This day in history: Elizabeth Báthory was born on this day in 1560. She was nicknamed the Blood Countess and she is said to have killed 650 young girls...many of whom died in very cruel ways. She may have been one of the first and most prolific female serial killers.
The case of Elizabeth Báthory inspired numerous stories during the 18th and 19th centuries. The most common motif of these works was that of the countess bathing in her virgin victims' blood to retain beauty or youth. This legend appeared in print for the first time in 1729, in the Jesuit scholar László Turóczi's Tragica Historia, the first written account of the Báthory case. The story came into question in 1817 when the witness accounts (which had surfaced in 1765) were published for the first time. They included no references to blood baths. In his book Hungary and Transylvania, published in 1850, John Paget describes the supposed origins of Báthory's blood-bathing, although his tale seems to be a fictionalized recitation of oral history from the area. It is difficult to know how accurate his account of events is. Sadistic pleasure is considered a far more plausible motive for Báthory's crimes.
Báthory has been labelled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, though the number of her victims is debated.
The Wide World Magazine of 1914 wrote of Bathory:
"Now Elizabeth was to all outward appearances strikingly handsome-beautiful of form and face. Like most pretty women she naturally cherished a desire to remain bewitching as long as possible, and the scheme which she adopted to this end was distinctly original.
In one way and another young girls were lured to the castle, perhaps on the pretext of being engaged as servants, but really to be murdered! These unfortunate creatures were conducted to the cellar of the castle, and here, presumably in à state of nature, were compelled to walk towards the figure of a large doll. This doll was nothing more than a diabolical machine, in the construction of which a number of knives had been introduced. In approaching this hideous invention the victim all unwittingly released a hidden spring, which set the machine in action. Like a living fiend the outstretched arms of the doll grasped the poor girl in a death embrace before she had a chance to withdraw, literally cutting her to pieces in a few moments. The blood from the body was conducted by small channels to a bath close by, and in this Elizabeth is said to have bathed, thinking thereby to preserve her beauty.
These atrocities went on for no less than ten years before they were discovered, and some six hundred girls are said to have lost their lives in this way. The crimes came to light through one of the girls enticed to the castle managing to get in communication with her sweetheart, who rescued her after surmounting great difficulties.
Now this story is fact, not fable. It is quite possible that the number of lives sacrificed did not aggregate six hundred, but the manner in which the girls met their death and the gist of the story in general is correct. That such a state of affairs could have gone on for years without being discovered may seem to many incredible. But a visit to Csejthe (castle) is sufficient to satisfy anybody as to the probability of the story. It is one of the wildest, most isolated spots that could possibly be imagined.
Quite justly, the ogress Elizabeth Bathory herself came to a dreadful end, being imprisoned in one of the rooms of the castle, where she was slowly starved to death."
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