The Legend of the Blood Countess

This is the gruesome tale of a Hungarian noblewoman who was accused of killing and torturing numerous young women. She was the most feared serial killer. Elizabeth Bathory is a reminder of the depravity of human misery. Her sadism inspired films, plays, operas, and even television shows.

Elizabeth Bathory was born in 1560, into a prominent and powerful Protestant nobility family in Hungary, with her family controlling Transylvania and her uncle being the king of Poland. She was the daughter of Baron George Bathory and Baroness Anna Bathory. She had been endowed with looks, wealth, and education since childhood. Elizabeth Bathory has a privileged upbringing and was exposed to brutality and violence from a young age. Her parents' inbreeding affected her mental and physical health. As a child, she witnessed the brutal punishments their servants received. She also witnessed brutal executions. She suffered from epileptic seizures, violent mood swings, and painful migraines. Her seizures were treated by rubbing the blood of a non-sufferer onto her lips, thus igniting her insatiable blood thirst. Elizabeth Bathory learned sadomasochism from her aunt, and one of her uncles taught her satanism.

Elizabeth Bathory was married to Count Fernec Nadasdy, a soldier, in 1575. They were married for 29 years and had four children together. They gave birth to three daughters and a son. The couple had a reputation for being harsh and cruel, It is believed that he showed her some of his own ways to punish servants. Fernec was off fighting the Turks, leaving her to deal with the estates. She tortured servants and young peasant girls who came to serve her at her castle. Girls were lured to the castle with the hope that they would find work, but when they arrived, they were tied and locked up as they awaited torture. It is said that she believed bathing in a virgin's blood would retain beauty or youth, earning her the name "Blood Countess". Although this could be an exaggeration of her cruel deeds, eventually she ran out of girls, and she started picking daughters from the nobility who had less money than the rest.

He died in 1604 and rumours of atrocities being committed in the castle of Csejte began to spread in royal Hungary shortly after. According to testimonies, aided by several servants, Elizabeth Bathory amused herself by torturing young girls with pincers, needles, razors, knives, red-hot irons, and pokers. Some of them were plunged into icy streams and frozen to death. The countess had dungeons and torture chambers installed in her castle and strangled young girls to death or smeared them with honey and left them for the bees. Bathory was also suspected of cannibalism. She chewed on the body parts of the young girls she tortured. Bathory is believed to have tortured up to 650 young women between 1590 and 1610.

The Hungarian king couldn't turn a blind eye to this abuse of power, and he put her on trial. The investigation began in 1610, and the countess was arrested later that year along with four of her favourite servants, who were found guilty. Elizabeth's diary was found after her arrest, and it contained entries detailing her sadistic behaviour . Three of them were executed, and the fourth was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Elizabeth was not executed. She was held in confinement in a room where windows were walled up. Elizabeth lived for three and a half years after getting confinement and was found dead lying down on the floor. She died in 1614.

Elizabeth Bathory, known as the Blood Countess, went down in history as one of the most evil women.