Sometimes people build castles in the air. Other times, they are built on solid ground. Such is the case for the Csejte Castle in Slovakia. It is in ruins now, but it stands on a hill full of rare Slovakian plants. Who knew? Anyway, it has been declared a national nature reserve because of those plants. But. It has a history too. The castle is where Countess Elizabeth Báthory lived her days. It would also become her prison.
On this date, December 29, 1610, she was arrested at that castle on suspicion of killing and torturing hundreds of young girls and women. Hungarian noblewoman. Serial Killer.
The countess was born in 1560 to a family of Hungarian Nobles. The Royal Hoity Toities. As a child, Elizabeth had multiple seizures. It could have been epilepsy, but back then, it was called “falling sickness.” To treat the affliction, they would rub the blood of a healthy person on the lips of the epileptic. In this case, Elizabeth. An early taste for blood?
Historians point to the fact that her cruelty later in her life came from her upbringing. Her family trained her to be cruel. The stories tell of Elizabeth witnessing the family’s officers beating people brutally. Other stories say she had been taught by family members about Satanism and witchcraft. And Dracula-like tendencies. Before Dracula was written. However, these claims are unsubstantiated.
Who knows what ultimately caused her ferocity. But Elizabeth and four of her servants were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and women. This was between 1590 and 1610. Ultimately, her servants were put on trial and convicted. Yet, given her status, Elizabeth was confined to her home. Her castle.
There were loads of accusations against her. This came from testimony by more than 300 individuals. They recounted finding physical evidence, like seeing the mutilated dead girls and finding others still imprisoned.
Apparently, her first victims were girls aged 10 to 14 years. She began killing daughters of the lesser classes. They had been sent to her by their parents so that the girls could learn good etiquette. The tortures included many things, such as being burned with hot tongs and then placed in freezing cold water.
The confinement to her castle? Some accounts say she was locked in a bricked room. Other sources report that she was able to move freely in the castle. House arrest without the ankle bracelet.
It was there where she died at the age of 54. On an August night in 1614, Elizabeth complained to her guard that her hands were cold. He told her to go lie down and that it was probably nothing. But it was. She went to sleep and was found dead the following morning. It is not really known where she was buried.
On the other side of all of this, there are those who say it was all a ploy against her so that she, and her family, would be removed from power in Hungary.
Regardless, it is yet another sad story from the past. The thing that struck me about all of this is that Elizabeth Báthory started out as a baby. An innocent, trusting, beautiful baby without a mean bone in her body. Not one.
But through time and early training, she was taught to be awful. A person filled with hatred and brutality. She was trained. Indoctrinated. It reminds me to remind us. Children become what we teach them. And this was us, too, as our smaller selves. We were taught. Then, as we grow older, we grow into what we teach ourselves.
Our thoughts define us. And those thoughts are shaped by every single experience, encounter, and occurrence in our lives. Perhaps it is good practice to question everything. To question is to consider. And this examining lends toward understanding. Our paths will hopefully open to considering what is good.
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“Observation is a dying art.”
― Stanley Kubrick
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“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― Andre Gide
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“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
― Bertrand Russell
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Taught to be evil. Countess Elizabeth killed the girls.
