A small shape, fluttering through the moonlight.
The howling of wolves.
A silhouette in the dark, two glistening fangs.
No shadow, no reflection.
A blanket of mist that follows where it goes.
Dead things.
Transformation.
A thirst for blood.
You already know what I'm talking about; you already know who.
Brahm Stoker's Dracula is one of the most famous monsters of all time, and for very
good reason.
He's essentially a walking amalgamate of folk legends, each so infectiously fascinating
that even some of his more far-fetched attributes-a weakness to garlic, the need to be invited
into one's home before entering-have become familiar to the point of cliché.
But there's one part of the story that's always seemed strangely overlooked to me: a piece
of folklore that should be inspiring all kinds of stories the way the rest of the novel does...
but for some reason... isn't.
According to Stoker, apparently Dracula went to a hidden, underground university... run
by The Devil himself.
They even have a dragon there, and Dracula may even have ridden on it, depending how
you interpret the lore.
This deserves to be talked about, and it is October... so, let's do that.
A big thanks to Campfire writing and worldbuilding software for making this video possible!
Incidentally, it'll be just the thing if you want to try worldbuilding with any of the
material you find in this video!
More on that later.
It would seem there's a bit of a hole in our general image of Dracula.
Nothing serious.
This isn't an audit of the character; it's not a fan-theory video about some hidden allusion
Stoker made somewhere else.
Nothing like that at all.
Really, it's about a couple of throw-away references he makes to folklore throughout
the work that could really influence how we envision the character, what stories we choose
to tell, how it inspires us... but somehow... hasn't, so far.
At least not that I've seen.
It comes up twice in the original novel, while the character Van Helsing is info-dumping
about The Count.
First, in chapter 18, where he says: "The Draculas were [...] a great and noble race,
though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings
with The Evil One.
They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt,
where The Devil claims the tenth scholar as his due."
Then, in chapter 23, he says: "He (Dracula) dared even to attend The Scholomance, and
there was no branch of knowledge in his time he did not essay."
All told, not very much to go on.
And that's okay, the book is really more about the battle with and demise of Dracula than
it is about his origin.
But... you kind of have to wonder what this is and why Stoker chose to include it, right?
Well, one thing we do know is that he drew a great deal of inspiration from the work
of folklorist Emily Gerrard.
Specifically, her 1888 essay "Transylvanian Superstition".
It's an incredibly fascinating read, and I don't blame Stoker for running with so much
of the material there, even if a lot of it is just referential.
For him, it may have been one of the few-if not the only-source of information about such
things.
The depth of his understanding about The Scholomance may only have been as deep as that section
of the essay.
According to Gerrard, the fabled school lies somewhere in the "heart of the mountains".
Not exactly distinct, but it's what we've got.
There, the Devil teaches his pupils "all the secrets of nature, the language of animals,
and all imaginable spells and charms"... and he does it in person.
So Dracula was training to be an actual wizard, it seems like, under some version of Satan.
Explains a lot, really.
There are only ever ten students admitted to the school at a time, nine of which are
released after their studies to return home.
The tenth, The Devil keeps as a servant.
They become his "weathermaker", are mounted on the back of a dragon, and sent flying through
the skies to "make the weather"-that is, bring storms.
When the skies are clear, it's because the dragon is asleep in its home at the bottom
of a small, immeasurably-deep lake in the mountains South of Hermandstadt-what Stoker
mistakenly refers to in the text as a non-existent "Lake Hermandstadt".
Finally, this lake is said to be "the cauldron where is brewed the thunder," which is apparently
lent credence by the frequency with which storms visit the location.
The shores are littered with the cairns of those struck dead by lightning, and the locals
warn travelers not to disturb the water's surface, lest you wake the dragon and bring
a storm down upon you.
Hopefully you're starting to see by this point why Stoker was so drawn to this... and...
why we had to make a video about it.
This is a lot of material for him to just pack into a couple of passing mentions.
More than he may have realized, in fact.
If this was indeed his only source of information about The Scholomance... he may have accidently
implied some things about Dracula he never meant to.
Like, for instance, the possibility that The Count... was a ginger.
Bear with me, here.
For the rest of our information, we'll look primarily to native Romanian folklorists,
including the prolific Simion Florea Marian.
We might as well begin by making it clear that... there isn't actually any place called
"The Scholomance" in Romanian folklore... at all.
The word Gerrard used in her essay was most likely a Germanization of the word "Solomonarie".
And that actually gets us somewhere, because there is a type of sorcerer in the folklore
called a "solomonar", and it does fit Gerrard's description, school, dragon, devil and all.
And even though there doesn't seem to be much information about the school itself out there,
we've got plenty about the solomonari who supposedly attended it.
The most relevant of all is the idea that they're undead.
Marian paints the solomonari as strigoi-a kind of craven, evil, extremely malicious
zombie.
Essentially a Romanian proto-vampire, with all the same abilities and weaknesses we're
used to-the bloodsucking, the transformation, the aversion to garlic and holy symbols and
sunlight, the super strength, the stake through the heart-but without all the sexy, shiny,
Victorian-ness of our modern concept.
Even so, strigoi or not, you might not actually realize it if you ran into a solomonar.
They blend almost perfectly with the locals.
Taller than most maybe, with a mane of red hair, but they wear the same clothes as the
peasantry and go around begging for alms.
Not exactly typical vampire behavior.
There's a good reason for it.
This is how they keep an eye on the populace; see whose land deserves the attention of the
school's weathermaker.
Some versions of the legend even suggest that any solomonar can mount the dragon and guide
the storms, and that if you can just find one of them, you can pay them to bring bad
weather to your enemies.
You could even potentially hire a counter-solomonar pre-emptively to keep someone from doing this
to you.
In a pinch, if you really need to identify one of them, take a look in their bag: they'll
be carrying around a birchbark saddle, a branch that was used to kill a snake, and most telling
of all, a solomonar's book.
The place where they record all the spells and charms they've learned during their time
in the school.
So, we have a bunch of vagrant, red-haired vampire-wizards, wandering around, making
a show of begging in order to figure out who deserves a thunderstorm so that their dragon-riding
friend can bring it to them.
Maybe not the image Stoker had in mind for Dracula.
But that's okay.
Good, even.
It can be our image.
A fresh take, full of new material.
This could be a Dracula, or a point in Dracula's story, that few people have ever even thought
to spend time on.
And this, mind you, is before we even discuss the dragon.
Simion Florea Marian distinguishes it from all the many breeds of Slavic dragon in the
region, suggesting it is, specifically, a Romanian balaur... which, honestly, hardly
narrows things down.
Yes, there are some shared qualities between balauri-they often have golden scales, almost
always have between three and twelve heads, and they maintain the typical fairytale dragon
obsession with abducting young maidens-but that's about where the similarities end.
Romanian folklorist Tudor Pamfile categorizes the balauri into three distinct species: water-dwelling,
land-dwelling, and air-dwelling.
Because the other two don't fly, we can only assume the solomonar dragon is of the air-dwelling
variety.
It is, however, worth noting that the water-dwellers apparently live in wells at the center of
villages, which seems suspiciously similar to the small lake this dragon occupies.
Interestingly, the air-dwelling balaur is often conflated with the Slavic Ala, or Hala,
which in standard Serbian means something to the effect of "weather demon".
And this matters because there's actually a lot of information out there about these
creatures.
They can control, or at least influence, the weather.
When two of them fight, it manifests as a great storm, powerful enough to uproot entire
trees.
In some stories, they traverse the sky using rainbows as a pathway.
In others, they suck moisture out of their surroundings in order to create the rain.
But the solomonar dragon is unique among them.
A mere heavenward glance is enough to cause rainfall.
It's so large, if it were ever to land upon the ground, it would "consume a large portion
of the Earth"-which is why, in the stories, God prevents it from ever tiring during flight.
Kind of sounds like we're dealing with something on a Jormungandr, World-Serpent scale, here...
except, it's a dragon.
Which is, objectively, even more terrifying.
That "bottomless" lake it lives in suddenly make a lot of sense.
Truly, a mount worthy of the legendary Dracula. ...if he did indeed ever ride it.
Stoker most likely didn't know this information while he was writing the book, so canonically-speaking...
this isn't even a question worth asking.
But remember, we're not developing a fan-theory, here.
We're finding gaps to fill.
There are questions to ask in all of this that canon and local folklore accounts can't-or
at least don't-really answer.
What if Dracula was one of the Devil's weathermakers?
And if he was, how did he manage to escape that contract?
What was it like entering the school?
Is it a condition that you become a strigoi to receive the Devil's tutelage?
Is that how Dracula became the creature we all know today?
How did this whole experience-his time in the school, potentially riding the dragon-shape
the figure we know?
Or is there a different version of him altogether that hasn't been written yet, based on all
of this?
And then, of course, if we look away from the connection to Dracula for a moment, we
find even more possibilities.
You could, for instance, take this and write something like Harry Potter, but instead of
Hogwarts you have an underground cavern and a bottomless lake, instead of Dumbledore you
have...
The Devil... and instead of being whisked away on a magical train, you...
er.. die.
These possibilities-these questions-are where the imagination plays.
If any of this sparks and idea, go write about it!
Dracula's in the public domain, and the rest is myth-meant to pass from storyteller to
storyteller.
You could be the next in that chain.
Of course, being inspired is the easy part.
That's passive.
You don't really have to do anything.
The next step is to develop the idea, which, as you begin to erect palaces of notecards
and labyrinthine text documents, rapidly becomes a chore.
If you want to focus more on making the thing and less on the mechanics of organizing it,
definitely go give Campfire Blaze a try.
Campfire Blaze is a browser-based suite of tools to help you keep your writing organized.
Collaborate with friends in real-time or work by yourself to flesh out every facet of your
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When you're done, share your story with your friends and fans easily.
Expand Blaze's free version by purchasing the tools you need, and then keep those tools
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Alternatively, build your own subscription so you're only paying for the features you
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It is an incredible answer for any writer frustrated with how difficult it is to keep
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Upgrade to Campfire Blaze, and find a place where you can visually organize the most complex
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And now's a particularly good time to try it out, because throughout October, it's in
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Follow the link the description to learn more.
Write better stories faster with Campfire Blaze.
And finally, before we wrap up, I'd like to give a quick thanks to all the helpful humans
who support the show on Patreon.
All those words you see scrolling in the background of these videos?
Those are actually the names of our Patreon maintenance crew, without whom this show would
be impossible.
And a special word to all of our top patrons: Excelsius, Lord_Gatte, RPGgrenade, Puzzling
Shutterbug, and TheAutumnWriter - thank you so much!
Our plan going forward with the channel is to release one of these videos and on Tale
Tips video every month, so be sure to subscribe to the channel, like this video, and leave
a suggestion for our next topic in the comments below!
We're always eager to find new ideas to steal.
Until then, thanks for watching, and keep making stuff up!
I'll see you...
next time!
Bye!