Elizabeth Bathory: Serial Killer?

Vulgar History Podcast

Elizabeth Bathory: Serial Killer?  

February 18, 2026

Hi everyone, just a few quick announcements before we get into today’s show. First of all, my book, Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain’s Uncrowned Queen, is now available to buy wherever you get books. Go to RebelOfTheRegency.com for all the links so you can buy yourself a copy. And if you want to meet up with me in person, I’m going on tour! I’ll be doing a book event on February 19th in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the Central Library. And then, on February 27th, I’ll be in Vancouver, British Columbia, at Iron Dog Books. All the info about these events is at RebelOfTheRegency.com, just click on ‘Events.’ And I’ve got some more events coming up soon in other places in other cities, so stay tuned for information on all of that. I can’t wait to see you all in person. Enjoy today’s episode. 

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Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster, and today we have a very special guest. We’re talking with author Shelley Puhak about her new book about Elizabeth Bathory. And perhaps you’ve heard of Elizabeth Bathory; she’s one of the more notorious figures in history. There’s a lot of vampire lore around her, there’s various horror movies that feature her. And what Shelley has done in her new book, The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, is she literally went to Transylvania and other places in Eastern Europe to look at these documents and records to figure out who was Elizabeth Bathory really? Why was she accused of being a serial killer? And what was the real story? 

And Shelley Puhak, long-time listeners of this podcast may recognize that name. She’s also the author of The Dark Queens, which is the book, subtitle, The Bloody Rivalry that Forged the Medieval World. The Dark Queens by Shelley Puhak is a seminal text for this podcast; it’s a book she wrote about the iconic medieval queens, Fredegund and Brunhild. It really reoriented my whole brain into how a historical biography of a woman could be written. Anyway, I was so delighted to have Shelley back on the podcast to talk about her new book. It’s such a great conversation, and it’s such a great book. So, here is my conversation with Shelley Puhak about The Blood Countess. 

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Ann: Okay, so I’m joined by Shelley Puhak, who listeners may already know as the author of The Dark Queens, the book that introduced us all to Fredegund and Brunhild. We’re here to talk about your new book. Welcome, Shelley. 

Shelley: Thank you so much for having me back!

Ann: So, your new book, The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal and the Making of a Monster, which is a book about Elizabeth Bathory. First, I’m so curious to know: Why did you choose to write a book about Elizabeth Bathory? How did you hear about her in the first place? Do you remember? 

Shelley: I do. So, in my twenties, I have family in Slovakia, and I undertook this really ill-advised tour of castle ruins with one of my cousins. I was going to photograph them and do some sort of, like, travel article. And through the course of that, it was actually super fun, very fascinating, but I still remember, we were in eastern Slovakia, it was twilight, climbing a hill, slipping and sliding, it’s damp. We had come to these ruins that are silhouetted, and I have this shivering fit, and I say to my cousin, “Whose castle is this?” And she’s laughing, she’s like, “Oh, it must be the ghost of Elizabeth Bathory.” And I’m like, “Who’s that?” She’s like, “I can’t believe you don’t know!” So, she tells me all of this folklore about this sort of gruesome, cruel Hungarian mistress who murdered Slovak girls. And I’m like, “Wow!” It always stuck in the back of my mind, and I was always very curious about it. 

And then, as I’ve travelled and returned, I’ve seen that this tourist industry around her has really exploded, and you could kind of find her everywhere once you start looking for her. So, you know, I’d finished one project, and I was like, I wonder if this 400-year-old mystery, like this is one of history’s most intriguing cold cases, to me, if we could solve it. Can it be solved now? And the answer is yes. 

Ann: And the answer is yes because there’s… So, in terms of researching this, Elizabeth Bathory, what we’re going to do, listeners, on this episode, we’re going to go through kind of her life story, kind of, what are the rumours about her? Where did they come from? But in terms of you, like, being a historical investigator, you’re looking at handwritten documents in Hungarian, in Latin. You can’t see this, she’s making faces. [Shelley laughs] But what was that like? My gosh. 

Shelley: So, I have to tell you, I think this book just about broke my brain. There would be days where I’d be like, “I have such a headache. Why do I have a headache?” And then I realized my brain was just tired. It was like, “Stop! This hurts.” But luckily, I was working with a really talented team of, you know, there’s people who actually specialize in old handwriting and deciphering old handwriting specifically from this period. And then, translators who aren’t just Hungarian to English translators, but also work specifically in the language and, kind of, the phrasing of this time period. 

Part of the reason why we have this story of this horrific serial killer has a lot to do with, you know, poor transcriptions, and then a lot of mistranslations. It’s very understandable, given the condition of a lot of these sources, and the difficulty of translating Hungarian, and then the double difficulty of translating it, you know, when we have people that are using terms that haven’t been used since the 15th or 16th century, or terms that now mean something completely different. 

Ann: Well, as an example, there’s one where it talks about a butcher. And so, like, to somebody translating it, they could just be like, “Oh my god, a killer! A murderer!” But some of your research shows, like, well, this could also mean somebody who eats meat on a day when they’re not supposed to eat meat, or it could mean also a person who’s, like, doing medical stuff. Like, it’s a word that could… It’s not just… But you can see how somebody translated that as a butcher, they’re like, “Oh my god, it’s a killer. This is evidence.” 

Shelley: Right. And there’s another great example of there’s this word for… It’s been translated over and over about Elizabeth Bathory, in her will, writes that she wants to, you know, be buried in her wedding dress, and she wants to keep her wedding dress. And we have these images of this woman and her wedding dress sort of wandering around the castle, you know, she’s kind of half mad. And that’s a mistranslation because that word in that time period really meant… What she was referring to was her bridal property, and that meant the property she had been given, you got a gift, a morning gift, after you consummated your marriage, and this was the property she had been given as a wedding gift. So, she’s saying, not, “I want to be buried in my wedding dress. I want to wear my wedding dress until my death,” but she’s actually saying, “I want to go live in the property I was given when I was married, and I will be there until I die.” 

So, there’s, like, a lot of these mistranslations that have, sort of, we’re playing this game of telephone, and you can see how things have been distorted and twisted, and each one has sort of set us off course. 

Ann: And I think… My listeners will remember, long-time listeners, I did an episode about Elizabeth Bathory in, like, 2019, and at that point, from the research, I was able to see… So, I was reading your book, and I was just like, “Oh yeah, that’s what I know.” I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I said that. I perpetuated that rumour in my episode.” But it’s like, people don’t know. You need to really dig into so many things about her story. You say in the afterword of your book, like, there’s people in Slovakia, or I don’t know where, but there’s people who are who have been doing this research, and you’re just kind of the first major English language book to be kind of sharing this information. Is that right? 

Shelley: That’s absolutely right. So, there are a whole host of scholars and historians who have been digging into this, you know, starting with, like, the ‘80s on, and they’ve done a fabulous job, and I think part of the problem for the Western world is just that that hasn’t, because of language, translations haven’t been as accessible to kind of a wider English-speaking audience. 

Ann: So, what I’d like to do today is to just kind of go through, in a very overarching way, we don’t need to get into all of the Hungarian politics that you’ve explained so well in your book. [door squeaks] Here’s my cat. Anyway, there is somebody, I don’t know if you look at your reviews [Hepburn meows] and like, I understand if you don’t, but somebody on, I think it’s Goodreads, I was logging that I had read the book, and I was just like, “Everyone read this book, it’s great!” And the review under mine, somebody was like, “I came here for the serial killer, but I stayed for the Hungarian political discussion.” 

Shelley: [laughs] That’s good to know. 

Ann: So, we don’t need to get into all of that, but just sort of in an overarching way, just kind of like, who was she? We can debunk some of the facts about her, and then, you know, at the end, I feel like we can give her a new score, as I’m sure you’d appreciate, on the Fredegund Memorial Scandaliciousness Scale. 

Shelley: Absolutely. So, my book essentially starts, you know, 1604 to 1614, so tracing the last ten years of her life. But just to set the stage, I think the first thing that we need to know is that Hungary has been divided. There are three parts of Hungary: one, which is ruled by the Habsburgs, royal Hungary; we have a middle part that has been commandeered or conquered by the Ottomans; and then we have a semi-independent Transylvania. 

The other thing you really need to know is just how important the Bathory family is at this time period. I think a lot of people who are familiar with this story are aware that they’re, you know, a very prominent noble family, but because of a lot of purposeful erasure by the dynasties that supplanted them, it often kind of gets… I think, I guess, their true import to this time period is often underrated. And I think what we need to know is that the Bathory family has, you know, at this point in time, she’s got a 500-year-old name, castles, lands that span, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles. If you look at maps of what is controlled by the Bathory family at this time period, it dwarfs most things, you know, Italy, a lot of the duchies, and, you know, and things in the Netherlands, it makes Scotland look like just a little, little country. 

So, they’re controlling mass amounts of land, and they’re also controlling everything from, you know, they have a prominent Bathory, her uncle was the king of Poland and Lithuania. She’s got cousins and uncles, et cetera, who are the princes of Transylvania. She also has other cousins who are cardinals in Rome. So, you have them spanning across, the Reformation at this time period, you have Bathorys who are Catholic, Bathorys who are Protestant and important in both ways, you have them controlling multiple countries, and you have them in play for some of, like, they’re a major dynasty and they’re a major player, their name is as recognizable in this time period as the Medici’s or the Habsburgs, and in fact, you know, in some ways, they’re rivals to those families. 

So, I think that’s really important to know the family that she’s coming from and that she’s dealing with a country that is divided, but was, at one point in time, a very progressive, tolerant country and sees itself, in some ways, still as that, but has been kind of falling into kind of chaos and ruin lately. But it’s important to know that she’s been raised in this, in a very progressive and tolerant environment, because that’s going to be very important later. 

Ann: And you mentioned a few times in the book, which I really appreciated every time you kind of set it in a time and place, it’s like, “Here’s what was going on in other places,” I’m like, “Ohhh, okay! Got it, got it.” Because it’s sort of like, at the same time as towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, it’s like James I, like you mentioned the Gunpowder Plot. That’s what’s happening. And that’s just, for me, in terms of the history that I’m more familiar with versus the history of Hungary, you know, it’s like, okay, yeah, Catholic versus Protestant, this is an extremely violent time of religious… not rivalries, but just tension, I guess. So, like this is their version of that. You’re talking about the Calvinists, like, Martin Luther. These religions are very… Now, in today’s world, there’s various tensions that we all know about, but like, Catholic versus Protestant is not an especially violent one anymore, but it was truly life and death at this point. 

Shelley: And I think too, like, we think of Hungary, and we might think “That’s a cool country, it’s a place I want to go,” but one thing I think too is that Hungary had been and was still a major player in world politics, and that’s something that often gets overshadowed. They’re fighting off the Turks, and the rest of the world is watching. They are terrified of the Ottoman Empire, and they see Hungary as the bulwark against them, and if, you know, if Hungary falls and the Ottoman Turks march into Vienna, there goes the rest of Western Europe. 

So, you also have to keep in mind that throughout this period, you know, Elizabeth, for example, Queen Elizabeth in England, is having her subjects pray for, “Please let them succeed in Hungary.” All of Europe is watching what’s happening in Hungary, and they’re sending all of their freedom fighters, all the young… This is sort of the Spanish Civil War of the time period. So, for example, Captain John Smith of Pocahontas fame, that’s where he gets his rank of captain; all of these men are pouring in as mercenaries, some of them as journalists, to see what’s going to happen in Hungary. 

So, this is kind of a major flashpoint. And then, this whole story unfolds at this really important inflection point in history as well. 

Ann: And I think that context is so important. I mean, just I would think for me and probably for other readers, just to be like, “Okay, the history of Hungary,” but like, what actually was happening and how does it relate to, you know, a figure that a lot of people know like Elizabeth I? Or even the fact that the Ottoman Empire at this point, it’s Suleiman, right? We’ve talked about him on the podcast, like with Hürrem Sultan as his partner and stuff. So, it’s like, this is what’s happening. It’s simultaneous to so many famous world events; it’s not just this, like, little weird thing happening in this little obscure area. It’s like, no, this is a major place. And Elizabeth is part of this major family, and that’s part of why it becomes a huge shock, because it’s like, as though this happened to, like you said, a Borgia or a Medici person. This is could not be a more famous person. 

So yeah, your book starts kind of… Her husband dies, and that’s where things kind of get going because she is then in charge of all these properties. And as we have seen with, like, Salem witch trials or anything, it’s just like, okay, a widow who owns some land is vulnerable, in some ways, to men who want that land. 

Shelley: And she’s also doubly vulnerable at this time period. So, you know, as 1604 opens, she’s, in the past six months, lost her oldest son and her husband, so it’s kind of a double whammy. She still has one son left, but he’s much younger, so he’s not going to be able, you know, to take over the family properties. So, she’s going to have to rule as regent for a much longer period of time. 

But she does have the advantage, when this book starts up, she has a very, very powerful brother. So, she’s an orphan, and her husband was an orphan. There’s so much death and destruction in this time period that a lot of families that typically would have sort of that backbench of, you know, “Here’s my younger brother, here’s my cousin, here’s my dad, here’s my uncle who can step in,” they don’t have that at this time period, unfortunately. But she does have a very powerful brother, and he is the chief justice of all of Hungary, who commands, you know, a lot of property, and she still has some influential male cousins and nephews. You know, things are looking precarious, but that she might be able to pull it off, and she might be able, if she’s wise and just and careful, to keep the family name and properties together as 1604 starts off. But she also is facing off with a lot of people who are kind of eyeing up her land and her power. 

Ann: And I think in this context, if anyone could have made this work, it would be her. She’s a very, just from all the evidence you found of her letters and her business dealings, how many people she took to court, she’s a very capable landowner person. She knows what’s happening. She’s sort of this mixture of, like, very knowledgeable, very firm in her decision making, but also very kind, very compassionate to her servants and stuff. It seems like she’s got all the skills to make this work. But you know, there’s a lot of gross, really annoying men, and we’re going to get to each of them. And I’m going to just rage. But there’s a lot of… She’s a very just person, I guess, is what I’m thinking, what I’m trying to say. There’s a lot of corrupt people everywhere around her, and it seems she has a lot of faith in the judicial system and a lot of faith in, like, what is the right thing to do? And when you’re surrounded by like absolute corruption, that doesn’t, in her case, work out really well. Anyway, I’m just trying to say she seemed like a good business lady for the time. 

Shelley: Yeah. And I think you bring up some great points. She’s also well-versed in governing, and there’s a lot of that. The other thing to keep in mind is she’s going to be a woman governing properties while there’s an active invasion going on. So, she’s not just going to be a business leader, but she also needs to have the support of her people in terms of, will she defend us? Like, can we trust her in this time of war? And she’s well-suited to this. 

You mentioned taking people to court, but I think this will be important later to mention she’s from a family of lawyers and judges, and she’s also from a family where the men are very tolerant, and the women have done extraordinary things. Her mother was this powerhouse, and she has, you know, aunts as well who just, you know, flout convention and are used to being taken seriously, are used to going to court and being the equal of a man and saying, “Hey, this isn’t fair.” So, in some ways, she might suffer from that expectation. I think if you’re raised in like a, you know, kind of corrupt, horrific environment, you find ways to adapt early. But if you’re raised where, like, things are just, and we have endless progress, and things are going to get better and better, and I am going to be considered capable and a man’s equal, it’s sometimes more difficult when things change and all of a sudden, you’re thinking you’re dealing in one world, right, with one skill set, and you’re not. You’re dealing kind of with a game, and you don’t necessarily have the skills, or you’re not prepared for the level of the deception or the corruption that you’re going to face. 

Ann: So, at this point, I would like to introduce to the listeners the first villain [Shelley laughs], who I just hated, who is the pastor who only speaks Latin. I forget his name. 

Shelley: Oh, Ponikenus.  

Ann: Augh! Okay. Tell everybody about him. He super sucks, this guy. 

Shelley: Yeah, and I mean, there’s a few pastors. I don’t know if we want to start with the very first one, Magyari, or we can jump to Ponikenus. 

Ann: Either one, just to establish, sort of like, the whole pastor-Elizabeth Bathory relationship. 

Shelley: The pastor-Elizabeth Bathory relationship. When her husband dies, you know, she’s got this pastor, who has been her husband’s, like, personal chaplain throughout the war, her husband’s been off fighting for quite some time, and this guy has kind of completely lost it. Like, he is just so traumatized by what he’s seen, and he’s written about this, that he’s had to, you know, literally deal with rivers of blood or baptize all of these dying men. These are boys that he, you know, baptized or raised, or a lot of these are people he knows. He is so freaked out, and he also, you know, believes that God is just and he’s a good man. And, you know, there’s this question of like, when bad things happen to good people, what do you do? You have to find someone to blame. So, it’s like, “If they’re God’s chosen people, and he’s a good person, and these are all good people, like, why is God letting them all be slaughtered over and over?” and he can’t figure it out. So, you know, clearly, it’s because evil has taken hold in the land. 

Ann: Is he the one who’s like, everybody has to stop swearing? Is this that guy? 

Shelley: Yeah, this is the swearing guy. 

Ann: Everyone swears too much; that’s the problem. Everyone, stop swearing. 

Shelley: Right? Like, he’s got to find something, latch on to something, that “This is God’s punishment, God’s punishing us, and if we can just figure out the wrong thing we’re doing, or the bad person who’s doing the thing, and get rid of them, everything’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.” It’s not that we’re losing this war because of, you know, we have bad generals, or we’re not fighting our battles right. It’s because somebody is swearing, or somebody’s eating meat on a fast day, or somebody’s thinking impure thoughts. 

So, there’s this idea now that’s taken hold right when Elizabeth Bathory comes to power, that we have to watch everyone, and we have to survey not just what they do, but also what they might be thinking or reading. And so, we need to really be keeping close tabs on everyone and everything they might be doing. 

Ann: At this point, and you describe this in the book too, but the little ice age, so just kind of like, the coldest possible weather, just for like, climate-based reasons, this has just happened, but this is meaning that people are… I forget. You had some examples, but you know, the crops are dying, you’re saying, like, birds are just freezing and falling out of trees. Like, it’s just devastating. So, you can see there’s this war, and he’s seeing, you know, rivers of blood, all these people dying, the crops are bad, everybody’s starving. Like, life is horrible. So, I can understand why somebody is just trying to feel some measure of control, to be like, “How can we fix this? How can we change this?” 

I did a whole series last year about the French Revolution, and also, like, there’s a weather component to that. Like, it was so cold, the weather was so bad; people just want to blame somebody when everything is going wrong. And this guy is just like, “Okay, what we need to do is stop swearing, make sure you’re not eating…” And just like, yeah, it’s a real… So, this paranoia of just everybody is looking for somebody to blame, which is similar to, again, I’ll just bring up the Salem witch trials because there are similarities of just everybody watching your neighbours really suspiciously, wanting to find a culprit. 

Shelley: Absolutely. And you know, I have this like, “What makes things awful when things become really awful?” There seems to always be three things going on. There’s always epidemic, pandemic, there’s like mysterious illness, people dying; there’s always climate change, you know, where you can’t count on your next meal, crops are failing, there’s this real panic, like all the routines have been disrupted; and there’s always sort of, you know, like rulers that are more concerned with private good, like accumulating their own wealth or they’re, you know, kind of going off the rocker with sort of public good or like, “Let’s get together, rally the people and solve this.” So, people, like you’re saying, they’re terrified, they’re fragmented, they don’t have any agency, they don’t know where to turn, and so they turn on each other. We see this over and over again. 

Ann: And you mentioned the plague, and there are various diseases that rip through, because this is also, like, when we’re talking about a time period again, that I’m more familiar with or place, which is like, Elizabethan England, it’s just like, “Oh yeah, the plague.” You hear about that happening all the time, and she has to go hide in some castle somewhere. And that’s happening here as well. Like people, typhus, like all kinds of things. So, it’s a devastating, horrible time to be living, and Elizabeth is there living in this time, doing the best she can as this lady in charge. So, was that Magyari? That’s the…? 

Shelley: Yeah, that’s the pastor, right. And, and they’re kind of, they have a relationship, so Elizabeth is able to smooth this over, but this is where some of the very first accusations come from, you know, that a lot of people say, “Oh, look, she was, she was doing this for years and years and years and years,” that there are these allegations, because there are some clashes that Elizabeth has with her pastors who are, at this point, surveilling everyone. 

There are these letters that have survived, it’s an exchange between Magyari and some of his underlings, and they are concerned about how they can punish a woman who works for Elizabeth Bathory. The point of their letter is that they want to, they’re going to release these, like, new guidelines on how they’re going to punish everybody, but this woman’s going to want to come to church before they’ve released these new guidelines, and they don’t want her to come to church because they won’t have punished her. So, they’re trying to figure out what sort of penance she should do, and they all decide, like, this woman can’t come and take communion for, like, I think it’s three months. 

And when they’re talking about her, they call her words out of the carnifex servant, but that translates to like, “that butcher woman,” right? And people have translated that because of the Latin word into executioner, torturer, all of these terms. But that’s the first inkling that a lot of people have, or that people have pointed to, to say, “Oh, there’s something amiss at Elizabeth’s court, she’s harbouring a woman who is a butcher, a torturer, an executioner, and these priests and these pastors are concerned about it.” 

But the thing I think we also have to keep in mind is these are people who are trying to take away an entire year’s salary for someone cursing, right? I mean, they are trying to level these penalties that are just absolutely devastating. I mean, this is like, you read some of these penalties, you’re like, “That’s insane!! Right? Like, you curse on the wrong day, you say the wrong thing, and you could lose everything. All they want to do to this woman is make sure she can’t come to communion for three months. You go, is that evidence of murder or torture, or is there something else going on here? Because that’s a really relatively light punishment for guys who are, at this point in time, they have been breaking into people’s closets and their bookcases to see, like, what they’re wearing, what they’re reading. I mean, the level of surveillance is ridiculous. 

So, the fact that all they want to do with this woman is say, “Just don’t take communion for three months.” Is it torture? Is it murder? The question is: What is this letter, what is this exchange really about? 

Ann: Well, and this is where I feel like you and your, I’m just picturing your team of like, people who are who read these handwritten letters and know what words mean. So, you’ve got a couple of different theories. And one of them is about, was she eating meat on the wrong day? Can you explain about that? 

Shelley: Sure. So, there is in this area where Elizabeth Bathory is governing, it’s Sárvár, which a lot, you know, she is associated a lot with the castle where she will be imprisoned and die. But this is Sárvár, which is in Hungary, very close kind of to the border with Austria and with Slovakia right now. But from this giant seat here, there’s always been in this area, this overreaction to people eating meat, dealing with the Reformation. There’s a lot of debate on, when they have reformed the church with the Protestants and the Catholics, should we stick with what the Catholics do with not eating meat? Some people are like, “Yes, we should.: And then, there are these other, more radical interpretations that are like, “No, we’re going to redo everything. We don’t need any of these rules, we’re our own people,” you know, and kind of really pushing for getting rid of everything. 

So, there are people who are eating meat on Fridays, on purpose, to say, “Down with the Catholic church, and I’m part of this new religion.” And there are people who are still following the old, you know, fasting regulations, whether they are Lutheran or Catholic. And this is a huge debate. The reason it’s, I guess, important is in this area of Sárvár, people have been freaking out about this for a long time. So, for example, there was a monk who ate meat, and they call him Paulus the Instigator, which I think is a great name, right? And they are like, “You are a bloodthirsty butcher.” They use the same word for this, this monk and have this huge, you know, there’s this huge deal over because he ate meat, and he was eating it to, you know, make a point. They’ve also had these other situations where people who eat meat are called werewolves or murderers. So, there’s a lot of freaking out about eating meat. And this is the same word that’s been used in some of those contexts. 

So, that’s one interpretation is that Elizabeth Bathory, who is known, in terms of her, like, religious alliances, she’s known to be very tolerant. What she’s trying to pursue on her estate is, she says, “We’re going to have a policy of religious tolerance. I’m not going to interfere with your churches, but you can’t interfere with other people’s churches.” She wants to sort of keep this policy of having Catholics, and Lutherans, and Calvinists all able to practice their religion freely without too much interference. So, you could see how somebody who’s very tolerant comes against a bunch of religious extremists that want every single sin monitored and surveyed and punished are very upset that she’s allowing people who are defying, you know, the fasting regulations and are eating meat when they’re not supposed to be during Lent, and she’s allowing that. That’s what they are really upset about. 

Ann: And then, another theory that you propose in your book, and whether this is what this person was getting in trouble for or not, this was something that was happening at Elizabeth’s house, which was having these women healers on hand. 

Shelley: Absolutely. 

Ann: And I love this whole part of your book. I was just like, “Oh my gosh!” Because later on, not spoilers, because we’re going to explain this later, but some of the things that people allege Elizabeth Bathory did to young girls, it’s like, well, these line up with what medical treatments might be, and if you saw medical treatment without understanding it, you might assume that’s torture. But can you explain about the whole, like, the old woman role? 

Shelley: Yeah. So, at this time period, everyone, not just Elizabeth Bathory, but all the nobles at their court, you kind of have three categories of healers. You have the doctor, who’s more like the philosopher, is going to talk about your humors and say, you know, “This is what I’ve decided is out of balance, and you should really be bled,” or “You have too much bile.” But he doesn’t do too much, you know, he doesn’t actually get his hands dirty. He’s more the guy coming in and giving pronouncements. You have the barber surgeons, who are these guys that are coming in with their leeches, or they’re actually like, you know, doing bloodletting, but they’re also doing sort of what we consider, you know, basic surgery, like stitches, removing boils, those sorts of things. 

And then, you have old women; they also call them sometimes women scientists, it translates as, which I think is a lovely term. And these are generally what we might think of as kind of your, I don’t know, pediatrician/general practitioner today, family doctor, because it’s assumed that they have a lot of practical experience, they have a lot of knowledge of, like, herbs. And in a lot of cases, doctors and the barber surgeons, the male doctors and male barber surgeons, will defer to them, and there’s a lot of instances of them doing a really good job. They’re able to… Particularly they do a lot with, you know, curing children, and children’s ailments, but also, you know, a lot of other sort of more practical things.

And a lot of the things that these old women are doing are things we still do today, you know, things like using willow bark, which is where we get aspirin from for when people have headaches, you know, making poultices out of that. Or certain creams to soothe eczema or skin rashes, or things to settle your stomach when you have nausea. So, they’re making their tinctures and their, you know, their lotions and all of these things, and they’re also sort of providing kind of basic health care. 

Every court has an old woman, everybody who can pretty much has one. Some have more than one. And so, Elizabeth Bathory also has, you know, old women at her court, and this isn’t unusual. And in fact, she’s had to scale back. An important thing, too, to know is that her mother-in-law had a whole hospital on the estate. In the war years, that’s been scaled back, but there’s this, like, long tradition of healing on the estates and this idea that noble women have to take care of the poor and less fortunate on their estate. So, this isn’t health care just for them and their family members, but also for anyone, you know, a serf or a free person in one of the neighbouring towns that might have an injury that they need to be able to treat. 

Ann: And so, the old woman who she has, who I think dies before all of the kind of scandal starts, a woman who I remember mentioning and reading about in my original episode, Anna Darvulia, was kind of this shadowy figure. It’s like, “Where did she come from? And where did she go?” It’s like, well, she came there from away, right? So, there was some suspicion because she was German, I think, or not from there. 

Shelley: She could have been Transylvanian, but she’s not a local. 

Ann: Right. And she left because she clearly died, because then somebody else took over that job. I think just in some of the research I did, you know, six years ago, it was like, where did she go? It was very mysterious. It’s like, well, she died. Like, she was a medical person at a time of plague, like, she died. 

But also, so there’s the hospital, sort of, health care is being provided on her properties, but also there’s a girls’ school as well. So, you can imagine that the old lady, like you mentioned, sort of like a pediatrician type thing, like if the girls fall ill, that’s what would be, who would be tending to them as well. 

Shelley: Absolutely. And there was, you know, a time when they, a few generations ago, they actually were able to keep a doctor at court. But at this point in time, there’s also a doctor shortage, which is important to know. So, some of this is just by necessity. There are no doctors. 

In the documents of the time period, there are people fighting over, like, “Can we get the doctor? Well, maybe these two towns can split the doctor,” and she is calling in doctors from time to time, and also working with male barber surgeons, but there just, there aren’t a lot of them. So, the old women are having to do more and more that they might not ordinarily have to do, just out of necessity. It’s kind of like, you know, all the urgent cares are overflowing, let’s say, and you know what I mean? Somebody gets a splinter, it’s like, well, you know, in a time when you can walk right in, you might just let them deal with it. Now, we’re all like, we’ve got our tweezers in our headlamp on, and we’re going to do it ourselves because we can’t wait, you know, a week for an appointment. So, a lot of that is what’s happening as well. It’s just, you know, they’re having to make adjustments out of necessity. 

Aff: And so, this is another theory of that carnifex thing about like this butcher woman, how should we punish her? It could also be somebody is maybe eating meat, but maybe when they say the butcher woman, they could mean this old woman, they could mean this medical… 

Shelley: Yeah, that they call like… There’s this history as well of what they consider aggressive. There’s also these two, you know, two lines of thought about health care, we even see them today. There’s like the kind of natural, like anti-vax, like “Just don’t do anything and pray to God, and maybe it’ll be okay.” And then, there’s people like, “No, we’re going to do something about it.” And there’s a division on how do you deal with that? So, there’s, you know, one faction that’s calling the other, you guys are butchers. You know, you’re stitching people, you’re cutting people, you might be cauterizing things instead of just praying or using these sort of more natural methods. 

So, there is also this long history of some healthcare providers calling other healthcare providers butchers. “That person’s a butcher, they’re too aggressive.” And so when they call her a carnifex, they could also be, that could just be her profession, like, she’s a butcher woman, she’s one of those healthcare providers that will cut you up, you know, will stitch you up. And that’s a description, not even like, it’s pejorative, but it’s being used sort of widely at that time period as well. 

Ann: I was just looking up because there’s a part of your book that I was just like, “Oh my gosh,” I took a picture of this passage, I’m like, “This feels like today, so hard.” I’m just going to summarize. Basically, you said, so hard-line fundamentalists were saying: 

It was permitted to treat illness with fresh air, herbal remedies and special foods, but if those did not offer relief, failure of faith was the reason. More invasive medical procedures were not just unnecessary; they directly defied God. 

So, it’s just like RFK Jr.? What are you doing in this book? 

Shelley: [laughs] And we have, you know, I mean, you could see like old women who, also in this time period, if, you know, everybody who it’s all hands on deck, so anyone who’s a barber surgeon, who normally would be stitching people up is off on the front or they’re in these medical hospitals. So, if you need your kid, you know, your kid falls and needs stitches, old women who might’ve been like, “Euhh,” but they’re taking over more and more of that. So, there’s a good reason for people to be calling them that and to also be expecting them to fill that role. 

Ann: So, this is kind of like, all setting the scene for kind of what’s actually happening on Elizabeth’s property is for when people start accusing her of various things. 

So, we talked about the one pastor, and then there’s this other pastor, sorry, I forget his name, but I just hated him so much. He’d never learned how to speak Hungarian, and he kept applying for promotions and not getting them, and he just got more and more angry. And it’s like, “Sir, learn Hungarian,” like just maybe you’ll be happier. 

Shelley: Ponikenus is this, you know, you can, in his letters and everything about him, he’s just this kind of frustrated, angry guy, but also completely incapable of self-reflection and being like, “How might I have something to do with this situation?” It’s like, “I showed up, and I read my poems at this funeral, and nobody liked them. So, the devil made them not like my poetry.” Or like when, you know, he is called out by other parishioners or people who are like, “I don’t like what you’re preaching,” or “That’s wrong,” or “How can you dare say that?” He thinks not like, “Well, I misspoke. Should I change my sermons?” But he goes, “They’ve been possessed by the devil.” So, he definitely has this persecution complex from the get-go and fails to connect it to any of his own, kind of, you know, foibles or faults. You know, he is obviously meant for great things, and the fact that these have not materialized mean that he’s the centre of a great conspiracy headed up by the devil. 

Ann: It’s very, very much a similar vibe to people who are just like, “I didn’t get this job, and it’s because I’m a white man. You’re against me because I’m white.” It’s like, “No, it’s because you’re not qualified and also annoying.” Like, it’s the same sort of persecution complex, but he takes it in this religious direction. So, like the other pastor who was just kind of like, “Why are all these people dying? Why is it really cold?” It’s like, “Oh, it must be someone. We need to just be on our best behaviour.” And this guy’s like, “Why am I not advancing in the world? Well, it must be because there’s a wide-ranging satanic conspiracy against me.” So, they’re just kind of… and these are the faith leaders of the area. So, he and Elizabeth do not get along. 

Shelley: No. I don’t think at first she even knows he exists, and that’s another thing that really, you know, for a man who is like, “How are you not noticing me?” You know, he’s trying to mingle with the Hungarian elite, and he really sort of a, comes from very low origins, and he’s not terribly well educated. Whereas a lot of these other pastors have moved up in the world; they might’ve come from humble origins, but they’ve gone away to study abroad and come back. So, they’re clever men, and he’s not. He’s a local guy, he’s got a lot of resentment, and he wants to advance in the world. And there’s this powerful woman who’s basically ignoring him, and he’s convinced that, you know, she is somehow part and parcel of the devil’s, you know, plot against him. 

Ann: Does everything kind of kickstart? We’ve got this tinder box of, like, something bad is going to happen, and we’ve set up most of the people. We haven’t talked about Thurzó yet. But does it not happen because this guy, whose name I keep forgetting, and whatever, this guy I hate, he writes a letter to Thurzó accusing Elizabeth Bathory. Is that what kind of started it? 

Shelley: He will do that later on, but he’s definitely been giving sermons about her and spreading rumours about her. So, later, when we get into the testimony, it’s like, people are like, “Well, I keep hearing these things,” and then when you trace it back and trace it back, and you really look at each testimony and go, “Who said what?” the only person who’s saying this is him. And he’s going, “Oh, I’m hearing from a lot of people…” he’s doing that, “Some are saying that she’s a serial killer.” [Ann laughs] And everybody, though, when you go, “Well, who are you hearing it from?” It’s like, it’s Ponikenus, it’s the pastor at this holiday estate that she has. 

And he’s not just saying like, you know, “She doesn’t worship the way we do,” or “She’s probably not the most religious or observant person,” but you know, he’s saying right from the get-go, “She’s a serial killer,” and he’s giving these inflated numbers, you know, like hundreds. So, it’s this idea too, where a lot of these hysterical people have been told over and over that “These are your enemies, your enemies are terrible people, and they’re doing horrible things. They’re eating babies…” I mean, he believes that everyone who’s one of his, you know, religious opponents, that they’re indulging in cannibalism and all sorts of witchcraft, and, you know, they’re trying to kill the king, and him as well, but also that they’re murdering children, because that’s what you do. So, his idea is she’s murdering people, and she’s murdering hundreds of people. And he just starts saying this and starts preaching this, you know, pretty early. 

Ann: I want to mention as well, because you do say this in the book, and you talk about this at more length, but the whole like, “and they’re murdering and eating babies.” It’s like, that’s something that I’ve come across in so many different, like, ancient Rome to whatever. It’s just like, this is how a group shows that their enemies are just true monsters. And it’s like, you see that still today, groups are being like, “Did you see the footage? They were eating babies.” People just draw upon that, because you got a visceral reaction, where it’s just like, “[gasps] Babies! They’re eating babies!” As soon as he was just like, “and they’re eating babies,” I’m just like… As soon as any group accuses another group of that, it’s just like, “Okay, this is not true.” Like, this is just what you say, but he’s accusing her and all of his enemies of this sort of stuff. And you’re right, that whole thing was like, “Well, some people say that this, this, this, this, this…” it’s like, “You’re the first person to say that.” [laughs]

Shelley: [laughs] Like, “But I’ve heard… I have heard…” 

Ann: So, he’s kind of spreading the rumours. And so, we need to talk about Thurzó as well, because he becomes the main guy in terms of, like, Elizabeth facing off on all this stuff. And he’s an ambitious, power-hungry type guy, who hates the Bathorys, right? 

Shelley: Yeah, I think when it starts off, he actually admires Elizabeth very much. And one thing to keep in mind is he’s kind of new money, she’s old money, and he’s trying to break into the aristocracy. He’s got a ton of money, but what he doesn’t have are these, sort of, you know, this cache, these connections. And there’s a point where he’s telling his wife to, like, chase her down, and he’s like, “She’s on the road, go follow her. Show up where she is, invite her to dinner.” He’s trying to get, you know, like, “Elizabeth Bathory, get her over to her house, hang out with her.” And they are, for all intents and purposes, friendly at this time period; they’re going to the weddings of one another’s children, they’re showing up at the same events. He’s happy when she invites him to like her daughter’s engagement party, I mean, he thinks he’s arrived. So, there is this element of envy, but it’s a man who has, you know, decided he wants to rise, and he’s determined to do whatever he needs to do. 

The other thing that’s important to note is that Thurzó also has a son, Elizabeth has one son (she has two daughters and a son) that she’s grooming to take over, right? And he has a son of the exact same age. So, they’re going to be competitors at court, and if you have this old family with all of these honours and connections, he’s going to probably be taking the roles that Thurzó also wants for his son. So, part of this is this idea that, you know, just of noble families jockeying for position at court, like, you know, garden variety, court intrigue. So, a lot of this just sort of initially, kind of, starts off as maybe some jealousy or kind of keeping a close eye on one another. But there’s a point at which, especially early on, where Thurzó would be, you know, very happy to have been invited over to hang out with Elizabeth Bathory. But he’s very, very ambitious, and he kind of sees opportunities along the way, and he takes them. 

And it’s not just Elizabeth Bathory, that’s the other thing I think is important to note, is that he has sold out and turned on a lot of other nobles before we get to his interactions with her. If the emperor, the Habsburg emperor, who is seen as kind of, you know, this foreign overlord, they’re not really, really happy with him, says, “I need somebody to go in and get this guy,” and a lot of other people are like, “Nope, not doing that, because I will be ostracized. I’m not doing that.” And Thurzó is like, “I’ll do it. I’ll do it,” and that’s how he’s rising in court, is by doing a lot of things that other people won’t do. They don’t want to turn in their friends or their, you know, long-time, kind of associate, and Thurzó doesn’t have this complicated web of, you know, loyalties, and he seems to have a very flexible morality. You know, he’s very Machiavellian. He thinks he thinks very highly of himself, but he definitely is able to justify to himself what he wants to do. 

Ann: Again, not at all like any current politicians in the world. 

Shelley: [laughs] No parallels at all. None. 

Ann: Not at all. So, how does it come to be that he comes to Elizabeth’s house to accuse her of being a serial killer? 

Shelley: [deep breath] Okay, I’m trying to, trying to compress this. But one thing that’s important to know is that Elizabeth’s nephew, at this time, we talked about how powerful the Bathorys are, has become the Prince of Transylvania. 

Ann: This is Gabriel. 

Shelley: Gabriel Bathory. 

Ann: I don’t know what this says about me, but I’m always really excited when there’s a really hot person in a story. And everyone talking about Gabriel is just like, “He’s this prince, and he’s so handsome.” 

Shelley: He’s so hot. 

Ann: It’s like, distractingly hot. So, I was just like, “He’s now my favourite character. I like Gabriel, Prince of Transylvania.” It’s just interesting to me because people get mad at him. They say, like, “Oh, he must be seducing everyone’s wives.” It’s like, just because he’s hot doesn’t mean he’s seducing everyone’s wives. Like, calm down, everyone. 

Shelley: And everyone thinks he’s hot. What is so funny too, it’s like, the men think he’s hot, the warriors are like, “This guy’s so strong. He’s so athletic.” Like, they’re like, “Wow, he can do all these really cool athletic things.” So, even these old, battle-hardened, you know, kind of rough and tumble soldiers are enamoured with him. People are like… e definitely is very charismatic and good-looking, and you know, this is a problem. 

Ann: I mean, I won’t tell you the context, but just like, even after he dies and people see his body after a few months, they’re like, “It hasn’t decomposed at all. He’s still just as hot, even as a corpse!” 

Shelley: [laughs] He is so hot, it’s so funny. And, you know, this is, I guess, you could see why he’s such a threat that the Bathorys are controlling, if we remember back to that three-part of Hungary, and really two parts. So, the Habsburgs have one part, and the Bathorys have the other part, essentially. And the goal is always to reunite these parts, right? The dream has been that one day… Right now, the foreign overlords, the Habsburgs, are ruling half of Hungary, but there’s always been this dream that there will be a homegrown Hungarian prince who’s going to, like, reunite everybody. And all of a sudden, you have this young, hot, charismatic, athletic, great warrior prince, and people are saying, “Hmm, maybe this should be the guy that reunites us.” And there’s this idea that the Bathory family, which has, you know, kind of ruled before, might be the ones to sort of pull this off and reunite, you know, Hungary. And Thurzó, who’s working for the Habsburgs, you know, he’s the Habsburgs number one guy in Hungary, is nervous, right? I mean, the Bathorys are now actively threatening his position, his title, all of this. 

So, this is where we’re at; we’re at a Habsburg, Thurzó versus Gabriel Bathory impasse. And one thing Gabriel Bathory does not have, there’s not a lot of Bathory men still surviving, but he’s got all of these very smart, wealthy, influential female relatives who are like, “We will help you,” and Elizabeth among them. You know, “We have the resources, we have the connections.” So, we have this young prince who’s relying a lot on his female relatives, and the problem becomes, what can you do to get rid of political women? Because you can’t deal with them the same way that you can deal with a male rival. You can’t just say, “Come out and fight me in a battle,” right? So, what are you going to do? And the Habsburgs and Thurzó have this kind of quandary of “What am I going to do? How am I going to erode support for this young, hot, handsome Bathory prince and all of the women who are supporting him?” 

Ann: And the thing is, and again, you talk about this in the book and what happens to some of the other female relatives, it’s like, one angle could be like, “She’s a great whore! Let’s just claim that her children are illegitimate,” or whatever, “She’s sleeping with all the men.” It’s like, you could do that. But with Elizabeth, it’s like, her reputation is so well-known, and she’s so known for her religiousness and just being morally upstanding, it’s like, that would never work. So, then it’s like, “Well, what if we say she’s a serial killer?” Which is a wild pivot, but that’s… 

Shelley: [laughs] And you know what? It seems like a wild pivot, but another important bit of context, which I found fascinating, is right before her neighbour is also accused of being a serial killer, a man. But this is like, in order to be able to get somebody out of politics and seize their land, they can’t just commit a normal crime, okay? So, you can’t just commit normal murder because the aristocracy has certain rights, or you can’t just commit normal theft. It has to be extra. 

And so, a lot of people at this time, what the Habsburgs are doing to get rid of their political rivals and, you know, people who might rise up against them or give support to their opponents, is they’re accusing them of these really crazy crimes that enable them to seize their land. And this has become like an ongoing pattern; there’s been a whole rebellion about this. So, it’s important to know that it’s not just Elizabeth, you know, if we take this out of context, that’s accused of this, but there’s these people that are accused of doing these very bizarre things, they’re mutilating bodies. But to know that right before Elizabeth is accused, one of her neighbours, a neighbouring lord, is also accused of being a serial poisoner. Like, “Oh, he’s poisoning everybody,” and goes to trial for this. So, this pivot to serial killer isn’t as odd as it may seem, given that they’ve already tried it. 

Ann: So, it’s kind of like a classic shakedown type thing. 

Shelley: Yes. 

Ann: It’s like, “We want your property. You’re against the Habsburgs. What? You’re also a serial killer? Like all of the Habsburgs’ enemies?” Yeah. Okay. But yeah, you’re right. Because also in this time where it’s just, like, people are dying all the time, if you’re like, you killed one person, that’s not shocking. It has to be like, you killed dozens or hundreds of people in weird ways. Like, you have to go really over the top to make it be appalling, I guess. 

Shelley: And also, just the way the law works, you know, not to get into the minutia of it, but generally speaking, aristocrats are supposed to settle stuff amongst themselves with lawsuits. So, you know, if I kill your son, then you’re going to sue me, and I’m going to have to give you a ton of money, and we’re going to reach some sort of settlement, and nobody else gets involved. So, it has to be this sort of, like you’re saying, so many people, such a huge deal, that that enables the Habsburgs to get involved and then commandeer their property. 

Ann: And so, Thurzó, he comes up with, he’s like, “Okay, we’re going to do the classic calling her a serial killer plan.” And later on in the book, you explain, but also in history, eventually the Roman emperor, Holy Roman emperor, is like, “What are you doing?” Because Thurzó was like, “The emperor told me to do this. I’m doing all this stuff on his orders,” and the emperor is like, “Sorry, what? What are you…? What’s happening?” Because Thurzó just kind of takes it upon himself, it seems like, to just start this, start this ”investigation.” 

Shelley: Right. And so, you know, at the same time that there’s these assassination plots against her nephew, and this is right around the time of, you know, the Gunpowder Plot and all of this, and people are trying to take out her nephew, the prince of Transylvania, they also arrest one of her cousins, a Bathory cousin, and imprison him, and then they open this investigation into Elizabeth all at the same time. So, three Bathorys are all getting hit simultaneously. For Elizabeth, it’s this investigation that Thurzó is doing where he’s sending notaries around to her properties to get people to testify, you know, “Do you know of her killing anybody? How many people has she killed? What have you heard?” And they’re given this immense latitude to like, “You can interview men and women, and you can do this across several counties,” and basically, like, they’re able to kind of come up with like a couple handfuls of people, most of whom are saying, “Well, I heard a rumour. I’ve heard this rumour.”  

Ann: From that pastor! 

Shelley: Right, from this guy. But they’re not coming up with a lot of, a lot of evidence, you know, no one, they don’t have any direct family members who are going, “Yes, this person did kill my family member,” like you did in other cases. So, he’s testing this out, and he’s gathering evidence. But one thing that’s, I think, important is to know that right away, people aren’t jumping on this. There’s not a lot of people that are willing to do it. And in fact, a lot of these things that could easily be rumours tracked down, like they’re not… People aren’t lining up to testify against her. In fact, they seem rather reluctant. 

Ann: Yeah. And I think part of that is just because she’s, I don’t want to say unproblematic, but in terms of like, this is her property, this is her land, she’s the mistress of it, and she’s not, like, some evil overlord that everybody takes an opportunity to slam. They’re all like, “She’s fine. She seems fine.” Like, if she was widely hated or feared, this would be the opportunity for people to testify against her, and the fact that no one does— Not that anyone listening to this podcast should think, “Oh, maybe she was a serial killer,” but like, even if she was widely hated, like this is where her enemies could jump on it and they’re not really. So, I think that’s notable. 

Shelley: Yeah. And there’s been this idea that people are so afraid of her, you know, it’s been floated that maybe they don’t want to testify because they’re scared of what she’ll do, but it’s also, I guess, important to know that at this time period, there’s a lot of civil suits. And in fact, there’ll be other cases of people where, before there’s even a criminal case, you can just sort of say, you know, “Hey, I think that this is shady,” and people will settle to make it go away, as they do today. So, there’s actually an incentive, particularly for people who don’t have money, if you do have something that seems somewhat legitimate, to file a complaint. 

And there are tons of complaints in the records about Elizabeth, but none of them have to do with cruelty. They’re all about like, you know, other men, like, is this land thing happening or, you know, tax thing happening? But none of it is about any sort of physical cruelty, violence, or mistreatment of her serfs, which is interesting too. So, it’s not as though there are no complaints, and she’s shutting everybody down. It’s just the complaints are all of sort of this, like, legal, financial, property rights, this person owes me this… up to now. 

Ann: So, there’s always just like, “Okay, no one’s really giving me stuff that I can work with to like accuse her of this.” But then there’s like… I’m jumping ahead wildly. But there’s some sort of rule where if you catch somebody in the act, then you’re able to arrest them. So, he’s just like, “Okay, I’m going to go and catch her in the act of killing somebody.” But also, it has to be in the act of killing somebody in, like, a weird, grotesque way or something like that. 

Shelley: Yeah, you have to have mutilation of the body. So, you can commit murder, like, that’s not— I mean, there would be a lawsuit, you’d have to settle with the victim’s family. But this mutilation of the body is this one technicality, because that proves, you know, you’re not a good Christian, right? It’s not just a murder, it’s not just an act of passion or an act of revenge. It’s like something devilish and demonic and weird, if you’re doing something to people’s bodies. So, it has to be not just that she’s murdering someone, but that she’s mutilating their body. 

Ann: And Elizabeth knows that he’s doing this investigation. Like, she’s not unaware, but she also is trusting the fact that her family is so powerful. And also at this time period, it’s the holidays, she knows that nothing can happen until, what is it? Like, Parliament is back in session or something. So, she’s doing what she can to sort of counteract this. She has a letter of support that she gets somebody to write. It was like the mother of a girl who did die, or something like that. 

Shelley: Yeah, she’s definitely aware of it and starting to gather, like you said, gather testimonies, and it looks like she’s gearing up for a court battle. She’s expecting that she’s going to be summoned or be arrested, and you can see that she’s making arrangements for that. But she’s expecting that this is going to happen in the spring because, as you said, nothing’s going to happen over the Christmas holidays. The snow is so deep, you know, nobody can get anywhere. So, she has a little bit of time to figure out what she wants to do and how she wants to, you know, kind of confront this. And so, it’s like a surprise raid and the end of the year. 

Ann: It’s like, December 29th, right? Like, she’s having dinner, and Thurzó just shows up to be like, “Whaaaat? You’re killing someone in front of me?” Like, he just shows up. 

Shelley: Well, and he also has gotten word, we find out through the sources, from local pastors, that there’s a group of girls, five girls, who are in quarantine, who are sick. And the sources are very clear that they are sick, not that they have been tortured or hurt in any way, but that they are ill. He’s gotten word that these girls are sick, and he may have gotten word that one of them has died. So, there seems to be some reason that he strikes when he does, assuming there will be a body to find. 

Ann: And these girls are from her finishing school. Like, the reason why there’s girls on her property— She has servant girls, but she also has this school. Like, there’s reasons for girls to be there. 

Shelley: Yeah. And in this case, these appear to be servant girls. These are servant girls that are sick or girls from the local state. The girl who does die is a maid, and we know her name, but just her first name. But these are just girls that are being treated in the infirmary that are sick.  

Ann: Oh, because you said also people just went there for health care, because where else were they going to go? 

Shelley: Yeah, absolutely. That’s where you go. This is the place where you go. And also, that will treat women. So, women treating women for any sort of… And they’re being kept in quarantine. They’d been seen by local pastors and priests, so this isn’t anything secret, the pastors have come in, and they’re like, “Oh, these girls are sick. They are sick.” There’s an epidemic going on at the time, and these girls are very weak, and presumably they’re there to offer prayers for their recovery. And one of the girls does not recover. She dies. 

Ann: And Thurzó is just like, “Great. If I go there, I’m going to find a dead girl’s body and then I can be like, ‘Oh my God, look! She was murdered and mutilated!’” So, this is kind of why he jumps on this particular timing. 

Shelley: It seems to be, yes. 

Ann: And he goes in, and she’s like literally having dinner. She’s just sitting there having dinner, and he comes in and… Well, explain what happens. [chuckles] 

Shelley: So, you know, essentially, he comes in, he surprises her over the course of having dinner. He searches the whole house, and this is with his own private army. So, this is with men that are loyal to Thurzó; it’s important to know these aren’t agents of the crown, these aren’t an imperial army. So, the only witnesses, the only people conducting the search, are people that are in the employ of Thurzó himself. And he seems kind of freaked out that he isn’t able to find anything, right? Like, they search the— 

Ann: Go figure! 

Shelley: And they find this one dead girl, and they have these other sick girls. And he’s upset, you know, but it’s also like, he’s writing to his wife throughout this, so you can also like sort of check his, you know, his gout is bothering him. This isn’t like, “Oh my God, I uncovered this horrific thing.” This is business, and he’s irritated at Elizabeth. 

The next day, he puts on a little show for the townspeople. He kind of gathers everybody he can together, and he brings out this corpse in some sort of cart, I am picturing it in a wheelbarrow, but you know, it’s probably just like a cart. And he’s like, “Look at this body, and you can see there are marks upon it, which are evidence of mutilation.” And so, you know, these peasants are paraded, there’s a handful of people, it’s less than 20 people, past this dead body, and you know, “See, there’s purple here, that’s evidence of bruising,” they’re told, or some sort of, you know, beating, et cetera. Although all of these marks, I kind of go through it very carefully in the book, but there’s a lot of good medical explanations with dead bodies and how blood pools and, you know, just things do get a little purple immediately after death, and given the amount of time we know she was dead, this all matches up with what we would expect to see. 

There’s these two readings of Thurzó as has he convinced himself because he wants to be a good moral guy that, you know, Elizabeth really is bad, and he’s just doing what he’s doing because he’s a good guy and he’s seeing what he wants to see? Or is he more cynically kind of setting this up? 

Ann: That one. That’s my choice. [chuckles]

Shelley: But, you know, he definitely puts on the show. And then there’s another girl who’s there who’s injured, and they also bring her out, you know, so everybody can see her injuries. She has these deep gashes on her back, and she has this hand, everybody’s obsessed with their hand, it’s “Anna of the mangled hand” to see this hand. A lot of people in the months after will go to where she’s being treated by another doctor to see her mangled hand, and everybody’s very interested in this hand. But the only testimony we get about this is she says it has turned black and that this woman who works for Elizabeth has cut off the black parts with scissors, has snipped off the black flesh. But that’s what you did in those days for gangrene, or for any sort of infection. 

Ann: Or frostbite, or whatever, yeah. 

Shelley: Right. Something bad has happened to her hand, and they have treated it as one did, you know, was commonplace by cutting off the black, infected flesh. But that’s also given as evidence of mutilation. 

Ann: Well, and you suggest – and who knows what happened to this girl, there’s not a lot about it – but it sounds like she might have been attacked by a wild animal, sort of thing. 

Shelley: Absolutely. And the thing that’s interesting is she’s whisked away. The doctor who treats her isn’t ever called to testify, and she’s given some money and her family’s given a farm, and no one ever hears from her. But there’s all of these things that come, like, she’s nearby, they could just call her into court, and she could say, “Yes, I was tortured by this woman,” but she’s kept under wraps, right? Like, no one wants Anna of the mangled hand to come in and testify. 

Ann: So, this is where it gets sort of… This is not the usual order of things. Like, you don’t usually arrest— Elizabeth was preparing for this to proceed in the normal way, and like you said, she’s got all these lawyers and people in her family, like, she knows how court cases usually work. So, she’s preparing for what she thinks is going to happen, and Thurzó is doing this completely out of sequence order thing where he just kind of was like, “I just saw her killing people. We’re putting her under house arrest,” basically. So, what does he do? 

Shelley: He does. He’s basically brokered a deal where he goes to her family, and at this point, her terrified underage son, and is like, “Look, I can have your mom executed. Why don’t you guys just agree that we’re going to leave her here? This way, you keep the family lands, and she stays under wraps. Will you guys agree to this?” And starts kind of working out a deal with, you know, the rest of the family members about how they could divide up her property. This way, she’s out of the way, her support for the Prince of Transylvania is out of the way, and she’s just going to stay under house arrest for the rest of her life. 

They’ve decided this before there’s been any sort of trial or anything, that’s the agreement. And you know this because there’s letters between the family members, like, “Well, it’s not fair that you said this,” and they’re haggling over and talking about what he’s doing or not doing. But the punishment has already been decided on. Even this crazy Pastor Ponikenus,c you know, less than 24 hours after she’s been arrested, is writing, “Okay, we know that she’s going to be locked up for the rest of her life.” So, they’ve decided this before, you know, there’s been any sort of investigation or any sort of trial, that they’re going to move ahead with this, and that’s what they want to do. 

Obviously, there are some complications, but this whole idea is that the family is going to go along with it and she’s going to be under house arrest, you know, until she dies, and in exchange for their silence, that they will get kind of choice bits of property and money. 

Ann: Which is not how this should work, or how this usually works. But in this kind of like, extremely corrupt scenario, this is what is going to happen. And so, she’s understandably being like, “No. I’m going to fight this. Let’s have a court trial.” So, she’s writing letters to people and trying to figure out a way for this to go better, right? 

Shelley: Yeah, throughout this time period, she is writing letters. And there seems to be, like, there’s a couple points where she almost gets her way. Like, there’s a point where there seems to be a lot of sympathy among a lot of local pastors who are going, “Maybe this isn’t really what happened. This is kind of more of a misunderstanding.” 

And then, there’s also another point where the Holy Roman Emperor, you know, who’s the Habsburgs are like, “We should probably have a trial,” and they’re preparing for a trial, they’re saying, “Let’s have a trial.” And Thurzó is completely going, “No, no, no. We really shouldn’t.” And they’re like, “No, no. We’re having a trial. Send us these papers by this date.” That date comes, he’s like, “Oops, I forgot. I got busy. Now everybody’s gone home. We can’t have the trial.” They’re like, “We’re still going to have the trial.” And you see this series of delays and kind of obfuscations, and he’s coming up with excuses, whereas everybody else is saying, “Let’s do this by the book. Let’s have a trial.” 

Ann: Oh, and meanwhile, four of her servants have been taken off and tortured. 

Shelley: Yes. And Thurzó takes them to his estate. This is highly irregular because typically, you are arrested and tried and tortured, if you are tortured, but in the vicinity where you committed your crime or where you are arrested. So, he takes them completely off of, you know, Elizabeth Bathory’s estates. But also, significantly, he’s worried about, you know, she might, I guess, exert too much influence over public opinion there. There are a lot of closer towns that are free towns that she doesn’t have influence over, where he could just move them. But this is dead of winter, he’s got to take four people, like, in chains, in carts through a mountain pass. Like, he’s really dedicated to this; he’s putting a lot of time and resources into making sure that this happens on his territory and that the torture is conducted by people who are loyal to him and work for him, and that the trial of these four servants is conducted by people who are loyal to and work for and owe their loyalty to him. 

So, her four servants are given trials and, you know, it’s all very kind of sad and horrific and tragic, and there will be other women in Elizabeth Bathory’s circle as well that will be caught up in this. 

Ann: Yeah. But just to be clear, these people, they’re put on trial, I think, all except for one of the servants are executed, other people in her life wind up executed, and she’s just stuck in her house. 

So, can we do some myth-busting about… She’s not trapped, she’s not bricked up in a room? 

Shelley: No. She’s not walled in, and there’s not like, the slot for food, although that did happen to a contemporary of hers, so it’s understandable, as you kind of dig into this, like, how those wires got crossed, you know? That wasn’t out of the realm of question, and it did happen to other women. Although in her case, it seems like she was under a sort of elevated house arrest. You know, people were coming and going, she was sending letters, people were coming to visit her. She was sending orders, she was continuing to oversee things and send, for example, her sons-in-law out to, you know, sell this, and do this, and bring the money back for my defence. So, she is able to kind of mount this act of defence, where she is under house arrest in one of her castles. 

Ann: Well, just because that’s part of the – and I think I said this in my episode, because at that point, that’s all I knew – but it does, part of her myth is that (we’ll talk about the other parts of the myth) like, she killed all these girls, and then she was arrested, and then she was put in this, like, I don’t even know, one meter by one meter room, and like, bricked in, and she could never leave, and there’s just a slot to put the food. So, that’s not… She’s in her castle, maybe just like, limited to a certain part of it, but she’s able to walk and write letters and communicate to the outside world. So, it’s the sort of house arrest that happens to a very rich person in this era. 

Shelley: Yeah. And it’s not nearly as comfortable; she would have a manor house, and this is like, a drafty knight’s castle, so we can imagine it’s a little inconvenient and cold, but it’s not, yeah, she’s not walled up in a tower, you know, sort of brooding over the landscape. She is still having contact, and in fact, we know her daughter visits her, we know that she’s getting family members who are coming in, and she’s giving orders. There’s one instance where she has her daughter go and get the jewels out of the manor house, break into the treasury, get them, so Thurzó or other family members can’t commandeer them. So, she’s still like taking a very active role in her defence, and writing petitions, and kind of calling on her allies to do what they can, you know, to get her out. 

It seems like, you know, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that she will be granted either a trial or, if not a trial, a pardon, because there are other cases with noble women who are accused of similar crimes after her. What typically happens is they have to go sit in their prison for a year or two, then beg for a pardon. Then the family basically pays off the Habsburgs with, like, a big gift or a choice property, and then they are able to either, you know, be released and maybe go across the border to Poland or to another country. So, you know, it seems like there might be a way out if she plays her cards right, if not out and out exoneration, then some sort of pardon or exile. 

Ann: Exactly. She never stops fighting. She’s not just kind of like, “Well, I guess I’m in jail. That’s the end.” Like, she’s always writing letters, lobbying for herself, getting her daughter to take the jewels and stuff, as you said. But ultimately, she gets sick and dies while in house arrest. 

Shelley: Yeah. And there is also the sense that Thurzó might have moved when he did, where she’s been complaining in some of the letters of ailments. It’s hard to know what is new and what’s a chronic condition. But he may have moved when he did, not just because of, you know, he knew there was a dead girl, but also because there was news that, you know, she wasn’t in the best health and the idea that they could just kind of wait her out. 

Ann: And this is a really interesting thing as well. Like, in the book you explain, she dies and then kind of everyone stops talking about it for quite a while, which I found really interesting that it’s not like, “Oh, wow, this serial killer, she killed hundreds of girls, and now she’s dead.” It’s kind of, “Okay, let’s just not talk about that anymore.” 

Shelley: There’s this really odd silence about it, the same way that there is, like, after the Salem witch trials or a lot of other things, where you could tell people are like, “Mmm, maybe we didn’t get that quite right.” And the reason why I say it’s so especially odd is, at this time period, like, true crime broadsides are bestsellers. Like, people are writing books and printing these things that are like, “Look what this horrific person did.” And there’s all of these things in circulation about these serial killers, right, that are illustrating their crimes. There’s even a book in circulation about one of her aunts who was supposedly a huge slut, discussing that. So, it’s odd that nobody writes a book. There’s no broadside. There’s no mention of anything that this woman, who supposedly killed 650 girls in these very horrific ways, like, it just stops. 

I guess, we could say, why is that? Is it that, you know, the Habsburgs had, or Thurzó had accomplished his purposes, and there was, you know, she wasn’t needed. There wasn’t any reason to pursue this case because they had gotten what they wanted, right? 

Ann: Actually, I want to backtrack one minute just to explain where we get this 600 number from. 

Shelley: Sure. So, this is in the, I believe it’s the third round of testimony, after the servants have been tortured as part of their trial, where finally, it’s the first time that women are actually interviewed, right? Because initially, it’s just these men who have never been in the castle who are interviewed. They actually interview some women, and there’s a girl named Susannah, she’s the only witness in the entire case who we don’t know a family name. Every other woman is, you know, wife of so-and-so, daughter of so-and-so, some sort of family affiliation, so we can track her down. She’s just Susannah, the servant girl, and she claims that she has heard… So, she says that this is all from hearsay, that another guy, so this is third hand, who works for Elizabeth Bathory, who lives a hundred miles away, found this diary or some sort of account that had listed 650 names that Elizabeth Bathory had signed it in her own hand. And that’s where we get this 650 number from, right? 

But what’s really fascinating is at the exact same time that she makes this accusation, there’s another case of a serial killer, German male serial killer, and part of what’s in the news and all over the press is this idea that he’s keeping a diary where he lists out all of his victims and, you know, has signed the list and that’s part of why he is caught. And so, it’s really interesting that this kind of, presumably illiterate servant girl who’s never met this man and never seen this herself has this account that’s virtually identical to this other account that’s very popular in the press right then about a serial killer who writes down the names of all of his victims. 

Ann: But this is where we get— Okay, so like, we’ve gotten to the part of the story, Elizabeth herself is dead, RIP, and the legend of her takes off and the legend, like the Guinness Book of World Records of it all, includes this 600 number, which is just one person was like, the same as the preacher. It’s like, “Well, I heard… Someone told me, don’t remember who, that it was 600.” It’s like, “Great, that’s a fact. Let’s assume that’s true.” Like, if 600 girls had gone missing from the— And you say it a couple times in the book, it’s like, “The population was this, if this many people went missing…” This would have been noted, and it’s not. 

Shelley: Right. And there’s also certain time periods when this is supposed to be happening, where they’re taking intricate censuses of every household. So, people are going door-to-door, going like, “How many people are in your household?” And no one’s saying, you know, “I had a bunch of daughters and they all just, you know, went missing.” 

The other thing to keep in mind is a lot of these accusations aren’t just that she’s killing these like… Later, it became that she was killing these nameless, peasant girls, because, you know, that way you don’t have to find a victim. But initially, it was that she was killing and murdering family friends, that there was a conspiracy, not just of her, she was heading it up, but there was a gang of noble women who were essentially child trafficking children, a lot of times their own children, to be murdered. In a lot of ways, it’s very similar to an ‘80s satanic panic, like the daycare sort of thing, that these people were all doing these weird blood rituals with these kids and that she was heading it up and, you know, she has these dedicated girl snatchers. But a lot of these accusations were, “Oh no, she’s killing her friends, she’s killing family members.” In one case, it was like her own daughter was supposed to be helping her. Other cases, it was, you know, anyone who came to her defence, was a lot of these noble women who were lower down, but like, worked at her court, were also similarly accused. 

So, for a while, there was this idea that there was this huge child trafficking ring, all of these women were involved. And then, all of a sudden, after she dies, it’s like complete silence. No one’s worried about the child trafficking murder cult anymore. 

Ann: Well, and also in terms of the sort of “torturing” of bodies, like, you talk about in the book, and I found this so interesting, that some of the things that people did say, or they had heard happen, coincide with what medical treatments might have been that the old woman might have been. So, if you’re watching somebody, for instance, I think you say in the book, like, if you pull out a tooth, a necrotic tooth, and then you cauterize the wound, if someone doesn’t know that like that’s going to save the person’s life, you’re just like, “Well, that person’s putting a red hot thing into the mouth, that must be torture.” So, like, some of the things that people do say they saw happen at her house are probably just medical interventions they didn’t understand. 

Shelley: Absolutely. I mean, some of this, like the, you mentioned this in your first episode, like the ice bathing, and they’re like, that’s what you were supposed to do for plague victims because one, you have to keep their fever down, right? And that’s the only thing we have is, like, dunk them in a river, ice water, you’ve got to get the fever down because we know they’ll die if you don’t. And the other thing you have to keep in mind is a lot of these diseases, but plague in particular, is very gross because people are, you know, shitting themselves constantly. So, you’re also trying to, like, keep them, keep them clean. So, for a lot of people, you’re like, yeah, of course, like you’re constantly having to bathe them, and you’re going to go take people and dunk them in a river. You can’t keep the bath water going at this, at this volume, right? But other people are like, “Oh my gosh, you’re dunking someone in their clothes and in a river. And that’s a punishment, or that’s torture because obviously it’s probably not super fun.” 

Ann: And you know, and like a girl who that’s happening to who’s sick, might scream or be scared of it. So, if you see, like, a girl who’s terrified, being plunged into the river, you’re like, “Oh wow, that person’s punishing them.” Like you don’t know… 

Shelley: Yeah, there’s a lot of descriptions too of cupping. I don’t know if you’ve ever had that done, I had it done recently just for a little thing on my neck, but where, you know, they’re using suction and they talk about, “Oh, there’s a girl on the ground and she’s surrounded with candles and these cups,” and they’re talking about how you would use the candle. You’d put it in the cup, you know, with the hot and the cold to create a vacuum. And so, what they’re describing is cupping. It also begs the question of, like, the person giving the testimony is an older male, and you’re like, why are you spying on a prepubescent naked girl getting cupping on her abdomen to begin with? Like, that’s a little odd. But even if you are, like, they’re seeing it as this is a satanic ritual, where anybody else in the know would say, “Oh, it sounds like they’re not torturing the girl. There was no complaint that the girl was in pain or screaming or anything, but just that this seems satanic, this seems suspect, because there were candles and, you know, they were doing it behind a closed door.” 

Ann: And because, also, I think that it’s kind of, the old woman, this kind of female healer, like this is exactly the time period where a lot of witch accusations start happening in other parts of Europe. So, I think there’s some suspicion of like, what are women doing? What are these “secret rituals” that women are doing to girls? So, it’s like, these female healers are under suspicion, and so that gets all kind of packaged up in this too. 

Shelley: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, this takes place right at the end of what they call the Age of Queens, all of these Renaissance queens, you know, ruling in the very beginning of what they call the great hunt and, you know, the witchcraft panics. And so, this is that weird time period where we’re really scared of women in power, and also, we’re really freaked out by female healers, and what are we going to do? In fact, you know, there is a woman close to, you know, Elizabeth Bathory, who is executed for witchcraft, along with, right after the servants. So, you know, that is directly tied to, like, the witchcraft panic that’s going to envelop most of this area very soon. 

Ann: And so, Elizabeth Bathory dies, and then everyone kind of stops talking about it because they don’t need to anymore, they don’t need to spoil her name because they’ve got the land and money and stuff they wanted. And then, it’s like a hundred years later, a guy finds the documents of this, and he’s like, “This is great for me in my job as writing travel guides.” [laughs] 

Shelley: [laughs] I mean, and also he’s a Catholic priest, so he has this theory that… He misreads the sources as what happens with Elizabeth Bathory, and thinks that she was originally Catholic – because there are a lot of Catholic Bathorys, you could see how that would happen – he thinks that she was a Catholic who converted to Protestantism, and look what happened. So, this is also his like, “Look what happens, guys,” because we’re the counter-Reformation at this time period, and there’s this big PR campaign, like “You want to stay Catholic because if you don’t, like you’re going to go crazy, bad things are going to happen.” So, this is like the poster child for this. Like, here’s this example of this woman who had it all, and she left the Catholic faith, and then, next thing you know, she’s a serial killer. So, don’t be like her. 

Ann: And so, this is where, like, there’s this pause where kind of no one’s talking about it, that he finds this, and this is also the time period where people are really excited about vampires. So, he writes, he invents the whole thing of, she liked to bathe in the blood of young virgins, which is like part of her legend today. Like, that’s not even from her timeline, it’s from this guy later on, who just wanted to sell his, you know, stay Catholic/let me be your travel guide book. 

Shelley: Absolutely. It’s so fascinating that we have this one, like, you know, obscure priest who starts this rumour, and everybody’s just… Imaginations are inflamed by it, and they latch onto it, and then this continues, you know, that we’re repeating it now. I mean, I don’t know how many travel guides he sold, but, you know, it’s like super successful, right? Like, he managed to pull that off. 

And it influences everything. It influences the development of psychiatry and how, you know, we talk about significance, a lot of things about female vanity and how women are treated and ideas about hysteria that we’re going to see later. It influences, you know, the Brothers Grimm, and a lot of kind of folklore, and myths and fairytales. We see Elizabeth Bathory resuscitated as Snow White’s evil stepmother, or a lot of other figures. And we see her kind of used even as I think in the Cold War, as like, you know, an image of this horrific, behind the Iron Curtain, you know, scary Hungarian vampire woman. And then later, obviously, she’s latched onto by, you know, video games and horror films and, you know, and has kind of become this larger-than-life figure. That’s the screen, you know, where we can project a lot of our anxieties about women in power and also, you know, like female rage. You know, this is what happens when women get angry. 

Ann: Yeah. Well, and because, in the anger that in common understanding, is that she’s a woman, you know, in her fifties, and she’s jealous of these young girls, and she determines that, like, “If I kill girls and bathe in their blood, it’ll keep me young and beautiful.” So yeah, there’s something about a fear of aging, but also a fear of older women, when that was never part of her actual… The actual propaganda against her at the time was never like, “She was jealous of beauty,” like that was never what anyone was talking about, I don’t think. 

Shelley: Right. I mean, she was a politically active widow, right? And there were concerns that maybe she was on the wrong side religiously, or she was too involved with her nephew. I mean, they take all political agency away from her, right? The only thing that women can be, powerful women are worried about, is keeping their good looks, right? That’s all that she was interested in. And I think the Victorians loved it and latched onto this story as well. You know, I mean, she wasn’t like a powerful female ruler, she was just a woman who was, you know, driven, became crazed because she was fearful she would lose her husband’s affections, you know? Or she would age and be supplanted by someone younger. So strange. 

Ann: Yeah. And so, the fact that it’s like, this is what her story was, and then this is what the legend was. And the fact that there’s a clear hundred-year period where no one was talking about it, I think, really can clearly delineate where the legend started. Like, it was this guy, it was this priest in the 1700s who was just like, “Oh, this is a great story!” 

And so, you say, I think it’s just in the epilogue of your book, like you went on some sort of like spooky tour and they’re like, “Let me tell you about Elizabeth Bathory.” I’m just trying to picture you on that tour at this point, listening to these legends. [laughs]

Shelley: You know, it was tough, and I was like, “Bite your tongue.” But I mean, you can go on Elizabeth Bathory, spooky Elizabeth Bathory tours, or tours that will have a mention of her everywhere from Budapest to Vienna to Bratislava. I mean, they will work her in. And I mean, obviously, everybody’s like, “Oh, let’s make this as salacious and interesting as possible. This is a fun story.” 

But there’s this real commitment to people wanting the story to be true, which is kind of what surprised me. I mean, there’s like sort of the casual viewer, the people who are like, “Let’s work a mention of this and because it’s fun,” but there also are people, you know, scholars, historians, kind of fans that really, really, really want there to be a story of a woman who is just as violent, if not more so, than a man, that are really invested in the story or really delight in the story, you know, who like to illustrate it and make it this sort of kind of sexual overtones of this older woman, you know, S and M, like, harming younger, you know, and it’s always like, nubile young women in this version of the story. I think what we forget is, like, in the original story and the accusations, these are children. You know, this is an accusation that there’s a woman killing and harming children. These are prepubescent girls. 

Ann: Like, eight-year-old, ten-year-old, little girls. Yeah. 

Shelley: Yeah. These are not, like, a 20-year-old sort of, you know, kind of half-naked woman with her bosoms heaving, you know? This is a story about trafficking and killing children. 

Ann: What you just said about how people are committed to wanting to believe it’s true, it really reminds me of the Jack the Ripper story. 

Shelley: Yes. 

Ann: Like Hallie Rubenhold wrote her book a few years ago, The Five, where she kind of like debunked the fact that the victims were all “prostitutes.” Like, she just explains, here’s who these women are, and here’s how they died, and here’s who they were. And she got so much backlash for that because people, there’s so many people who are really invested in who was Jack the Ripper, and part of that understanding is like, you have to see these women as less than people. You can’t have fun investigating it if you, like, see the humanity of these women and what they were doing and what circumstances brought them to this. And like, there’s so much in London, like, Jack the Ripper tours, the same way you’re saying about Elizabeth Bathory, it’s like there’s a whole tourism industry dependent on this. They can’t change the narrative now, because that’s what people want. It’s a weird thing. 

Shelley: Yeah. The investment in the legend, I think, is something that I was struck by over and over, and that kind of really puzzled me, and I really kind of struggled with understanding. 

Ann: So, just to sort of wrap up our discussion, what I would like to do, and I did do an episode of Elizabeth Bathory ages ago, but I would love to revisit with you her score in these four categories, if you have time. 

Shelley: Absolutely. 

Ann: We’ve been talking for— I always tell people, I’m like, “It’ll be, like, an hour.” It’s never an hour. [both laugh] Don’t worry about it! 

So, I have these four categories. I’m curious to see, like, if we score her, where she will land versus where her original score was. So, the first category is how scandalous was she? And this is how scandalous was she seen in her time and era. This is tricky because some people, like that pastor, were just like, “She’s a woman with power, and she doesn’t respect me, and that’s scandalous,” or like “She ate meat on a Friday,” or whatever. And then there was this trial. So, I don’t know. Like, in her actual time and era, like how scandalous do you think people saw her? 0 to 10. 

Shelley: See, this was tough because I was like, you know, obviously if you bought into it, you’d be like scandalous, that’s like, 9 out of 10. But in her time period, you know, I’m thinking this is more like a 5 or less. And the reason I’m saying that is that she was not known… You know, people don’t seem to have believed it, like at least, you know, or any more than they believed it against some of her other contemporaries. So, I’m going with… I’m going to go with 5 out of 10. 

Ann: I think 5 kind of balance, like, how scandalous was she in her life versus… I mean, it is kind of scandalous that she was arrested and stuff. I’m sure there are people who are angry about her being, like, a woman in power, but I think that’s fair. Like, if she did what she actually was accused of doing, that would be much different. 

So, the next category is Schemieness, which is just kind of like, how much did she… I feel like just the fact that you’re talking about, like, she was always taking people to court, or she kind of knew how the system worked, or she knew who to appeal to. Like, I feel like she was always there with a plan. 

Shelley: Yeah, I say 6 out of 10. My rationale is not just with the taking people to court, but she’s also, like, deeply involved in a lot of rebellions, and sort of like, the court intrigue of the time period, going back and forth when her brother was alive. And so, she definitely was raised in, like, a schemey family, you know, just like a Medici woman would have to be pretty savvy. We have evidence that she was, although I don’t think she was over-the-top schemey; I think she would have just been appropriately schemey, given her Bathory family background. 

Ann: Appropriately schemey. 6 out of 10 seems fair. 

The next one is Significance. So, the significance to both, I would say, before the trial, like, her significance just in her involvement in politics and stuff, and then also significance now, just how famous she is. Like, if we balance that out, I think that’s going to be a pretty high score. 

Shelley: Yeah. Where are you coming in on this? Because I’m… 

Ann: Where are you coming in? [laughs] 

Shelley: I’m feeling like an 8 or a 9. And the reason is, I think she’s hugely significant in her time period. Like, if this had not happened to her, and her and her nephew had been able to sort of pull off what they were attempting, this would have altered the trajectory of all of Europe, right? So, this is huge. I also think significance in terms of contemporary impact, in terms of pop culture, and her influences on psychiatry and criminology, and you know, things of that nature, I think are huge. I think even people who aren’t familiar with her life or legend or her exact name have some vague knowledge of this. Like, isn’t there some noble woman who was wound up in a tower or bathed in blood? They know some variation of this story. 

Ann: Absolutely. I think a 9 is appropriate there. 

The final category is the Sexism Bonus, which is: How much was she negatively affected by sexism? I think that’s a pretty high score. I think if she had been… Like, she did quite well in her life up until her husband died, really. But at that point, she didn’t have a male protector. If it had been a man, if it had been like Earnest Bathory, like he would have gone and fought wars and probably would have retained a lot of his territory if he was good at battles. But because she was a woman, she was seen as vulnerable, and all these guys were able to take advantage of that. 

Shelley: Yeah. I’m 10 out of 10 with Sexism. This story does not go the same way with her being a male, even with the exact same attributes, accused of the exact same thing; it doesn’t go down the same way. 

Ann: So, this, I think… I’m going to just double-check my math in my head… Yeah, so this ends up with a score of 30. And interestingly, the last time I talked about her, I gave her a 29. So, she gets one more point on this scale. I don’t remember what I gave her in which category, but I do think that moving her up into the thirties, like 30 versus a 29, does get her up into a higher category on the scale. But I’m glad that it wasn’t so far off in the first place with the research that I had access to in 2019. 

So, Shelley, so your book, The Blood Countess, is coming out… Or when this episode comes out, your book is out, people can get it wherever. I imagine you’re going to be having various launch events and stuff. Is there a place where people can keep up with where you’re going to be and stuff? 

Shelley: Yeah, my website is ShelleyPuhak.com. So, please check events there and, you know, be happy too to have people who have questions, comments, or are super interested in this story, whether you’re just learning about Elizabeth Bathory, or I know there are a lot of people out there who are kind of hardcore and have been digging into this for years. I’m excited to get the opportunity to interact with you and kind of hear your own sort of theories and questions. And I just also wanted to mention, for folks who don’t have a lot of time, in the book itself, there’s this short little appendix, I think it’s just a couple of pages, but it just debunks some of the top myths about Elizabeth Bathory. Like, did she have an illegitimate child? You know, is she connected to Dracula? Did she have epilepsy? You know, those sorts of things. So, if you want like a sort of quick overview, the back of the book, the appendix is the place to go. 

Ann: Well, I feel like that’s where you can go too if you’re going to a pub quiz or something, and somebody has a question, you can be like, “Um, actually, that’s not true. And here’s the evidence.” Just flip to— Carry the book around with you, basically. 

Anyway. Thank you, Shelley, so much for talking with me about your book. I’m so happy to have this book in the world. I’m glad to have Elizabeth Bathory’s story revisited in this feminist, like investigative, objective sort of way, after it’s been so many books based on so many weird rumours for so long. But also, it’s just a delight to talk to you as well. 

Shelley: Thank you so much for having me back. This was such fun for me too. 

—————

So again, Shelly’s book, it’s available now wherever you get your books from, and the title again is The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, her book about Elizabeth Bathory. I really hope that all the people who read it, it can kind of start slowly righting the ship of historical knowledge, just so that Elizabeth Bathory, eventually, maybe she won’t be in Guinness Book of World Records anymore, for instance. 

Anyway, and Shelley and I, I think outside of the podcast, I don’t think it was part of what we recorded, we’re both hoping… My book, Rebel of the Regency, about Caroline of Brunswick is now available, her book, The Blood Countess is now available. We’re hoping that in some bookstore somewhere, they’re both next to each other, maybe on a shelf of, like, new books about women’s history or something. So hopefully, anyway, super recommend this book. Everybody should read it, it’s a fantastic book. 

If you want to get my book, Rebel of the Regency, it’s available now. You can get all the information about my book and where to buy it at RebelOfTheRegency.com. And as well there, there’s information about some events I have coming up. I’m going to be in Halifax, Nova Scotia on February 19th, at the Central Library. And on February 27th, I’ll be in Vancouver, British Columbia, at Iron Dog Books. And I’ve got more events on the horizon. So, stay tuned for information about all of that. All the information about these events is at RebelOfTheRegency.com, and just click on ‘Events.’ 

And if you’ve got a copy of my book and you want to talk about it with other readers, I’ve set up a chat for that on Instagram; it should be apparent where that is. I’m posting about it a lot there, but there’s an Instagram group chat where you can talk about the book. There’s also a chat set up in my Patreon, which you can join at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. So, for all paid members there, you can have a chat there. And then also, I’ve got a Discord that some Patreon members can join, and there’s a chat there, because I want to have a place where everybody can talk to everybody else about this book, because there’s lots to talk about. 

Anyway, until next time, my friends, keep your pants on and your tits out. 

Vulgar History is researched, scripted, and hosted by Ann Foster. Editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. Regency Era artwork by Karyn Moynihan. Social media videos by Magdalena Denson. Transcripts of this podcast are available at VulgarHistory.com by Aveline Malek. You can get early, ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon at Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. Vulgar History merchandise is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store for Americans and for everyone else at VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. Follow us on social media @VulgarHistoryPod. Get in touch with me via email at VulgarHistoryPod@gmail.com.

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