Eleven Coffins Creaking: Transylvania, 1476 Hi Folks! Here is Number 11: Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes was a folk hero to Romanians even before his death in 1476. The rationale for excusing his extreme cruelty was that most of it had been directed against the Turks. In fact, Dracula’s military prowess and personal vindictiveness were so impressive that the Moslem invaders feared him more than any other European noble. But apparently such powerful assets were offset by grave (pun intended) liabilities. His first wife committed suicide after Turkish sympathizers lied to convince her that he had died in battle. The Orthodox Church refused to grant her a Christian burial. According to legend, in response he cursed the Church and its founders. In so doing, he cursed himself, such that the earth would never accept his body. For the record, Tepes does not lie in Castle Dracula. His head, which was cut off by the Turks, was taken to Constantinople (Istanbul); the rest of him may be somewhere in Snagov. But no one who has profited from the vampire genre has let those facts get in the way of a good story, especially since Abraham Stoker published the definitive version in 1897. So for pop culture’s sake, the Wallachian Prince who would become the King of Vampires spends his er, days there. Horror films producer Wes Craven presented a radical new explanation for vampire mythology in his movie, Dracula 2000: that the original inspiration for vampirism was not Vlad Tepes, but Judas Iscariot. The movie attempts to defend that assertion by encouraging viewers to consider connections between The Passion of Christ and various symbols of vampire lore: crosses, stakes, silver, the Communion Host, reanimated bodies, sunset (the start of a new day on the Jewish calendar), and of course, blood. Judas certainly didn’t help his case by committing suicide, which in many cultures is a sure way to become one of the Undead. But perhaps it’s just another thinly veiled example of anti-Semitism. Thanx to the digital artists at Renderosity.com, 3Dcommune, Daz 3D, or Archive3D.net, whose props were used in the composition of this image. Dr Zik