Vampires haunt our collective imagination. The stars of books, movies and even role-playing games are both dangerous and seductive. No Halloween celebration would be complete without wax teeth, fake blood, and a black cape.

But were there ever real vampires? Probably not, although there are a number of historical figures whose thirst for blood may have provided a basis for the legend.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory is certainly an excellent example.

Born in Hungary in 1560, Bathory married at age 15 to a warlord who apparently spent much of his time fighting the Turks. Left at home, Bathory satisfied her own bloodlust by torturing and killing young girls.

At first her victims were peasants, but as her sadistic desires grew, Bathory expanded her prey to include the daughters of the lesser nobility.

It was this that turned out to be his undoing. The lack of peasant girls is one thing, but the nobility were rich and educated. Local priests took their suspicions to Emperor Matthias II and an investigation was launched.

George Thurzo, the Palatine of Hungary, led the investigation and on December 29, 1610, surprised Báthory on the spot. The countess and four alleged accomplices were arrested.

Over the next three years, more than 300 people were interviewed and a chilling story emerged. Always a tough mistress, Bathory apparently came to really enjoy the pain she inflicted on her servants. His cruelty was regrettable, but certainly not unheard of.

One day a servant tugged on Bathory’s hair while brushing it. The countess raked the girl’s cheeks with her long nails, spilling blood on her wrinkled hand. Bathory imagined that the drops of blood smoothed out his wrinkles and concluded that the blood of the girls could restore him to the beauty of his youth.

It was then that the horror really began. Bathory began killing girls to bathe and drink their blood. Evidence at trial puts the body count at more than 600.

After the trial, Bathory’s accomplices were burned alive. Because she was noble, Báthory escaped execution and was instead bricked up in a room in her own castle, where she died three years later.

But horrible as it is, Bathory’s story is often overshadowed by that of another Eastern European nobleman.

Vlad III was a Romanian nobleman who lived from 1431 to 1476. Taken hostage by the Turks as a child, Vlad later came to rule his father’s kingdom, which has been variously identified as Transylvania and Wallachia. He was also known as the Son of the Dragon (Dracula) in reference to his father’s position as a Knight of the Order of the Dragon.

Because his kingdom served as a buffer zone between Muslim Turkey and Christian Europe, Vlad’s life was one of constant warfare. Leading frequent incursions into Turkish territory, he burned crops, looted and poisoned wells. Legend has it that one of these excursions resulted in the death of 20,000 Turks.

Both at home and abroad, Vlad earned a reputation for being cruel and ruthless. His father was assassinated in a political intrigue, and Vlad was apparently determined not to suffer the same fate.

In one story, it is said that he invited his political enemies to a meeting at his castle. Vlad then closed the doors and burned them to the ground.

Another story tells of the visit of an Ottoman ambassador. When the ambassador refused to remove his turban out of respect, Vlad had it nailed to the poor man’s head. That surely did nothing to improve relations between his kingdom and the Turks.

But the cruelty for which Vlad is best known also gave him his nickname: Tepes, which means “impaler.”

To serve as a warning to his enemies, Vlad impaled his prisoners on long poles, leaving them to wriggle and rot in the sun. It is said that the roads to his kingdom were full of these poor wretches.

So much of Vlad’s history is laced with legends that it is impossible to know how many of these stories are true. But contemporary reports seem to verify many of them.

Accounts vary as to the circumstances of Vlad’s death. Tradition holds that he died in battle with the Turks and that his head was sent as a gift to the Sultan of Turkey. Another version claims that he was killed by the Hungarians. It is also possible that his own troops accidentally killed him.

Oddly enough, Vlad Tepes is seen as a popular hero to many in that part of the world.

Vlad may have been lost to history, except for the research of a writer named Bram Stoker. In planning a novel about vampires, Stoker rediscovered Vlad and made him the central figure in the novel that bears his name: Dracula.

In more modern times, the press has called various serial killers “vampires.”

Fritz Haarmann committed at least 24 murders in Germany between 1919 and 1924. He killed his victims by biting their throats. During his trial, which turned into a media circus, Haarmann was called a werewolf and a vampire. He was beheaded in 1925.

Haarman was not the only “vampire” in Germany at the time. Peter Kurten, a serial killer who was beheaded in 1932, was known as the “Vampire of Dusseldorf”. He was charged with nine murders and a variety of other crimes, including sexual assaults.

Fritz Lang’s movie “M” is said to have been based on the stories of Haarmann and Kurten.

In England, John George Haigh, the infamous “Acid Bath Killer”, was also known as the “London Vampire”. Haigh, who was hanged in 1949, claimed to have drunk the blood of his victims before destroying their bodies in a tub of sulfuric acid.

Are there real vampires?

Again, probably not. But there are those whose monstrous crimes make us think of the terrible creatures of the night and legend.

More about the haunted history of Halloween can be found at Top Halloween Links at http://www.thingsinthebasement.com.

This article is derived from his lectures on the haunted history of Halloween.