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October 13, 2006

Strange But True!

Q. “Blood-sucking vampire bats” sounds bad enough, but it gets worse. Where does Prince Vlad (“the Impaler”) Tepes fit into the tale?

A. The prince of the 1400s lived near Transylvania, in today's Romania, and committed hundreds of savage murders, says Marty Crump in “Headless Males Make Great Lovers.” He gained fame and glory as a crusader against the Turks, executing his enemies by driving a sharpened stake through their bodies. Bram Stoker's Count Dracula (Romanian for “son of the devil”) is based on Prince Vlad. With vampire legends afoot in the 1500s, Europeans were horrified when Spanish and Portuguese explorers sent back reports of blood- sucking “vampire” bats from Central and South America.


 
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