Forbidden History - The Real Dracula's Castle | Where Did Everyone Go?

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Introducing a brand new podcast from the Like A Shot network. Join historian Sascha Auerbach, and comedian Tom Ward, as they reveal the incredible stories behind eerie ghost towns, ruined mansions, forgotten factories, crumbling castles, wartime relics, haunted prisons, and much more. 'Where Did Everyone Go? Histories of the Abandoned' is an entertaining journey into the world’s most remarkable abandoned places. If you enjoyed this taster episode, search for ‘Where Did Everyone Go?’ on your favourite podcast platform and be sure to follow for more episodes. Or click here to follow. -- Hosts: Sascha Auerbach, Tom Ward Producer: Lewis Rumbol Assistant Producer: Alice Chuter Editor: Chris Scott “Where Did Everyone Go? Histories of the Abandoned” is a recorded ‘as live’ podcast presented by comedian Tom Ward and historian Sascha Auerbach. Together they discuss abandoned things and places. Please be aware this is an unscripted discussion and whilst we try to ensure historic and factual accuracy, this isn’t always possible and as such ‘facts’ discussed may be the views and opinions of the presenters and should not be relied upon for historical accuracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi listeners, today we wanted to bring you an episode from a brand new podcast from the Like a Shot Network. Where did everyone go? Histories of the Abandoned. Here from historian Sasha Auerbach and comedian Tom Ward as they reveal the incredible stories behind fascinating abandoned places around the world. We hope you enjoy this episode. I am Dracula. I bid you welcome. We've got a vampire story. This is going to be great.

From the mystical mountains of Romania. We're going to bring you the real story behind Count Dracula. And yes, he was a real person. And I would say the truth of this story is far more terrifying than what you see on movies and TV shows. Dracula was real? No. Dracula as portrayed was not real,

but there was a real Dracula. Okay, I'm excited. I love vampires. This is Where'd Everyone go with me, Sasha Aramont. And me, Tom Ward, a journey into the weird history of abandoned places. So, videos up now, and you can see this steep-sided, forested valley with a river running along the bottom. We're in the Carpathian Mountains, and it's a pretty stunning landscape. There it is. And there are loads of mountain peaks here, but on top of one is this ruined castle. Yeah, and even from the ruins, you can tell by those thick walls it was a proper fortress,

but there's a lot of damage. It looked like you had a pretty dramatic end, eh? It does. So who was this real Dracula? And where are we going, Sash? Well, this was one of his most important castles, but let's begin with who the real Dracula actually is. It's easy to explain this, the easiest way to explain this is by starting with his father, who was born around 1395 and was called Vlad Dracul,

which the English translation would be Vlad the Dragon. He was given the name because he was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a military fraternity dedicated to halting the Ottoman Turkish advance into Europe. Some great historical battles of the time. So when Vlad had a son, he's automatically given the title Dracul Ah, which means son of Dracul. Ah means son? Ah, you put a at the end, son of, yes.

Okay. That's never has an A done more heavy lifting on a word. Absolutely. Dracul is nice. Dracular. Yeah, well, let's be happy it wasn't Eni because no one would want to hear the legend of Count Dracolini. Draculini.

You probably think it's a dessert in a nice Italian restaurant, right? I'll have a Dracolini with my espresso. Why do you hang out with this Draculini, silly boy? He's a silly boy. Why don't you hang out with Dracular? Nice boy, strong, boy. Strong boy. Strong name, strong boy.

Scary, menacing, nasty. Now, he wasn't the only one that got a cool name. Vlad Dracul had other sons. They don't become Dracula, but they still had some cool nicknames. You ready for these? Go for it. We had Radu the handsome. Vlad, the monk. And Vlad Dracula had a son called Minia the Bad.

Minya the Bad. Not if it's like Minia the Bad. Or Minya like Bad. Bad. Bad Minia. Like, you peat on the rugging at Minia. Bad Minia, bad. If you were a kid and you kicked your ball into their garden, and then someone told you the names of the people in the house,

it's hard to know how you'd feel about knocking. I'd leave the ball where it lay, I think. I'd be like, I can get other balls. The handsome guy's all right. Who was the other one? Vlad, the monk. The monk, the handsome. You'd be like, okay, probably, but then the bad.

The bad, yeah. Just too worried about him opening the door. Yeah, he can have the ball. That's okay. Anyway, back to our man Vlad Dracula. He was born around 1430 in the Transylvania region of what is today, Romania, and he would grow up to become the ruler of Wallachia, which is a region just south of Transylvania. This region needed a lot of protecting because it was caught between the expanding Ottoman Empire on one side and the kingdom of Hungary on the other, which finally brings us to our castle. It's called Poinari, and it's one of Vlad's fortified homes.

Okay. So what do we know about this castle? Is it standard castle-y stuff? Well, you know, we think of castles today as, you know, the old homes of aristocrats, but we should remember that castles started as fortifications. I mean, they were military structures by and large. But we'll get back to the military part. Let's start with a couple of nice legends. Now, it's said that Dracula's wife threw herself off of these walls when the castle was under siege. And apparently, his son was able to shoot an arrow from a nearby mountain peak into the castle. You're asking, well, that doesn't seem like a very nice thing to do. That seems like something that Minhaa the bad would do.

But the goal was to warn people in the castle that an enemy attack was coming. You know, it could see more from the mountain peak. So a signal, a warning signal. You had to be a better shot back in the day, didn't you? You had like one, you know, that was it. But why was she throwing herself off? I don't know. I don't know. Basically, maybe to avoid being captured during the siege and, you know, violated or whatever.

Okay. We don't know much about that story. But those are legends. Those are legends. We do have some more factual details. So the way the castle was constructed, it had a kind of killing zone. This was an entryway designed to funnel invaders into a narrow space where a trapdoor would close behind them and archers standing above could then fire down and just kill them at will.

Okay. That's kind of nice, easy shift for the archers, isn't it? When you look at these fortresses and, you know, these really well-built castles from the top down, you see they're often set up so that they're these traps, you know, like that they funnel the invaders into these regions or you have a gate that you can close on both sides. sides when they're in between the two and then they're stuck. It wasn't just about the walls and the towers. It was about creating a favorable environment for defense.

That's a horrible moment. I'm guessing if you realize you've just been funneled into this thing and then you look up and there's just a bunch of guys. Why do you think people prefer to lay siege to a castle rather than assault it? Instead, you know, you build your own counter wall around it and you try to starve them out because eventually the folks inside will run out of food. Right. But then you run into another problem, which is people laying the siege might also start

run out of food, disease might spread, you know, what if, what if an ally shows up and counter attacks? I mean, you know, castles are strong, but they're not impregnable, but then sieges aren't foolproof either. There might be some squabbling amongst the archers if, you know, have you got the new guys who can't even hit, you know, shoot fish in a barrel? I just want to fire over the thing. Can we fire over it? I want to shoot over there, long way, proper. Oh, look, a bird. I don't want to be the, this sucker who's like shooting people. They're right there. Come on. I was told I'd get a crossbow. Yeah, what is this? So, now, this killing zone is actually, as I mentioned, this is a standard tactic,

but Vlad Dracula had some more unique things that he liked to do to cause terror. This word unique is making me nervous. Oh, yeah, oh yeah. Apparently, Ottoman messengers who refused to take off their turbans in his presence, well, he had their hats nailed to their heads as punishment. Yeah. I mean, rules are rules. it's going to make it harder to take it off next time.

You know, fear, even more so than a killing zone and a strong castle, fear is a powerful weapon. Yeah. And it gets worse. So, Dracoul's first name is Vlad. Have you heard of any other historical Vlad's? Well, there's Vlad the warmonger. Is there? Of 2024, 25, 23.

Oh, the current Vlad, the Warmonger. Yeah, good point. Vlad the warmonger? Vlad, is there, Vlad the Impaler? Ah, Vlad the Impaler. Now, Vlad the Impaler was also Vlad Dracula. They are the same person. Oh, I don't like Dracula now because that sounds horrible.

Yeah, it does. I don't even know what impaling means. It's one of those words where you hear it. It's like molest or grope. You don't even need to know what it means to feel kind of queasy. I'm glad we're not talking about Vlad the Grover because I'd have to know about that story. Now, but you've already hit on what he was famous for doing.

So, and I can tell by your face, like, you want some more details about what impaling is really about. Yeah, what does it mean? Oh, yeah. Do I need to, do I want to know? You don't. You really don't. But I'm going to tell you anyway. His most iconic historical episode was when he captured soldiers from an Ottoman army that was pursuing him and impaled them all around the outskirts of a city.

spikes right through them. So that when the rest of the Turkish army arrived at the outskirts, they would be terrified by confronting a forest of their impaled comrades. Would they have been still alive, kind of wriggling around and all that sort of stuff? I can't tell you much about the mechanics of impalement.

I mean, I guess you survive for a bit. Yeah. Depends on where you're impaled. That's horrible. So he had people doing it for him, or he did it all himself. I'm sure he had like a crew of semi-professional impalers. Right.

Probably didn't get it right the first couple of times, which much had been really gruesome. Like, we were trying to impale them, but it just kind of stuck. Well, keep trying. As long as they suffer, I don't care. Did you use a sharp stick? Oh, a sharp stick. Yeah, we should have thought of that one.

Yeah. They were just going to use a blunt one. And you said it was his most iconic episode, which the word iconic feels a little generous. Well, I mean, earned him the nickname. Vlaude the impaler. Right. So you got to do a lot of impaling

before you get the title. I mean, I don't want to kink shame the guy, but even in the 1400s, I'm guessing this was pretty unpleasant behavior. Yeah, yeah. Also, don't give me that, it was a different time. And apparently he developed a taste for it. He loved inviting foreign diplomats to dinner

and then just impaling them afterwards. Yeah, I mean, that's not good hosting. No, it's like, so what would you like for dessert? Would you like the flan? sharp stick up the run. Yeah, I don't like the sound of this guy. No, no. And it's a lot less sexy than

the sort of presentation of Dracula in the movies. Yeah. Although that guy is biting necks and causing damage. There's a kind of romance too. There's something there. There's a striking figure. There's something in it for the women, usually, you know, at least.

Yes. It seems to be a kind of swooning. There's nothing. There's nothing. This is like the worst hinge date ever, you know. Yeah. So, Vlad enjoyed public displays of impalement and sometimes would host I could make this up impalement

competitions to see who could produce the most gruesome and elaborate methods of this terrible torture and execution right so let me ask you who's more terrifying to you now the legend of Count Dracula or the actual Vlad Dracula Vlad yeah I think we got to go with the actual yeah you know history is far more terrifying than then then fiction so thanks to his ruthless brutality, Vlad was a feared and powerful leader in this part of Europe. But there were those that thought he was getting a bit too big for his boots. So you might be thinking that other warriors wanted to bring him down, other aristocrats,

you know, bring him down with force. Well, think again, one well-known attempt to hurt his popularity was actually an early form of slander and fake news. Perhaps the first one ever. Okay. So the hammering nails thing wasn't enough to, tarnish his reputation. Nope,

nope, nope. And, you know, if you think, you know, getting, you know, outed on Facebook

or wherever is tough now, like these guys really, these guys really went full on to try to embarrass him. And so what they did is, this was a bunch of priests from Brasov,

a big city in Transylvania. They paid around 200 gold coins, an absolute fortune at the time, to have the first ever newspaper, which was being printed in Germany. In that newspaper, they had Vlad the impaler described as a real vampire

one who drank children's blood and ate human flesh and they even published a drawing I think it's actually a woodcut showing him sitting at a table surrounded by his impaled victims dining on human flesh I mean it

they always go for the child's blood thing don't they with when they're trying to slander someone The child's blood is a real classic. They still use that now, don't know, when they try and slur American politicians. Yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, by the way, the Democrat. Well, you know, the corruption of innocence, like, what's the most evil deed? Someone can commit.

But they always do it with, like, chat show hosts and the nicest actor, don't they? Oh, do you know Tom Hanks? He actually drinks Child's Blood before a role. I have really? They always come up with this. Yeah, they have, yeah. Jeez, poor Tile. But they always come for the guy, the people that seem that Oprah.

They were, say, oh, you know, by the way. Dines on, dines on child's blood. They always come for it. And it's like, that's a way to just kind of, oh, maybe you don't know everything about Oprah. You know what I mean? But this is an old, this is an old technique. And I like the fact that the drawing would have been, you know, that would have been published. And it's like, here we have proof.

Yes, look, we've made this, this primitive woodcut of this man dining on human flesh. Oh, God, it must be real. See people arguing about the dinner table. Like there's some people that, you know, read this newspaper, you know, and there's others that don't and they're like, no, that's fake news. It's like,

oh yeah, how do you know? Came up on my woodblock feed. It's real, I tell you. Yeah, okay. So let's get back to our, let's get back to our man. So the guy that wrote the first Dracula book,

what was his name? Bram Stoker. Okay. Right, so he must have stolen the blood thing from this whole impaler guy. Well, kind of. There's more to it than that, isn't there always right?

Bram Stoker published the book called Dracula in 1897. He read up a lot on Transylvania folklore and found out that a lot of people actually believed in vampires back during this time. Okay. Well, you know, we have something to believe in. Yeah. So, here's Mate to tell us more. So one of the most crazy superstition that we have when there is a problem like, epidemic or pandemic moment and people are dying and you have no idea why we start to

searching in the village and if we find out that he died and he had an unfinished business with his family or with some enemies we go at the graveyard we dig into the tomb and then after that in order to make sure that he will never come back again We have to cut the head with the silver dagger and then we take the head, we place the head between the legs And we cut the hands also And we place them nearby the legs and we put some big rocks on the hands to make sure that He will never take his head and place it back and come and kill people in the village It seems very convoluted way to deal with someone

Well just take the hands and throw them in the sea or something I mean I was going to say say you're an East London boy I would imagine you find this a very mild way to deal with the neighborhood. North London actually. Sorry, North London. So even milder. Yeah, we have a very strict code over there. If we find out someone has unfinished business, we dig them up, we burn them in the town square just near Hornsey train station. Yes, the Hornsey, the Hornsey burning place. Yeah, and then we sort of dance around them and then go for a kebab. And then we take the ashes and we scatter them so that they can't reform and and start the unfinished business again.

Yeah. And even for like minor offenses, like, you know, blocking someone's garage. You're borrowing a hammer for some... Borrowing a hammer for too long. Amateur impaling.

I'm just trying to get into impaling. Has anyone who got any tips? Please like and share if you know anyone who could help. Not giving a full pint at the pub. Yeah, that's a little too frothy. You know, burn you and scatter your ashes, you bastard.

Unfinished business, you hear! So Bram Stoker, the author, has taken a few of these facts and legends around Dracula, and just had some fun, fun and sounds a bit. Yeah, but the strange thing is that Stoker never mentioned Vlad Dracula in the hundreds of pages of notes that accompanied the original book. And this has led some scholars to debate the link. and some even suggest he based his character on a Hungarian woman called Elizabeth Bathory, who was accused of killing hundreds of girls and women and became imprisoned in a castle.

It's always more freaky when a woman does it, isn't it? I don't know why is that. We don't expect that from women. Gender bias. Women are just as capable of killing. It's just that we have these societal ideas and we can slot women into these roles, but they're very inaccurate, you know. Do you think if we didn't, there would be more women doing it? Well, I mean, personally, I'd like to see fewer people murdering other people completely, but I think certainly studies have shown that women are no less capable of violence than men are. Just haven't had the opportunities.

Well, again, societal pressure, it seems like more of a taboo for it to happen. I wanted to get into killing, but I just did, my husband never made me feel like I could. But, you know, when they... He wanted to do it. He'd say, no, you stay at home and keep the house nice. I wanted to be out killing too. I've always had a thing for impaling. I used to impale all my pets. My brother got the blame, but it was me.

I wanted the credit. No, you slot into roles. Don't your society does its thing? I'll just live out my days and, you know, hopefully get my chance. If I get a chance to do some impaling and killing, I will take it. But, you know, the patriarchy runs deep. The patriarchy does run deep, no pun intended.

So back to our man. So what is the actual Dracula story? Ah, well let's get to it after the ad break. The novel Dracula is a gothic horror about Romanian nobleman turned vampire, who's called Count Dracula, who leaves his castle in Transylvania to terrorize the English seaside town of Whitby. And a vampire hunter called Abraham Van Helsing eventually tracks him down and kills him. Okay. I'm guessing that's been quite good for the wippy tourist board. So what happened to the actual Vlad? Did he just sort of live out his days, maybe getting into gentler acts of puncturing, acupuncture maybe?

Or did the slander of the priests sort of work? Did he go after the priests? Well, impale the priests? Such violent delights have violent ends. In 1492, Dracola finally met his match. The great Ottoman Sultan Mehmed. the second. He drives Dracula out of his castle atop the mountain, Fonari, and forces him to flee.

That's pretty impressive. Sorry. That's pretty impressive. I mean, getting Vlad to flee, this guy must be seriously scary. We don't know how he did it. I mean, Mehmed had a large army. He was very well organized. I mean, maybe

Vlad just decided discretion was the better part of valor. What we do know is that isn't when all the damage was done to the castle. That happened in a landslide caused by a much more mundane event, an earthquake in 1913. Okay. So, hang on, where did Vlad go? Well, this is debated, but some historians believe it was to another castle, brand castle, about 40 miles east. And we have some video of this castle too. Nice. Oh, this one looks in far nicer condition than the other one.

More like a fairy tale sort of castle. Yeah, it's got Disney vibes for sure. It has these imposing towers and turrets, and it's built on a rocky pier. but it's nowhere near the kind of fortress feel of the other one. Yeah, it's perched on this cliff or rocky outcrop. Not like a mountaintop like the other one, but it still looks pretty impressive. Yeah.

So Vlad hides here, but when he goes to leave using a secret passage, people are waiting for him. His enemy had spies embedded in the castle, and he's put straight into the dungeons. Justice for the impaled at last. Yeah, yeah. So some people call this Dracula's Castle,

too because of the historical link and because of how beautiful it is. I mean, you won't be surprised to know this is the one that gets all the tourists. Yeah, they're quite basic in that way, aren't they? They're not in it for the truth, are they? Show them a turret and a tile roof, and they get all excited. There's probably a Starbucks in there.

Probably three. Can we go to the gift shop? I want a mini impaling stick. It's like a puppet just sits there and dangles. There's no real gift shop in history, lady. It would be funny if they were just selling sharp sticks for like 10 euros of pop Yeah, rubber nails You got a crossbow or something?

No, all we have is sharp sticks, 10 euros A kid's starter kit Impale your cats, impress your friends I love cats I'm not trying to give any ideas I love them both alive and impaled It's a toss-up for me It's a top cheese

I do not subscribe to this for anyone listening at home Anti-Cat violets Yeah, but please subscribe. All right, back to our bad. Back to our bad of Vlad. Well, after two months in the dungeons, he's released and soon returns to power. But then in another battle, the Ottomans finally kill him and have his head sent to the Sultan as a trophy. And I'm wondering, you know, there's a, I know from my old Dungeons and Dragons days, right, that there's, to end reading about these legends, there's these, this is very complex set of circumstances.

You have to keep a vampire dead, right? Because it's undead, so you can't just kill him in a normal. and steak through the heart and so on and so forth. And I'm wondering one of the things, the legends is that to keep them dead, you have to cut their head off. And I'm wondering if maybe this is where that legend came from, his head. But, you know, frankly, there was a lot of a beheading going on back in the day,

and it's a good way to show that you've killed someone. Yeah. Maybe that's, there's no connection. Why don't just burn the body? Then it's all just, you can't. Yeah, yeah. That's another thing you're supposed to do to vampires or the undead in general. Again, it's just the stories go.

They don't really exist. I'm just, good. I'm just surprising. He was only in the dungeon for two months. I mean, what does a guy need to do to get life? Well, he was a powerful guy. I mean, he probably had allies. Good behavior down there.

And also remember that he was the one. Didn't puncture any of the guards? Didn't do a little impaling? Can I just have one nail? Just give me like a little skewer, some rats. No, but this is a guy who's used terror as a tool, you know, to try to protect this region from the Ottomans on one side and the Hungarians on the other. And as I said, like terror and fear are worth.

5,000 soldiers, if you can convince people that you are so frightening that you just shouldn't be messed with. Yeah, it keeps them in check, doesn't it? Exactly, exactly. You're in their heads. Yeah. Now, the location of his grave is a mystery. We still don't know where he was finally interred.

If he is dead. Yeah, he's dead. My vampires aren't real time. Don't worry. Let's not give Lewis nightmares. Right. He's already on the edge. Yeah, he's still recovering from the catacombs in the desert.

Yeah, we don't need to. It's like, oh, the vampires coming from because we made fun of impaling. So, Vlad would be 700 now. About 700? What we're talking? 1,400s? Yep, yep. That body is definitely moldered into nothing.

600, 600 and something. Yeah. But, you know, all that child's blood keeps you young. I hate to tell you this time, but there ain't no coming back. All right, okay. Ellen DeGeneres is 300. And we all know why. Impaling?

In blood, children. Keeps you sparky. So back to our man again. So what are the... What do the Romanians think of Vlad? What's his legacy? Well, Romanians, by all accounts, love him. He's their national hero.

And here's Matei again to explain. People are still waiting for him to come back. Because he actually succeeded in six years of... He was the governor. The economy increased a lot. the army got a way better and something that we even today we think it's impossible to do to erase the corruption he erased the corruption in his personal way killing people and impaled them or sometimes when the rival family were betrayed him he used to boil the son and then force the mother or the father to eat the son in the front of his entire family horrible things but he's not the first king which ever did that not only Romania in order to keep the power but as a national hero and the reason we love him is because

he raised the corruption oh my god you know a lot of people complain quite rightly about the normalization of extreme politics but this is really this is really next level stuff yeah I like the way he was like he wasn't the first to do it yeah I mean I mean, you know, Romania's beautiful, but this story makes me kind of a little bit more cautious about planning my next holiday. Yeah. Parking tickets. So what's the penalty for a parking ticket? Well, first we impale you and then we boil you and we make your son eat you.

If you're on a double yellow. Double yellow. I mean, the sign clearly says no parking. It's like, he says it in Romanian. It's like, that's no excuse. Yeah, you don't want to know what they're going to do if you park on a red line. Launch you off the catapult onto a bed of spikes. Yeah.

And then mince you. And send a pie to all your relatives. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that he was, he wasn't corrupt. Did he say he wasn't corrupt? He fought corruption. He fought corruption. He fought corruption.

Mostly by impaling people. Yeah, some would say that, you know, murdering people and forcing their relatives to eat them is kind of corrupt. I don't know where you draw the line on corruption. What happened to Preslough? Didn't you hear he cheated on his taxes? What would they do with them? But they impaled him like 18 times. Yeah, yeah.

It's like corruption is. usually associated with documents going missing, invoices being forged. Maybe a fine or custodial sentence, but not having a six-foot steel spike rammed up yet. Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously it's going to reduce corruption, but I think it does increase other things, which you would argue. You can't argue with success. Yeah.

He got the results, but at what cost? I don't really know whether it was worth it. But, hey, you know, if society was in, you know, well-behaved. Yeah. But is that everything, I don't know. Yeah, you've got to have, I mean, I think the puns. should fit the crime. Yeah.

I really do. Now, interestingly, this view of him, this positive view of got a boost when the communist took control of Romania. The communists confiscated everything that the royal family possessed, but because they were still popular, Chochescu realized that the Communist Party needed new heroes. So he pushed the idea of Vlad rather than the royal family as the Romanian national hero. Playing the crowd, Nikolai. Always playing the crowd, wasn't he?

I guess so. You know, it was a dangerous dictator that dude. Didn't impair anyone, though. That we know about. Yeah. Just through hundreds in jail, executed hundreds, had prison camps. Yeah, no, not a good guy. And then obviously, I think it's a bad sign.

If your own people storm your house and murder you on television, that probably means that you've pissed off of people. Probably means that you were unpopular. Yeah. I did hear a comedian once talking about growing up in Romania and how he watched executions on television. Wow. Why did you watch executions on television?

He goes, well, there were only, there were only a couple channels. Right. And so it's the executions or... Or Romanian Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, or something even more boring. So we watched executions. It's like, wow, that makes a strange kind of sense. Yeah.

Or some other glossy TV movie version of Dracula's life story, which they all were bored of. It's just running on repeat, like, you know, a Christmas story. There's not enough impaling. This is softened. This is being cleaned up. We want the real stuff. Yeah. I mean, if they turn to a reality TV show, that would be,

who wants to be impaled. Yeah, there'd be people. Yeah, there's always people. I probably only run for one season, I think, for people caught on. There'd be people who want to do it. The thirst for fame is... That's better than that Japanese television show where you eat too much spaghetti and they don't let you use the bathroom.

Yeah, or eat worms. Rather be impaling. In a phone box or whatever they make them do. Man, no one gets tired of familiarity, apparently. I know I never do. Yeah. So this Vlad guy, Dracula, yeah, he's kind of become softened. His legacy doesn't seem, obviously Dracula and the Impaler are not linked so strongly that people go,

oh, I don't like Dracula. No, who would, who would, think that the story about, a fictional story about a guy that tears people's throats out in the middle of the night and turns them into horrible undead is actually the nicer version. you know like the Dracula light version yeah I like them sort of pitching that at the at the script meeting

can we soften him a bit maybe he doesn't just impale people maybe he just sort of eats chunks off their flesh yeah maybe they don't really die they just become really pale and listless like like Scottish people you know yeah unable to go out after midnight

what's the what is the that's vampires yeah daytime they can't come out in the daytime are they vampires Am I confusing genres here? Vampires cannot take sunlight, apparently. And what are Dracula's? Well, Dracula is the... There are no Dracula's.

It's not a plural. Singular, one. Count Dracula. It's not Count the Dracula's. Count Dracula. That's a good place to end, I think. Producer Lewis here, thanks for listening to this episode

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