There is nothing like sinking into a hot bath at the end of the day. Enjoying a nice book or a glass of wine (maybe both?) and just letting your stress melt away. You may even add some bubbles or epsom salts to enhance the experience. It likely has never crossed your mind to add the blood of a virgin woman but for Elizabeth Bathory, this was the essential ingredient to get that young, glowing skin. Personally I think a nice exfoliating scrub would have done the trick.
Bathory is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most prolific female serial killer. It is estimated she killed over 600 people, mostly young peasant girls who came to work as servants and later daughters of nobles who came to the castle with the promise of an education.Â
She was a noble woman born to a filthy rich, ultra powerful family in Hungary. Like many serial killers, Bathory had a tough childhood. Her family was plagued with mental and physical diseases, likely due to incest, and she was regularly exposed to violence such as servants being brutally beaten.Â
At just 15 years old she married Ferencz Nadasdy. It is rumored that her husband taught her how to torture her victims but most researchers agree that he was not aware of her actions and they mostly took place when he was away, which was often as he was a solider. When he died in 1604 she became the sole owner of their extensive estates.
Her crimes were horrific, beating her victims with clubs, starving them then forcing them to cook and eat their own flesh, burning them with hot pokers, cutting them with scissors and countless other stomach turning torture methods. She is even rumored to have bound victims, covering them in honey so bugs would attack them.Â
Her idea for bathing in blood was rooted in her vanity. Legend says that Bathory struck a servant who brushed her hair too rough and when the blood of the girl landed on her skin she noticed that it looked more youthful.Â
She was able to torture young girls for so long due to her status but when she soon ran out of peasant victims, she began targeting the daughters of nobles, whom powerful people actually cared about. Finally in 1610 King Matthias ordered for her investigation. 300 testimonies were taken, story after story of her gruesome murders and tortuous tendencies. Since she was of noble blood she was spared being burned alive with her accomplices, instead she was bricked into her room with only a small slot for food where she remained until her death in 1614, just four years later.
Much of Bathory’s life is folklore and it is hard to separate fact from fiction. Some historians even wonder if she truly was this horrible serial killer or just a powerful independent woman whom less powerful men wanted to take down. In fact the King who ordered her investigation was in great debt to Bathory’s late husband and the people who gave testimonies against her could have very easily been tortured into giving them. Nevertheless, Bathory’s story remains a very creepy, very spooky, part of history.