Medieval Origins of Dracula

Anthony Delaney (0:00)

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Maddy Pelling (0:33)

Tief pierce the throat, blood runs hot across cold lips, a corpse drained of blood. The vampire waits in the darkness, skin corpse pale, eyes burning red, lips wet with blood, two sharpened fangs waiting to sink into living flesh. This is Dracula crawling down castle walls, drinking from the throat, turning his victims into the undead. But Bram Stoker did not create this monster. In today's episode, we uncover the bloody folklore, superstition and very real corpses that gave birth to the vampire we know today. Welcome to After Dark.

Hello and welcome to After Dark, I'm Maddy.

Anthony Delaney (1:53)

And I'm Anthony.

Maddy Pelling (1:54)

And on today's episode, we wanted to explore one of the most iconic figures of this spooky time of year, the vampire. I think it's fair to say he's After Dark's father Christmas.

Anthony Delaney (2:05)

And joining us today to explore the disturbing origins of the vampire is Dr. Kaja Franck. Dr. Kaja is an expert in all things Gothic. Kaja, welcome to After Dark.

Kaja Franck (2:16)

Thank you so much for having me. It's a delight.

Anthony Delaney (2:18)

It is. You were telling me before we started, this is the manifestation of your friend who despite all her pro sides is American, you said, as if that was a bad thing.

Kaja Franck (2:26)

No, I meant that as an American, she was more likely, cause she may well be listening. She was more likely to be more, whereas I'm a British person. So she's like, you could contact and say, I'm good at things, will you have me on? And I was like, yeah, no, that's, I'm British.

Anthony Delaney (2:41)

That's deeply mortifying.

Kaja Franck (2:43)

Say nothing and just be mildly disappointed for the rest of my life, which is my option. And she had said that, oh, I'll email in and say, you should have Kaya on.

And actually that didn't happen. I just randomly got an email whilst I was in the rare books reading room at the British Library.

Anthony Delaney (2:59)

Oh, that's nice. It's a nice setting to get that email.

Maddy Pelling (3:02)

Yeah. That's kind of after dark lore, we appreciate.

Kaja Franck (3:06)

It was wonderful. I was like, keep cool, keep calm. Read it, close the laptop, went through it to the toilet, came back, read it again. I was like, it hasn't disappeared. So I guess this is real. And so my friend says she manifested it.

Anthony Delaney (3:19)

We get to all the spooky girls and gays eventually.

Maddy Pelling (3:23)

We have a big long list of you and we just work our way through.

Anthony Delaney (3:27)

Now, before we get into the exact details of this, I just want to point out that vampires did not begin with Dracula, but we will mostly be talking about Dracula today because vampire like revenants appear across European folklore long before Stoker. We have dead bodies believed to leave their graves. They're attacking the living. They're spreading disease or draining vitality, all that kind of good stuff that has been knocking around for centuries. So this doesn't begin in the 19th century. But as I say, we are going to be talking mostly about Dracula today.

Maddy Pelling (4:01)

Beautiful pronunciation. You may not be from these parts, but Transylvania, anyone?

Anthony Delaney (4:06)

Yeah.

Kaja Franck (4:06)

That was very Lugosian.

Anthony Delaney (4:08)

Thank you. Thank you.

Maddy Pelling (4:10)

Okay, Kaja, we are going to be talking about Dracula. Let's start with the very basics for anyone who hasn't read the novel or seen one of the gazillion adaptations on screen.

Give us the bare bones of the story, please. Go.

Kaja Franck (4:24)

Okay. So, Dracula is written by Bram Stoker and it's a Pistolary. Oh, I hate that word.

Anthony Delaney (4:31)

It's a Piss Take, I thought you were going to say.

Kaja Franck (4:33)

I mean, there have been Piss Take versions. And I think it has real Piss Take elements in it, particularly some real critiques of English people as tourists in the early stage. But essentially it's like letters and diary entries. And it broadly speaking follows a young Solista who goes off to Transylvania to stay with Count Dracula to help him buy a house in England, because that's really bloody hard even back then.