Lore - REMASTERED – Episode 34: All the Lovely Ladies

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

We return to Transylvania, and the reign of the Bloody Countess herself, Elizabeth Bathory. This remastered classic episode features fresh narration and production, along with a brand new bonus story at the end. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com ———————— ©2022 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved. Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

For the past few decades, a vast global audience has been rediscovering ancient fairy tales through the lens of the animated films pioneered by Disney. They've simplified and popularized some of the bigger stories, such as Cinderella and Aladdin, and brought needed attention to lesser known tales like The Snow Queen and The Little Mermaid. But growing up and watching the classics, what struck me the most wasn't the animation or the music, but the common appearance of that one key figure in so many tales, the evil woman of power.

We can see versions of her in Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, and she's fresh and modern as the wealthy socialite Cruella de Vil. It's a common thread in folklore, in some form or another. Sometimes she's a cruel stepmother, while other times she's the witch in the far away castle. Everywhere we look, the image of the woman who rules through violence and fear is right there waiting for us. There are a few reasons why women, not men, have been featured as the most frightening

fairy tale villains throughout the ages. Some experts say that it's because mothers have tended to be the most powerful authority figure in the lives of children throughout history. Making their fictional counterparts evil was an easy way to make the danger seem the most understandable to young minds. Others point to a patriarchal system, built to teach everyone that power should only belong to men, which might just be the biggest fairy tale of them all. Throughout history, when women have taken on positions of power, they've shown themselves

to be just as wise and benevolent as men, sometimes even more so. But that hasn't caused the archetype to vanish from folklore. In many ways, folklore as we know it wouldn't even exist without these powerful women, good or bad. It's in the edge cases, though, where life too closely imitates art that things get complicated. Because tucked into the dark corners of history, there are stories of real women with real power who have caused real, heart-pounding terror.

Because the evil queen is real. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Standing on any of the streets in the small Slovakian village of Čaktika might make you long for idyllic European life. Tall hedges front each of the homes, and you can catch a glimpse of satellite dishes on most of them. Expensive cars sit in the driveway, and there's an overwhelming feeling of culture and class, a sense of an older time.

It's hard not to love the lush greenery, the ancient stones, and the centuries-old buildings. It sounds perfect to me, and maybe it is if that's your thing. But just a mile and a half away, inside a dark forest and set up on a rocky hill, sits something that pushes Čaktika into the realm of fantasy, a ruined castle. The relationship between the castle and the village is fairly symbiotic today. Prior to restorations about a decade ago, tourists were known to actually camp inside the crumbling walls, and locals have even held cookouts there. About 400 years ago, things were different, and it all started with a little girl.

When Elizabeth married a young count from a noble family in 1575, the Count's family gifted the young couple with an estate of their own. Not that Elizabeth needed charity, far from it. She was born into an influential family of her own, who ruled over a part of Hungary called Transylvania, now part of modern-day Romania. Her family had produced knights, judges, and a cardinal in the Catholic Church. Her uncle was even the king of Poland. It was safe to say that Elizabeth had powerful connections.

When she and Count Ference married in 1575, she was just 14, and he was 20. By his own mother's admission, Ference wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he sure was athletic, and in the years to come, he would develop a reputation as a hero of war. As her lineage outranked his own, though, she kept her surname rather than taking that of her husband's. As a result, history would forever remember her as Elizabeth Boutry. Just a note, if you've ever read about Elizabeth, you might have assumed her surname, spelled B-A-T-H-O-R-Y, is pronounced Bathory, but the proper, period-correct pronunciation

is Boutry. Still, it's not because of her name that she's still whispered about, it's because of the things they say she did. Prior to Elizabeth's wedding, in the time between her engagement and marriage to Ference, it was rumored that she had become pregnant as a result of an affair with someone of a much lower station. Her future husband took care of the situation in true 16th-century fashion, though. She was moved to a secluded manor house to give birth to the baby, a daughter, it was

said, while Ference located the father and punished him. The punishment, it seems, was to have him castrated and then have a pack of dogs set loose on him, tearing him to pieces. It was very possibly a culturally appropriate thing to do, according to the time and place of the events. But I can't help imagine that, even if it was, it was probably just as barbaric and horrifying to the people who heard about it then as it is to us today. Unexpectedly, though, this small bit of torture seemed to intrigue young Elizabeth more than

it should have, and some historians think that it was the spark that set something ablaze inside her, a hunger to punish others, and some say a thirst for blood. Just four years after their wedding, Count Ference was named the chief commander of all Hungarian troops and led them to battle frequently during the course of the 13-year-long war with the Ottoman Empire called, get this, the Long War. And it was while he was gone that Elizabeth took over running the castle and the lands around it. But it was also around that time that rumors began to spread through the village near the

castle. Today, they sound to us like the setup to a horror film, or maybe the basis of some dark fantasy novel. But in the late 1500s, this was reality, not fiction. The village would receive frequent visits from staff from the castle on the hill, and these representatives of the Count and Countess would recruit a small number of young women, girls by today's standards really, and take them off to serve in one of the many roles in the royal household.

These were coveted jobs, don't get me wrong, that wasn't the problem. Any young woman in a Hungarian village would dream of being asked to serve in the castle of the nobility. Outside was a life of poverty, hunger, disease, and filth. Inside those stone walls, though, there was hope, hope of safety, hope of a daily meal and of living conditions that were better than those of the livestock outside. That wasn't the problem. No, the problem, as far as the people of the village were concerned, was that their daughters

never came home. The truth of their disappearance was more horrible than anyone in the village might have imagined, and according to some reports, it all began not long after the Count and Countess were wed in 1575. It was shortly after that, when Ference was frequently away at war, and Elizabeth was in need of help, that she brought on a small team of personal servants and helpers. It was reported that they both loved to treat their servants horribly. Maybe it was the couple's aristocratic upbringing, or their privilege left unchecked.

What we do know is that it was when Elizabeth hired an older woman named Anna Darvulia that things began to get darker. Anna, according to reputation and testimony in Hungarian court documents, was said to be a witch, but at the very least was known for her violent, almost sadistic nature. And as the months and years went on, Anna became the prime facilitator of Elizabeth's love of torture. One document describes how Elizabeth and Anna would take servant girls outside in the middle of winter and force them to lie naked in the snow.

Then they would pour cold water over their bodies and wait for it to freeze on their skin. When they were satisfied that the girls' bodies had become cold enough, they would leave them there to die. In the spring, it was more of the same. Instead of the cold fields, though, the girls were brought out in the heat of the day, stripped naked against their will, and then covered in honey. Then Elizabeth would watch as insects drawn by the sweet nectar would bite and crawl over

the young women. Later a large room was set up in a lower level of the castle so the torture could be practiced year round, and it was there that witnesses claimed the Countess would have watched the mouths of servants sown shut or sharp instruments forced under their fingernails. And she did it all, it seems, for the pure enjoyment of the experience. In 1604, after a long struggle with an unknown illness, Count Ference passed away. Before doing so, he made legal arrangements that the care of his wife and children should fall to Elizabeth's cousin, George Turzo, the Count Palatine of Hungary.

He was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, and to Ference, it seemed like a wise decision. Elizabeth was also apparently a very lonely person, years without her husband by her side, of running the castle and the surrounding villages on her own, of being the prime figure of authority in a world where few women enjoyed such power. All of it was incredibly isolating to her, which made Ference's death that much more difficult to deal with. After nearly 29 years of marriage, she was well and truly alone.

The loss reportedly left the Countess feeling depressed and anti-social, and rightly so, but her response was to retreat to her quarters where she stayed in bed for long periods of time. That didn't mean the torture had to stop, though. In fact, her loss and loneliness only seemed to escalate it. Elizabeth had begun to believe that human blood could help her remain young and healthy. Maybe it was the recent loss of her husband that forced her to face her own mortality. Perhaps it was a bit of forgotten local folklore.

Some have even suggested that she discovered the idea by accident after a particularly bloody torture session. Whatever the reason, she became obsessed with blood. Rather than go out, she had Anna bring servant girls to her room. There she would cut them, then have portions of their flesh burned with hot metal, and would even bite them on their bodies, sometimes even their faces. But her hunger for violence came with the price, and as a result, these poor young women from the village became scarce.

Like an addict, she adapted, and she started to bring in more and more women of noble birth. She started with daughters of the lowest order of noble families, those with the least amount of wealth and power, but slowly worked her way up the aristocratic chain. And that, more than anything else, was what became her undoing. After hearing some of the rumors from a member of his royal court, the King of Hungary assigned a trusted advisor to investigate the matter, and his choice was, whether by chance or intention, Count Terzo, Elizabeth's cousin, and legal caretaker. So in the autumn of 1610, he made the journey to Chaktika.

His arrival was a surprise to Elizabeth and her team of attendants. That might be one of the reasons his investigation was so successful at uncovering the truth. But the Countess might have also just become careless. She had been carrying on her violent, torturous habit for three decades after all. It's easy for anyone to convince themselves that they'll never get caught after that long. Whatever the reason, when Terzo arrived, it was immediately clear that something dark had been taking place.

For long, he knew why. What he unearthed, though, was almost beyond belief. Upon his arrival, Count Terzo assigned his two notaries to begin gathering evidence to support the claims that the King had heard rumors of for years. But rather than being difficult to find, the witness testimony began to flood in. Maybe the people sensed an end to the Countess's evil reign. Maybe they finally found hope. As a result, over 300 people stepped forward to offer testimony against her and her team

of helpers. And it wasn't just the village commoners who spoke up, either. Witnesses included priests and nobles, as well as staff from a number of the Countess's estates. Some spoke of the rumors they heard whispered in the walls of the castle, while others came forward to say that they had witnessed some of Elizabeth's torture sessions firsthand. They described the exposure outdoors, the sharp tools and hot metal, even the biting. Other servants had only seen the bodies, but they all admitted that the cause of death

was always clearly obvious, death by torture. And those bodies began to turn up, too. Some were found in local graveyards, while others were located in various rooms in the castle where they had been kept hidden. Charred human bones were found in a number of fireplaces, and other remains were unearthed on the castle grounds. While the physical evidence was literally being uncovered, so, too, was the elaborate network that the Countess used to gather her victims.

Most of the testimony pointed to her team of servants, including the alleged witch, Anna Darvulia. But there were others. Elizabeth had contacts in the surrounding villages that were responsible for finding new women for her to torture. Sometimes they were hired away as servants under the promise of good wages and fair treatment. Other times they were simply abducted outright. Finally, Count Terzo had all the evidence he needed to begin a trial.

But there were problems from the beginning of that process. For one, Anna apparently died before the trial could start. Rumors swirled around her role in the string of crimes, ranging from chief executioner to witchcraft, and even to Elizabeth's secret lover. She was someone Terzo wanted to arrest more than all the others. But her death made that impossible. So he turned to the remaining team of servants. Along with the Countess herself, this entire group of accomplices was arrested on December

30th of 1609 and then held for trial. In January of 1610, the evidence was presented, testimonies were heard, and the cases were made. In the end, the group was charged with the death, the murder by torture, mind you, of roughly 80 servants. Servants who once traveled to the castle with hopes of a better life. Servants who, through no fault of their own, became the object of the Countess's desire. But that's the irony of it all.

Elizabeth Boutrie, you see, never went to trial. Thanks to her high rank and political power, the Countess never stood trial. She was the reason for it all, and yet as each one of her personal attendants were tried and convicted, she remained untouched. Like so many of her other abuses of power over the years, she was immune to the full force of the consequences. Yes, she would be punished, but not to the degree that her helpers were. Each and every one of them was convicted, and in each case, they were sentenced to be

executed. All except for the Countess. But not before many of them had a chance to speak for themselves. During the trial that built the argument and laid out the crimes, the trial, mind you, that set the number of those tortured to death at a hard to fathom 80 lives. One servant added an intriguing testimony. This servant claimed that she had special access to Elizabeth's quarters, and it was during one recent visit while her mistress was away that she discovered a journal that

the Countess kept, a private journal hidden from sight and, because of that, excluded from the evidence presented in the trial. In this journal, the servant claimed, was a list. The name, as best as Elizabeth could remember, of each and every victim of her love of torture. It didn't come as a surprise to most of the court that the Countess would do something like that, though. This was a woman who killed for pleasure, who reveled in bloodshed. Some even claimed she literally bathed in that blood.

No, what was shocking about the journal was the number of entries. While the court supported evidence for 80 or so murders, this servant claimed that the secret journal, which she had seen with her own eyes, exposed the true extent of Elizabeth's evil. According to her, the list had over 650 entries. Evil has a way of coming in all shapes and sizes. No matter where we look, there are those who have served to build the legends that we have all come to fear over the centuries.

Thankfully, the evil queens of Disney seem to have lived lives that were a lot less bloody than Elizabeth Boutrie, although that's probably not the best place to start. The folktales that inspired many of those movies are just as bloody as the Countess herself. In that, she is not alone. There are skeptics, though. Some think that the accusations brought against her were fabricated by powerful relatives in an effort to take her land and wealth. It is established fact that the King of Hungary himself owed the Countess a large sum of money,

and many of the key testimonies during the trial came from people with much more to gain by her arrest and imprisonment. Even her own cousin, Count Terzo, benefited from her public downfall. But even though she escaped being put on trial and avoided the executioner's acts that awaited her faithful helpers, Elizabeth Boutrie didn't go unpunished. She lived on, so did her personal quarters, which can still be toured today thanks to some recent restoration work that the castle has undergone. Two of the four towers have crumbled to the ground, and there is no longer a roof protecting

the interior from the elements, but you can still walk through the lower-level chamber where all the torture was said to have taken place, as well as the wing of the fortress where the Countess lived. In the end, whatever the truth might have been, no victims, 80 victims, or over 600, Elizabeth Boutrie has gone down in history as the bloody Countess. But her life didn't end with honor and accolades. There was no one to see if her beauty treatments had worked, no one to keep her company or to endure her torture.

No one to talk to at all. Because after the trial, she was placed in her personal quarters, and every single window and door of that room was bricked up, locking her permanently inside. With nothing more than a slot in the door for food, the bloody Countess lived out the last four years of her life in what must have been nothing short of a nightmare for her. Isolation There are few types of stories more chilling than those that involve powerful people who abuse their authority.

Oftentimes, it involves a transition from trust to terror, especially when innocent lives are lost in the process. But the tale of Elizabeth Boutrie isn't the only one of its kind in history. In fact, I have one more tale to lay out for you, and if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it. Elizabeth Boutrie's crimes were so evil that she seemed larger than life, like a fictional character. But that's the scary thing about reality.

It often makes fiction look tame by comparison. They're all too familiar with stories of Cinderella and Snow White, young women terrorized by evil stepmothers who forced them into servitude or poisoned them to the point of near-death. But sometimes evil is so powerful it cannot be contained within a fairy tale. Sometimes those frightening characters bleed into the real world, like they did for Blanche Monnier. Blanche was born in France in the mid-1800s. The Monniers were an upper-middle-class family that had built their reputation in the arts.

By the time Blanche was 25, she had become something of a socialite within the community. Like Snow White, she was beautiful and beloved, with suitors knocking down her door for her hand in marriage. And just like Snow White, she also had an overbearing woman in her life, except it wasn't an evil stepmother. It was her own flesh and blood, her biological mother Louise. Blanche's father had died some time ago, and so she, her brother Marcel, and Louise lived together, carrying on their lives as best they could.

One day when Blanche was 25 years of age, she came to her mother with news. She was going to be married. He was an older man and a lawyer, but he was penniless. It should have been a joyful announcement, but as some versions of the story go, Louise was not happy. In fact, she was furious. No daughter of hers, she said, was going to marry a deadbeat with no money to his name. She forbade Blanche to accept his proposal, but Blanche instead said that she was going

to follow through with the wedding. And that was the last anyone saw of her. Louise and Marcel mourned her while moving on with their lives. Blanche's would-be husband died 10 years later, but she never resurfaced afterwards. No correspondence, nothing. And then on May 23rd of 1901, 25 years after she'd gone missing, an anonymous letter was delivered to the Paris Attorney General. It read,

Mr. Attorney General, I have the honor to inform you of an exceptionally serious occurrence. I speak of a spinster who is locked up in Madame Monnier's house, half-starved and living on a putrid litter for the past 25 years, in a word, in her own filth. The office nearly tossed out the letter. After all, the Monniers were a highly respected family, but something about the note bothered the chief superintendent enough to investigate. He traveled to the Monnier's home and was met with resistance from Louise, who refused to open the door.

Marcel, who lived across the street, ran over and told the chief superintendent that his sister was also sick with a fever and did not disturb her. An odd thing to say about someone who had disappeared over two decades before. So, the superintendent came inside anyway and worked his way through the house. The kitchen was clean and the other rooms of the house were pristine. Even the upstairs had been dusted and swept. The superintendent eventually climbed those immaculate stairs up to the attic, where he found the unthinkable.

It was Blanche Monnier, and she was alive, but barely. She had been locked in a small room in the attic for the past 25 years. She was naked, lying on a bed of old, rotten straw, and she was surrounded by bits of old vegetables and meat as well as her own excrement. There were insects and vermin crawling over everything and the stench was so bad that the superintendent had to leave the home. Blanche now weighed a meager 56 pounds and her matted hair had been washed or brushed in years.

She was snow white no longer. She was not discovered by her prince, slumbering in a glass coffin in the forest. Blanche had been locked away and discarded by her own family. Both Louise and Marcel were arrested for the kidnapping and, unsurprisingly, claimed their innocence. They alleged that Blanche had been living up there on her own accord and was free to leave whenever she wanted. She had simply chosen to stay.

This was despite evidence that she had been heard screaming, begging for her freedom. Louise and Marcel testified that Blanche had been mentally ill and they were simply taking care of her the best they could. Meanwhile, Blanche relished her newfound freedom, eating as much as she could in the hospital. And rolling around in her new clean sheets, a far cry from the itchy rotting straw she had been relegated to for so long. Sadly, Louise's testimony was not so far off. Blanche truly was mentally ill.

The question was, had her treatment by her mother made her that way or had she really been so sick that she'd chosen to live up there after all? The answer would never come. Louise died a few weeks after her imprisonment. Marcel was also convicted but eventually acquitted on appeal as he had not actually been the one to confine his sister in the attic. He only helped his mother. In Blanche Monnier, the real-life Snow White who had endured some of the worst treatment

ever inflicted by a mother on her own child, she lived in a psychiatric hospital until 1913, where she died at the age of 64. Blanche's story was a case of, she said, they said, who was lying and who was telling the truth? Was Louise jealous of her daughter's youth and beauty, just like the evil stepmother in the Snow White fairy tale, or had Blanche really locked herself away from the world for 25 years? We may never know, but one thing this story teaches us is that truth is almost always

stranger and certainly far more frightening than fiction. This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Erin Mankey, with additional help on the epilogue from Jenna Rose Nethercot and Harry Marks, and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast, though. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. A TV show, by the way, that features the story of Elizabeth Boutrie in season two. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.

I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button.

And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.