Castle Dracula.
Castle Dracula is a sinister castle that is the residence and home of the infamous vampire Count Dracula which it is named after, and a location from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. In Stoker's narrative, Castle Dracula is the single most important location. The first and the last part of the plot take place here. The inaccessible stronghold, which initially symbolises the vampire's power, finally becomes the scene of his extermination.
Appearance[]
The castle as featured in the novel is described as ancient and ruined, and of a vast size. Many rooms are located within the wings of the fortress, most of which are locked. The first room is an entrance hall, which contains a staircase leading to another hallway. This passage ends in a dining room with an inviting fireplace and old, luxurious furniture. Adjacent to this room is a library and a small oval room. From here, a large bedchamber is used by Jonathan Harker as his quarters. A southern wing contained more rooms, most of which are locked. Here, the end room is described as having comfortable furniture and large windows pointing to the West and South, offering magnificent views of the Transylvanian landscape. This room is speculated to have been occupied by the ladies in the bygone days due to its 'air of comfort'. One of the lower areas of the castle contained a room which housed ancient coins. A chapel was also housed within the castle, accessible from a tunnel, and its basement led to vaults which contained the Count's tomb, as well as those of his three female vampire companions. The fortress itself was described as being located on a 'terrific precipice', a 'great rock' of sheer drops on each of three sides. It stands over 1,000 feet from the valley's bottom, and extremely difficult to siege.
The Real Place[]
Bran's Castle (Romanian: Castelul Bran) is a medieval fortress located in present-day Romania, which enjoys great tourist attraction due to the popular belief that it was the former residence of Vlad Tepes the Impaler. Located near Brasov in Transylvania, it is a national monument and one of the hotspots for Romanian tourism due to its antiquity, architectural value and its link with the fictional character of Count Dracula. It is argued that the historical figure Stoker was inspired by, Vlad Tepes (Vlad Tepes III Dracula), never lived in this castle and that his true strength was the Poenari Castle, now partially in ruins. Despite its massive and fortified appearance, Bran Castle received few sieges and its military importance was low. It was only permanently inhabited during the 1920s and 1930s, when it served as a summer residence for Queen Maria of Romania.
Stoker's Inspiration[]
Description and History[]
On this site, a fortress was built by knights of the Teutonic Order around 1212, when they were received into the Kingdom of Hungary, after being defeated by the Saracens in the Holy Land, and returned to Europe. The fortress is located on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia and its architecture is unique. Although this small fortification was razed over time and received the attacks of the Tatar hordes in 1241, the current structure was erected by orders of King Louis I of Hungary in 1377, to fulfill a commercial and defensive function against the voivode of Wallachia. This castle is famous for the belief that it had been the home of Vlad Dracula (Vlad III the Impaler) in the 15th century. However, there is no evidence that Vlad lived there in person and, by most accounts, the Impaler spent only two days in the castle, locked in a dungeon, on his way to the Budapest prison, when the region was occupied. by the Ottoman Empire. After the end of the First World War, in 1920, the Treaty of Trianon was signed, where the Transylvania region was ceded to the Kingdom of Romania, and with this, Bran Castle came to belong to the Romanian administration.
New Slains Castle (located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland) is often considered the inspiration for Count Dracula's castle, since Bram Stoker often visited this mansion himself during the creation of the novel. It is debatable to what extent Dracula's castle is modelled after New Slains, however, as apart from both having an oval room, there seem to be few similarities between the two. Bran Castle in Transylvania is often called 'Dracula's Castle' since it resembles the popular conception of how the novel's castle appears, although no written evidence confirms that Stoker decided use it as a model. Similarly, Poenari Castle in Wallachia - a fortress which the historical Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) actually used, is also sometimes thought to be an inspiration, though this connection also lacks written evidence.