I Guess We'd better Talk About....Him.

The inevitable 'Vlad' souvenirs - actually rather good likenesses of the known portrait

I was delighted to discover, when I started my MA in Death Studies that it was permitted to incorporate a module from another department in the selection of studies for the course - even happier to discover that it was possible to take the 'Fairytale and Gothic Horror' module from the MA course in Film Studies - and so it was that my knowledge of the two genres of storytelling took a great leap, from the simplistic tales of my childhood into the depths and convolutions of themes that run deep in all our psyches - explanations of the mysterious world in which we live and the journey-quest we make as we travel in the world through life.

On my vast experience (gained as the result of just a few days visit to Romania!), it seems to me that these questions are still very present - whether explored and explained through the rituals of the church and organised religion, or through the experience of both the understandable and the inexplicable which is still able to be encountered in this land of forest and valley, fortified church and castle, roaming wild beasts and the historical memory of marauding and conquering strangers (something which we have not experienced here in the UK, by and large for over a thousand years). That one difference makes our whole historical experience very different and it is something which I constantly try to keep in mind as I learn more about this fascinating land.

Long before my older son met the woman who is now our dear daughter in law, my younger son was an enthusiastic participant in 'Larping' Live Action Role Play - and one of his LARPing groups just happens to be 'Vampire'. So it was that, at his instigation, after a couple of days in Bucharest, we were lucky enough to be able to make a pilgrimage (having made a special request to our new 'in-laws') over the plain, flat agricultural landscape and up onto the mountains and forests of  Transylvania, en route to an afternoon at Castle Bran -'Dracula's Castle',   … who signed himself 'Vlad Dragulya' (his father having been awarded the Order of the Dragon) and who became notorious as Vlad Tepes - 'Vlad the Impaler'. The castle is actually thought not to actually have any connection to withVlad other than that it had been one of a multitude of fortified dwellings owned by the rulers of Romania, of which Vlad was - in the fifteenth century - just one.

The Royal Succession

It is not thought that he did ever visit Bran - but the castle was indeed, apparently, part of the inspiration for Bram Stoker to create his enormously evocative (and future money-spinning ) book 'Dracula'- a book that taps in to some of our most fundamental fears (whatever our religious beliefs) of 'what REALLY happens to us when we die - and how, exactly, is this tied in with how good or bad a life we have lived?

At the foot of Bran Castle

Well, like millions of others, I have read the book, and seen many of the films on the theme, and all I will say from experiencing the visit to the castle, after the drive through the woods and a stay overnight in a forest cabin is that it is ENTIRELY  possible to believe that 'there are more things in heaven and earth….than are dreamt of in your philosophy'. It is, to me, a land of mystery, of enchantment, and of imagination, where one can still truly experience closeness to nature - not  pretty, Disneyfied nature but 'nature red in tooth and claw', which makes the immediacy of life - and death - very present.

It is suggested that this cross, at the foot of the Castle, was the inspiration for the 'Bleeding Cross' at the beginning of Francis Ford Coppola's 'Dracula'

I was expecting (and fearing!) just such a Disneyfication of the Castle and the 'Dracula' story, but in fact, I was both surprised and highly impressed by the fact that - so far - The Count has not overwhelmed  the Castle. There were one or two allusions to him - fair enough - and, I believe, a room dedicated to the novel and the legend at the top of the Castle (which I did not visit) - apart from that - almost nothing.

OK - maybe there were just a few rather deliciously naff touches of popularisation!

The story that was much more in evidence was, in fact, the much more recent and very heart touching story of the real life Queen Marie and her children. The princesses of Romania called this castle home, and one of them, Princess Ileana (a great granddaughter of Queen Victoria) was forced into exile after World War 2, when all of Europe was divided up - to the victors the spoils.

Here is the story of Ileana -  a rather wonky shot of an explanatory poster in the castle (sorry!)

The diary entries of Ileana are some of the saddest I have ever read. She was clearly devastated at having to leave her beloved home behind - not knowing if she would ever see it again. (In 1950, in her journal, she records that 'On 7th January 1948 I left Bran castle and my beloved homeland in heartbreak') But even in this story, there is something of a 'happily ever after', as the family had the castle restored to them in the early years of this century - and it is through their generosity that the castle is now open for us all to visit.

It really was quite an experience to walk the cold, dark corridors of that castle; together with the experience of the wild and beautiful but threatening forest, my interpretation of European folktales has been transformed forever.

Wild forest and fairytale Castle - what more could an Old Romantic want?!

*** Stop Press - BBC is apparently screening a 'lavish, new adaptation' of 'Dracula' this autumn, complete with Bisexual Count. Should be interesting.