthory, who was lying on her large plush bed, stuffed with opiates. A stream of bloody tears flowed from the dreamer’s eyes. In the crystals of blood she saw faces from days long past – and she didn’t realize that they were already the faces of madness.

Eastern European history is littered with nobles whose penchant for murder, cruelty, and bloodshed is unparalleled. Some, like the Countess, are even said to have been vampires. Their heinous crimes, which were eventually uncovered, included torture, murder, and alleged blood consumption.

Born in 1560, „Erzebet“ Báthory was the daughter of wealth and privilege, with close relatives who became cardinals, prime ministers, and kings. But there were other members of her large family who were addicted to the black arts, the devil, lesbianism, and habitual promiscuity. It seems that the formidable Elisabeth was not deprived of any of these „pastimes“ during her childhood. Her famous beauty and stature made her a valuable commodity for political alliances. She was betrothed at the age of 11 and married Count Ferencz Nadasdy at 15.

Nadasdy had earned a reputation as a fierce warrior and was popularly known as the „Black Hero of Hungary. Immediately after the wedding, the count took his bride to northern Hungary and to Elizabeth’s new home, the remote Schachtitz Castle, deep in the Carpathian Mountains. The valleys surrounding the castle were fertile farmland tilled by superstitious peasants. What little entertainment and diversion there was was found down in the tiny village. She listened eagerly as her husband explained the meaning of some of the torture techniques. She watched the bastinado, the constant beating of the prisoner’s soles with a stick, and marveled at the apparent humanity of the procedure until she saw for the first time how madness entered the mind of the tortured.

However, Elisabeth was unimpressed by her married life and her complete isolation. Nadasdy stayed with her only long enough to ensure the continuation of his family and then went off to war again. Over the years, between her husband’s sporadic visits and the birth of their four children, Elisabeth established herself as a cruel mistress. She seemed to enjoy the fact that the peasants feared her and her quick temper. She filled her boredom with countless lovers, one of whom the villagers thought was a vampire because he was so slender, had a very pale complexion, and sharp teeth. His sudden and complete disappearance confirmed the dark suspicions of the villagers, who were now even more wary of upsetting the Countess.

Elisabeth’s other activities included beating and torturing her young servants, first with cruel methods she had learned from her lesbian aunt, and later with various instruments of torture left behind by her husband in the dungeons of Schachtitz Castle. She then gathered around her her loyal followers, servants, her own devoted wet nurse, and various black artists. She and her enclave became avid students of witchcraft. Elizabeth was always a vain and self-centered child who cherished and protected her natural beauty. By the time she was in her mid-twenties, it became clear that her appearance was beginning to fade. Her temper became more volatile and her cruelty to her servants increased. Young girls were dragged into the dungeons and mercilessly tortured, sometimes according to a satanic rite. No one dared to protect any of the maids for fear of being abused by the Countess herself.

Around 1600, Elizabeth’s husband died and she became the true mistress of her remote domain. Once she got rid of her children, who were sent to live with relatives, and her mother-in-law, the countess was able to rule and reign even more freely. It was during this time that she is said to have discovered her love of blood. Elizabeth was now in her early 40s and desperately searching for a way to stay young. None of her dark rituals had been able to restore her fading beauty. One day, Elizabeth’s youngest maid upset her, and in a fit of rage, the countess slapped the unfortunate girl across the face, grabbed her by the hair, and bit her cheek. Blood flowed from the corner of her mouth onto her hand. Blood is a very special sap. When Ulysses gave blood to the souls to drink by letting it flow into a specially dug pit, they gained vitality. In Iranian mythology, grapes come from the blood of the slain primeval bull Goshurun. Matter becomes blood during the alchemical transformation into the Philosopher’s Stone – and Elizabeth Bathory discovered that where a virgin’s blood touched her skin, it took on a rosy color. She wasted no time in ordering her servant to kill the virgin and pour her blood into a tub so that Elizabeth could wash herself with it.

Morning broke over the ridge, pushing the clouds behind it. Schachtitz Castle, however, remained a patch of darkness, the light fading from its walls. Elizabeth Báthory returned from her own blackness, fragments of her voice dangling from her nerves, hanging over the bed. Without hesitation she called for the girls who would hold the great mirror to her face day after day. Fearing that one day she would no longer be able to see herself in it, she looked at herself critically.

Soon after, Elizabeth ordered more unmarried girls to be taken to the dungeons. For the next ten years, her loyal helpers did just that, under the guise of securing good work for the peasant girls. They also helped their mistress with the gruesome procedure of bloodletting and then burying the girls‘ bodies somewhere in the thicket in the middle of the night. But the supply of virgins would not last forever. In desperation, Elizabeth and her henchmen devised a new method to bring fresh blood to their mountain hideout. Aristocratic families were always on the lookout for tutors to instruct their daughters in etiquette and good manners. Countess Bathory, with her long and impeccable lineage, was the perfect choice. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth found her next group of victims.

When peasant girls disappeared without a trace, no one asked too many questions and excuses were made. But when young aristocratic women disappeared, it didn’t take long for families to become suspicious. Elisabeth’s increasing lack of concern only made it easier for the authorities to find out what was really going on at Schachtitz. Instead of burying the bodies, she and her henchmen simply threw the emaciated corpses of the young girls to the wolves. It was only a matter of time before someone stumbled upon the gruesome remains. News of Elizabeth’s atrocities soon reached King Matthias II. Count Gyorgy Thurzo, a close relative of the countess, was immediately assigned to investigate the case.

On the night of 30 December 1610, Thurzo and his soldiers were confronted with a sight that made even their blood run cold: half a dozen dead or dying young women, all of them horribly tortured. Dozens more bodies were found in and around the castle. Elizabeth and her accomplices were immediately arrested. All but one were tried and executed, some in a manner befitting the cruelty of their deeds.

Elisabeth herself could not be tried, let alone executed. Under Hungarian law, it was illegal to try or convict a citizen of noble birth. To prevent the countess from getting away with the murder of over 600 young women, the parliament passed a transitional law and sentenced her to life imprisonment in a tiny room in the tower of Schachtitz Castle. Her only human contact was with the guards, who fed her through a narrow crack in the locked door. Four years later, one of the guards found her body on the floor. The bloodthirsty Countess Elizabeth Bathory had died at the age of 54. During her imprisonment she had not uttered a single word of remorse for her terrible crimes. Count Thurzo survived the death of the Blood Countess, as she was now known, for less than seven days. His body was found in the belfry of a church, bleeding to death.

It was not until the 19th century that his diary, containing the report, the charges and the verdict, resurfaced, in the possession of a French merchant. It is still unclear whether the anonymous owner of the manuscript knew what it was about. The document was missing several pages that had been torn out. The members of the court did not survive a year. In a chronicle of Transylvania, a farm labourer named Johann Zàpolya reported the following on a loose sheet of paper folded as a bookmark to a page containing the genealogy of the noble Báthory family:

„Strange creatures chased a single man before him and danced around him with loud cries. Like a circus gone wild, I saw dwarfs, I saw (some) bending, I saw (others) vomiting fire. When the hunted man fell several times, they stepped on his body with stilts and beat him with weapons I cannot name, but which did not seem to me to be sticks. I quickly locked the door and my heart wanted to burst with fear, and so I was convinced that the Incarnate One himself had walked the earth with his henchmen to drag lonely travellers into the pit of hell!“

This paper later came to the attention of the writer Bram Stoker.