Wallachia 1463 I’ll say one thing for old Vlad Tepeș,
you can leave your doors and windows open at night and no one’ll break in and steal
anything.
Anyone who does gets three-foot of sharpened wooden stake shoved so far up the “tradesmen’s
entrance” the end’ll poke out of their mouths.
Harsh I know but it’s the only language these thieving bastards understand.
Very keen on the impaling is Vlad, criminals (obviously) foreigners (especially Turks)
liars, kiss arses (I fucking hate them) the poor (scroungers) the rude (old fashioned
politeness costs nothing) and adulterous women (not men though, that wouldn’t be Christian)
Course we only call him “Tepes” because he likes impaling, we should really call him
“Dragkwlya” because of his father.
Funnily enough, his name was also Vlad.
A tough old sod, you know he loved killing the enemies of Christ so much The Holy Roman
Emperor let him into the exclusive “Order of the Dragon”.
That of course made the young Vlad “Son of the Dragon”.
I don’t suppose this particular “Dragons Son” was very pleased when daddy sent him
to the Turkish court as a hostage for six years, although they say the Ottomans treated
the lad well enough.
I reckon it builds character.
They only let him go when Vlad senior was murdered in a swamp and his elder brother
got himself blinded and then buried alive (which seems like a lot of needless effort
if you ask me) When Tepes finally took back his crown in
‘56’ it was like a breath of fresh air.
Here was an old style ruler who wasn’t going to stand any nonsense.
Take the Boyars; born into money, corrupt, always scheming, I wouldn’t trust them as
far as I could throw them and they didn’t give a damn about the common man.
Vlad invited them all to an Easter banquet to celebrate his coronation and when they
had stuffed themselves full of grub, his guards took all the old and lame ones and impaled
them outside the city walls.
He then marched the rest, (still in their Sunday best, mind) fifty miles through the
countryside and got them to build him a great stone castle at the top of a mountain.
Months later, when the job was done, most had died of exhaustion or exposure.
Those that were still alive were allowed to relax and admire a job well done, from the
top of a row of pointy wooden poles.
Serves them right for being rich.
I remember once, Vlad was eating his dinner in the middle of a forest of impaled criminals,
some of them still alive (he liked doing that which struck some people as a bit odd, but
i say “it takes all sorts..”)
One of his dinner guests was a rich “hoity toity” Lord somebody or other and he said
that he found the smell of all the blood and emptied bowels was putting him off his food
so Vlad had him impaled on an especially tall stake so his nose was above the offending
odours…Classic.
And don’t get me started on the Turks.
A few years ago he received two envoys from the Sultan and they refused to take their
turbans off in his presence, something to do with their faith or something.
“How dare you” cries Vlad and had the turbans nailed to their heads with rusty spikes
before sending them on their way.
You don’t come here to our country and start acting like you do at home, cheeky bleeders.
The touchy Ottomans dispatched a small armed force to express their displeasure.
They hardly had time to say “We are most displeased” however before it was “stakes
up the jacksie time” and they were left out in the sun to rot.
Of course, the Turks invaded after that.
Typical.
I must say though, I love a good crusade.
God’s on your side, so you can kill as many foreigners as you like, it gets you out of
the house for a bit and you meet lots of new people.
Vlad was in the saddle the minute they crossed the border and woe betide any soldiers who
came back to camp with wounds anywhere but in the front.
He impaled them, obviously, which was bad for morale but great for discipline.
The Sultan though, had a huge army, much bigger than ours but Vlad had an idea, and this is
brilliant.
He rounded up all 20,000 Turkish prisoners from his dungeons and you’ll never guess
what he did with them.
I’ll tell you, he impaled the lot.
When the Turkish army saw a two-mile wide field of their countrymen writhing in agony
just above their heads they were so disgusted and afraid they turned round and went home….Result.
Now some people say that Vlad is a murdering maniac obsessed with shoving sharp things
up people’s bottoms but there is more to him than that.
Beheading, Boiling, Skinning alive, Gutting like a Fish, Forced Cannibalism, he’s a
complicated man.
100,000 people can’t be wrong, probably because he’s killed them all.
And before you get all pious and say “Doesn’t the Bible say you shouldn’t go around killing
and torturing?”
let me ask you this.
Why do you think that the expensive golden chalice which he put on display in Târgoviște
town square is still there?
Exactly!
If you don’t do anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Most of the time.