The Human Seasons

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:—
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook:

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

by John Keats

I am (John Clare)

I am

by John Clare

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

Ozymandia - Percy Shelly

The Tale of If...

If...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

~Rudyard Kipling~

The Tale of Ozymandias

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:
‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear;
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my work, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

~Percy Bysshe Shelley~

A poem so delightful to anyone who learns to recognize the essence, the core and the truth in life. Vanity rules on man's earthly work, thus leaving a hollow gap for any spiritual exploration...Darkness blinds mortal modern lives, and escapism becomes more dreanced in the spase of memory...

Shelly well establishes transcendental themes within his poem on how Man will always boast on his achievements, the lout, the land, the gold, the power! However mighty the human ambition may be though, every one can see that in the end all will lead to despair,to the absolute nothingness of the soul instead. For earthly accomplishments, relinquish the body of now, and not the soul of the Future.

"I am Ozymandias; Kings of Kings!", so he exclmais...with such proud gleam in his face that even the richest of men will be envious. But is that all? Ozymandias is just a flesh, that will soon come to pass and that will soon be long forgotten on this earthly land. Therefore what is the point of all this greed?

Ambition drives the people who have darkness inside of them....Hope drives the ones with light in their soul...Therefore Ozymandias should be nurtured in our Souls as the ultimate task of Man to strive for the unexplicable, the illogical, the divine and the holy.

For "nothing beside remains"....

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

Th Post-Anger Episode Tale

Being angry with everything around you does not solve anything. People are always angry these days. Because they are never satisfied with their lives. I am never satisfied and that angers me. My whinning and my complaining tires me. Why does man have to be so greedy, so insatiable, so ungodly miserable that they only see the bad things in their lives? I am like that most of the times and I hate my greediness because that makes me sad and grumpy and it prevents me from having fun and really enjoying myself. I did not use to be like that, I know. I used to be fun, smiley and so funny. Now I am grumpy, sad and always thinking of how to get by financially. I never use to think about money or its purpose. I never use to care or if I did I wasn't letting them take over my life.Now it seems that they are there in front of me, waiting at every corner, to suck me in, to make me bow to them, and whorship them. I am not a follower of money.I always abhorred money and what it does to people. It has my parents under constant stress and struggle for over twenty five years and I always thought I had to fight against money to not become one of its followers. But here I am. Angry as hell, and I am taking on the money. I hate people who love it and people who whorship it. People who make it their purpose in life and not their means. I hate the fact that people in today's society think that in order to progress you gotta have money, instead of brains or passion or hope. I hate the fact that I am angry. I hate the fact that I am force to be so many miles away from the people I love to be able to fight in order to give them half what they have given me so many years. But most of all I am anrgy I am angry. I am tired of being tired. And I hate it that I hate so many things, instead of expressing all the love and all the goodness in me I am cruel and harsh and I choose the path of loneliness to be able to offer things to others in the near future.

I am not an idealist and I am not a romantic. Although I'd very much like to be one. I am not a realist. I am a person living and beathing. With normal dreams and normal wants and needs. I want love. I will have love. I have love. I am thankful I have my two legs, one left, one right, I am thankful I have my two eyes, two hands and have a voice. I want to voice myself. Not mute it any longer. But I am bound by the social norms sadly. Therefore I will believe more and hope for the best. Calm myself and learn to relax when anger takes over. I will learn how to breathe, steady and with ease. And I will remember to smile and be thankful for the things I have and not be angered by the things I do not have.

Blessing in Disguise Tale

Given the past five minutes I am really reconsidering my plans for my future in the current house I am living in. in starting out a new life and not having much money you’re bound to accept any rudeness and unwelcoming-ness from random people who live with you under the same roof. You’re obligated to put up with them just because you have no choice no matter how much they degrade you and no matter how awful they treat you, cause lets face it folks; if you ain’t gotta much money or connections in a big city like London, you have to put up with a lot of shit to put yourself forward, don’t you?

So in the past year I have experienced abandonment, loneliness, degradation, aggressiveness, manipulation, isolation, exclusion and hate. All of them negative feelings I know. But in retrospect to everything that has happened to me I realized that within all these awful things, I am still alive. I am lucky enough to breathe, to see, to walk and speak. I am lucky to think. I am lucky to be able to watch movies, to be able to write and have dreams. Some people don’t even have that. Sadly. And I get so mad that even though I got abandoned and cast aside by all of my university friends, I am fighting my own fight alone, and on top of it I have to put up with my obnoxious housemates who all they seem to be thinking is Britney Spears’ shoes, Jordan and Peter Andre’s holidays and Lady GaGa’s dress. They blame you for everything they think that goes wrong, they assume you are the most sinfully boring creature in the world for not talking about Beyonce’s new hit and instead you’d like to talk about existentialism and nationalism and history. My god how boring I am to their eyes. How boring I sound to everyone to actually believe that humanity was not an accident and that we didn’t just happen to have happened in this third rock of our universe.

I am cynical in my own right and I hate air-headed people who cannot see beyond their surface. Dig deeper and you’ll a darkness so overwhelming you’d feel the urge to search for light for the rest of your life.

That is why I am most convinced that maybe it was a blessing that all my friends have left me. Maybe it was a blessing that I am struggling by myself for a better future away from my beloved parents, away from my beautiful ideal home country, and that maybe all of these things which I consider awful and sad that are happeing to me are making me a better person, making me even more mature and making me see life in a whole new way; perhaps a way that these housemates of mine will never be able to see. Everyone see the worlds as they are shaped to see it, some lighter than others some darker than others. Either way I resist to accept any form of defeat, even if at the end I do not get to accomplish exactly what I set out to do I still would be left with the life’s journey full of harsh but worthwhile experiences to tell perhaps some day to others.

The unlived angel

No tales for thee my child

But just a sweet woeful song

To guide you in the morn of your new dawn

And hold you up to the blue heavens of eternity

Fare thee well unlived angel

Carry on thy course in the New Kingdom

And pray the skies are more welcoming

But hold thy last breath in your mortal flesh for company

Folly was the harm done to thy not fully grown body

And selfless was your vain sacrifice

For the rest were carried out in humanity’s vanity

Instead of the soul’s chastity

You had your two young feet drowning in a river

Half blue and half red it turned the day your sun expired

And you decided to pass on for the explosion which was coming

So that others could profit from the innocent’s blood

And yet you reach your now immortal hands

And give hope for the oppressed

And a handkerchief for the woeful

And head towards the pathway of eternal light

I bid thee fare thee well

And may a New Sun guide your journey

Unknown unlived angel…

The Tale of the Englightened Babe...

Perpetual hell I am in
For me is all I think
Shame on self alone
For Christmas ‘tis in Town

Yay! I say hark the skies
But my heart won’t sunrise
To feel and sense this kind of magic
Which is supposed to make all happy

Yet happy I am not this time
For nothing to look for is so high
Yet I look to the skies and pray for the babe
Who was born so many years so far away

It was nurtured in silence and poverty
And brought joy through humility
Yet no one practices his teach nowadays
But instead they look for new ways to make more pays

The babe was small, and human and warm
Yet it was divine in its entire vacant hall
And glowed its way to this vain world
To be a martyr and witness the horror of all

The clouds heaved and brushed the skies with warmth
They spread like dancing queens in the divine ball
And waited for Judgment’s Day to befall on those walls
And bring the believers on the cliff of God

Eric Clapton - River of Tears

A tale of fate...

IV--I. M. To R. T. HAMILTON BRUCE (1846-1899)



Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~William Ernest Henley~

1875

A Tale of Fight

Go to the Matresses

What do you when you realize that those around you mean to harm you instead of helping you out? Meaning; what do you do when you realize that the people you thought closest to you are diggin' your grave instead of just letting you pass by the cemetery without hoping to someday see you there?

The solution?

No, this time is not revolution but as Mario Puzo very well described in The Godfather (1972) is to "go to the matresses". The very well known phrased usued usually in gangster about Italian Mafia, means loosely that we have to prepare for war.

That is what you have to do. Leave your soft spots asides and all the things that have hurt you, diregard any sort of betrayal and anger which you might feel towards the people who were diggin' your grave whilst you were "asleep" and prepare yourself for the battle of the battles.

Think practicaly: "This is my life, it's now or never, I am in charge of my own destiny, I am going to fight and win because even if I lose I am a winner. I am going to the matresses. My enemies are my power and my means to become better and surpass them. This is war. It's nothing personal. It's just business. It's just life. It's just a dog-eat-dog kinda world and I have to bury the people who pretend to be my helpers in order to achieve the mental picture of my goals. "

No matter who hurt you, no matter what they've done to you, no matter how they've done 'it' to you, you must rise above them and be the bigger person. You have to fight with your self esteem high, no matter if you think that your self-esteems is at tatters. Focus on that mental picture. Think of your prior reasons for beginning on your life's journey and cry out all the soppy emotions you have. It's time to fight. Not for Middle Earth. Not for the honor of your family. Not for saving the world. But for saving youself.

You are the goal. You fight for you. You soldier up yourself for your. You prepare for physical and psychological wounds. You push yourself to try harder. You challenge yourself to the limits. You are thankful for being already who you are. And you go to the matresses. "

The Tale of How it All Begins....

Chapter One

“SHIT! IS THIS MY LIFE???”

So I’m actually, for the first time after a long long time, writing down recent “shitty” events from my insignificant little life. So here we go:

1) For starters, I have NO real friends. And the people I think they’re my friends they’re simply there because when they don’t have a shoulder to cry on they resort to me; the always-innocent- victim who will listen to them just because I happened to be born an asshole and take everyone’s crap as if they were my own.

2) Secondly; my dearest father, who says he “loves” me but all he does all day is remind me how unworthy and unimportant I am, aka what a scum I am and how little I have provided and will provide as well in the future, generally speaking. His all-time-consuming/oppressive love for me makes me question his motives as to not wanting me to leave the house and making it on my own. Idealism is a hard thing, as he pointed out a million times to me, and it’ll hit you hard in the face without askin’ ya. Again, how the f*** does he expect me to learn anything if he doesn’t let me get hit in the face? How will my mistakes be made if I’m always protected not to make any? How am I gonna learn how cruel and unfair life is, and what a bloody-bitch life is if I don’t get to taste it first hand?

3) Saying to someone, “you really are talented and an artist” does not mean shite to me. I don’t need or want or desrve false words. If you say you are a FRIEND then look me in the eye and don’t go bullshitting me with words of wisdom and encouragement but have the guts to stand to my face and say, you’re bloody worthless and a coward, and no I don’t care about you otherwise I would have wished you for your last bloody birthday but I didn’t…so take a hint and piss off…and I will. All you have to do is just F****** tell me you twat!

4) Seeing my mother slave for most of her adult life just to raise my shitty ass, makes me even more worthless than my father accounts me for. All I keep thinking is to make some money to relieve her and make her for once spoiled like she has been making me for so many years. Why am I such an arrogant prick and don’t care that I want to leave her in this forgotten rotten place (my hometown) and go off like a yound idealist I am, to fight for my future and my so-called-bloody-career,which I might even end up screwing up in the end with this move.

5) Instead of ‘moving forward’ they should rename it to ‘move-to-bloody-where-exaclty??’ I am trying to begin a new life and instead all I keep doing is falling into the traps of living my old life for the second time. How bloody stupid am I after all? Very stupid, apparently.

6) Spending 21hours of your entire day with your nine year old dog in your bed does not constitute that you are offering anything to anyone, not even your worthless self. Having a doctor yellin’ all the time that you didn’t rest enough, will not f****** make you any better. Having your folks naggin’ on you all day for restin’ ALSO does not make the healing any speedier. And letting everyone convince you that you WILL fail in your “new endeavours” is not the best tactic to tackle your boosting-up-your-low-confidence-plan, which by now it has already gone to -300.

7) Eating doghnuts, candy, chocolates, brownies and drinking as much as soft drinks there are in the fridge won’t help with bringing any low self confidence issues to their elimination point. Instead, it only increases them. Seeing your once-thought-to-be-best-friend thriving with that excellent body of hers while you’re rotting away by your pointless, endless days trying to put your life into some kind of prespective, does not help as well. And having your cousin, who you have not seen for over eight months, knocking on your door and the first thing that asks you is if she lost weight and how you find her sillouhette, is another minus point in the boosting up your confidence plan.

***So in a summary of all this so far I can proudly say that I am indeed FCUK(ED) and that I should not blame others for my msisery but myself, cause after all in the very wisedomus words of my dearest father…

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW? YOU’RE JUST ANOTHER IDEALIST SPOILED LITTLE FOOLISH TWENTY YEAR OLD, LOOKING TO MAKE A QUICK BUCK!!! SO SPARE ME THE “I-M-GONNA-MAKE-IT-ON-MY-OWN-CRAP” CAUSE IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN KID!

The Tale of New Rain....

The Tale of New Rain....

How wondrous and amazing! To smell and taste the fresh fragrant of the first drops of rain in September. The first month of Fall (Autumn) is always filled with new beginning and starting over. Kinda like a second chance is given to you to make right for all the wrongs you might have been doing all year long, since the beginning of the current year. But when Septembers enters the threshold of our households, it's like you are somehow reborn again. Like the second first day of the year, one might say. And you know it's really here when you smell that wonderful and glorious franrance of the wet earth. Oh how lovely that smell is to my odorless nostrils. And how amazing it feels to be able to smell that. To think that some people forget to marvel on these simplest glorious gifts of our planet makes me feel ashamed for our kind. Instead of giving in to these unique and all so simple gifts of Nature, we refuse them and forget to pay attention, since nowadays we are busy and occupied with other things.

As I was walking my dog tonight, I could smell the wet soil around me and I got to thinking; how mankind simply disregards this natural smell all the time. Since it's the first raindrop here where I am, I feel a bit overwhelmed always when these first raindrops visit a country which is scorching most of the time. As my land is located in the Mediterrenean, to see rain is such an amazing feeling and an exhilaration, at least for me. This odour which I always happen to smell whenever I am in the rainy West, but which I only begin to appreciate when I am here in the East, since it is offered to us so rarely.

How bizarre of Mother Nature to create all this...This unique but for many insignificant fragrance which comes every September is among the nicest things I always enjoy whenever I am here. To feel the wetness on my feet and my body, and smell the wet land (which is mostly soil instead of grass-soil) is an overwhelming experience which is given freely to man, yet is so underappreaciated. No one turns to just pause a second and smell this thing I'm talking about; probably most people think of this as something silly and pointless, but yet it is Nature's way of saying that in this land the Season has changed and a New Dawn is upon us, therefore be weary of your body and your mind to this change of atmospheric epoch.

And thus I welcome this New Rain...this New Dawn....and the New Chance which accompanies September....Sweet Yellowish September....

The tale of being afraid....

Everyone at one point or another during their 'human' life has experience that terrible feeling which makes you feel nautious, dizzy, about to vomit, with palms and forehead sweating or getting ice-cold.

The feeling's name; FEAR. One tiny word, but with such a significance to it. Fear of rejection, fear of death, fear of love, fear of professional or personal failure, fear of heights or other etc etc etc etc. I could go on and on. But instead of boring you people with naming all the kinds of fear that are out there, I'm simply gonna write about the fear which haunts me these days; the fear of moving to another country by myself, with no money, no family and a 'possible futre' in the film industry (not as an actor, but more on the backstage of film kinda job).

My head battles with my heart for weeks now trying to see which one is going to overrule; fight for your ideals even if you fail miserably and come back like a scared dog (=with your tail between your legs) or just stay put to a country where there's no real professional future, career-wise, since the film-industry is still in Zero Ground in my birthplace.

So what would you do if you were, hypothetically, in my shoes? Would you take the leap of faith, or better not risk it and stay put?

Now, don't hurry to answer right away, cause if you're really sane about the matter and not a 100% idealist you would put things down and think about all the factors which would influence such a decision; money, acommoddation, cost of living, entourage etc etc.

Such a dilemma to take such a leap of faith....but what if one does not risk and misses the greatest thing that ever could happen to him...or the worst?! Of course one might say, it's all about how strong a character one is, if you can take the physical and psychological harshness which is going to come your way, whether you make it or not. But if you never do risk and just jump on such a decision, sadly you'll never know whether your life might have been different or not. And as 90% of the western population in our time, people over 40s-50s they tend to reminsce about their life, and look back on that cross-roads, that moment where they could have gone one way or another and always wonder; "what if I chose to go there, or what if I chose to do that? how would my life be now (methinks)." No one can answer that of course.

But who can really say at this stage of my life, in following this way you'll gain everything you've always wanted or if you go this way you'll end up destroying your life for good? And this is where I say like a shakesperean hero in distress: "Aye me, what is a man to do? Take in control of thy destiny and deny the shadows of the past. Look forth for there there lies the unkown; the unknown is your future; whether happy or sad, it is there awaiting for your leap of faith!"

Many leaps of faith....they are the ones which put FEAR out of business.

What is your leap of faith? Do you ever regret having leaped or not?........

The Tale of the Impaler (Ασκαλοπιστής)

Vlad Tepes
aka
Count Dracula

I have always found the story of Vampires and Vampirism in genral quite intriguing, but my interest in the real story of the "Vampire" who started it all increased when a copy of Elizabeth Kostova's novel The Historian reached a couple of years back. I was so engrossed by the horrific true tale of The Impaler aka Vlad Tepes aka Count Dracula of Wallachia and Transilvania, that I wanted to find more about the real person beyond the story. His tale, his world, his actions. His truth.

The most logical place to start would be by dusting off every book I managed to grap from my Uni's library whilst I was studying to get my Degree in Literature. But finding the historical material was not enough to apease my hunger for learning more about Vlad; this mysterious warlord from the Balkhans who spread so much chaos and death among his subjects during his reign.

Thus another book reached my hands; this time it was a novel with purpose and more wit; a novel filled with dakrness and mystery; a booked filled with horror and blood. The author? Bram Stoker. The book? Dracula. The novel who turned the warlord to a real inhuman monster. The book who set the bar on what means being undead and unreal to the rest of humanity. An author managed to turn the story of this mythical ruler into a bedtime horror story for the public of the late 19th century.

Dracula, although gripping and horrific as it may have been wirtten to draw the readers, presented only a hint of the reality of the Real Vlad Tepes though. All that Sotker created was a fraction of how the real Vlad was in real life. Through my ow researching from all the dusty old books and the documents I managed to read through online I came to the conclusion that Vlad must have a really harsh childhood thus resulting to his vile character when growing up. All his actions would be psychoanalyzed today, if he was living in present day. I'm most assured that Vlad's household, which was filled with domestic violence and lack of love and lots of indifference from his parents, was a catalyst to Vlad's monstrous nature, no matter how much he tried to escape the horros being done to him as a youngster by the Turks, he could not escape his past, thus making him into the 'blood-sucking' ruler that he was shaped by others to be.

Indeed in our time, many novelists, screen-writers and filmmakers have indulged on this idea of creating the world of the 'undead' which sprung from our dear old historical figure of Vlad Tepes. Why is that? In reading about it I came across to this section where it mention that Vlad's grave was re-opened some time after his death, but his body had vanished. Some spoke of moving onto the world of the 'undead' where he would drink the blood of his subjects still and haunt the living. Whether that is true indeed no one can be sure about it. All we have are some of the Wallachian myths, being re-told by each generation to generation in order to either frighten children into sleeping at night or frighten foreign invaders from stepping on that particular land of Transylvania.

Some of Vlad's attrocities though have taken on a serious hit, when first reading about them. I am posting some 'anecdotes' as a webstie called them of some of such acts. Please be warned, they are quite vile and nasty:

1. The Golden Cup

Vlad Dracula was known throughout his land for his fierce insistence on honesty and order. Thieves seldom dared practice their trade within his domain, for they knew that the stake awaited any who were caught. Vlad was so confident in the effectiveness of his law that he laced a golden cup on display in the central square of Tirgoviste. The cup was never stolen and remained entirely unmolested throughout Vlad Dracula’s reign.

2. The Burning of the Sick and Poor

Vlad Dracula was very concerned that all his subjects work and contribute to the common welfare. He once notice that the poor, vagrants, beggars and cripples had become very numerous in his land. Consequently, he issued an invitation to all the poor and sick in Wallachia to come to Tirgoviste for a great feast, claiming that no one should go hungry in his land. As the poor and crippled arrived in the city they were ushered into a great hall where a fabulous feast was prepared for them. The guests ate and drank late into the night. Vlad himself then made an appearance and asked them, "What else do you desire? Do you want to be without cares, lacking nothing in this world?" When they responded positively Vlad ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. None escaped the flames. Vlad explained his action to the boyars by claiming that he did this "in order that they represent no further burden to other men, and that no one will be poor in my realm."

3. The Foreign Ambassadors

Although there are some discrepancies between the German and Russian pamphlets in the interpretation of this story, they agree to the following: Two ambassadors of a foreign power visited Vlad’s court at Tirgoviste. When in the presence of the prince, they refused to remove their hats. Vlad ordered that the hats be nailed to their heads, such that they should never have to remove them again.

Note: The nailing of hats to the heads of those who displeased a monarch was not an unknown act in eastern Europe and by the princes of Moscow.

4. The Foreign Merchant

A merchant from a foreign land visited Tirgoviste. Aware of the reputation of Vlad Dracula’s land for honesty, he left a treasure-laden cart unguarded in the street over night. Upon returning to his wagon in the morning, the merchant was shocked to find 160 golden ducats missing. Then the merchant complained of his loss to the prince, Vlad assured him that his money would be returned. Vlad Dracula then issued a proclamation to the city—find the thief and return the money or the city will be destroyed. During the night he ordered that 160 ducats plus one extra be taken from his own treasury and placed in the merchant’s cart. On returning to his cart the next morning and counting his money the merchant discovered the extra ducat. The merchant returned to Vlad and reported that his money had indeed been returned plus an extra ducat. Meanwhile the thief had been captured and turned over to the prince’s guards along with the stolen money. Vlad ordered the thief impaled and informed the merchant that if he had not reported the extra ducat he would have been impaled alongside the thief.

5. The Lazy Woman

Vlad once noticed a man working in the fields while wearing a caftan (shirt) that he adjudged to be too short in length. The prince stopped and asked to see the man’s wife. When the woman was brought before him he asked her how she spent her days. The poor, frightened woman stated that she spent her days washing, baking and sewing. The prince pointed out her husband’s short caftan as evidence of her laziness and dishonesty and ordered her impaled, despite her husband’s protestations that he was well satisfied with his wife. Vlad then ordered another woman to marry the peasant but admonished her to work hard or she would suffer the same fate.

6. The Nobleman with the Keen Sense of Smell

On St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1459 Vlad Dracula caused thirty thousand of the merchants and nobles of the Transylvanian city of Brasov to be impaled. In order that he might better enjoy the results of his orders, the prince commanded that his table be set up and that his boyars join him for a feast amongst the forest of impaled corpses. While dining, Vlad noticed that one of his boyars was holding his nose in an effort to alleviate the terrible smell of clotting blood and emptied bowels. Vlad then ordered the sensitive nobleman impaled on a stake higher than all the rest so that he might be above the stench.

7. Vlad Dracula’s Mistress

Vlad Dracula once had a mistress that lived in a house in the back streets of Tirgoviste. This woman apparently loved the prince to distraction and was always anxious to please him. Vlad was often moody and depressed and the woman made every effort to lighten her lover’s burdens. Once, when he was particularly depressed, the woman dared tell him the lie that she was with child. Vlad had the woman examined by the bath matrons. When informed that the woman was lying, Vlad drew his knife and cut her open from the groin to her breast, leaving her to die in agony.

8. The Polish Nobleman

Benedict de Boithor, a Polish nobleman in the service of the King of Hungary, visited Vlad Dracula at Tirgoviste in September of 1458. At dinner one evening Vlad ordered a golden spear brought and set up directly in front of the royal envoy. Vlad then asked the envoy if he knew why this spear had been set up. Benedict replied that he imagined some boyar had offended the prince and that Vlad intended to honor him. Vlad responded that the spear had, in fact, been set up in honor of his noble, Polish guest. The Pole then responded that if he had done anything to deserve death that Vlad should do as he thought best. Vlad Dracula was greatly pleased by this answer, showered him with gifts, and declared that had he answered in any other manner he would have been immediately impaled.

9. The Two Monks
   There is some discrepancy in the telling of this anecdote. The various sources agree, however, as to the basic story. Two monks from a foreign land came to visit Vlad Dracula in his palace at Tirgoviste. Curious to see the reaction of the churchmen, Vlad showed them rows of impaled corpses in the courtyard. When asked their opinions, the first monk responded, "You are appointed by God to punish evil-doers." The other monk had the moral courage to condemn the cruel prince. In the version of the story most common in the German pamphlets, Vlad rewarded the sycophantic monk and impaled the honest one. In the version found in Russian pamphlets and in Romanian verbal tradition Vlad rewarded the honest monk for his integrity and courage and impaled the sycophant for his dishonesty.

In passing the first shock, one has after reading all this, we cannot but wonder; who was Vlad Tepes after all, and who was the Real Dracula?

My heart's opinion: "Of course the world of the 'undead' exists. So does Vlad or Dracula lives on and they really do live among us by feeding on blood, human or other. I'd be so flabergusted if passing onto such a world; of course it would be scary but also thrilling, and who wouldn't like to experience the eternal life of the 'undead/blood-sucker' world?

My head's opinion: "Don't be daft. Of course there's isn't such as a thing as a vampire or a blood-scuker. That's a made-up nightmarish tale which sprung from the villagers in Wallachia to scare of children or people in general. It's like urban-myths. Hollywood took it on board and created blockbusters through it (Underworld, Dracula, Van Helsing, True Blood etc) and many best-selling authors (The Twilight Series) thought it a good idea to expand on this idea of vampirism. So why should I believe in this nosense that there's another world out there, that of the 'undead' who just can't wait to find me in a dark alley and suck my warm human blood out?!"

So what do you think? Does the Real Dracula exist out there, who in fact is the 'undead' Vlad Tepes? Or is it all just a made-up nonsense told to children by generation to generation to keep the memory of the real Vlad alive by creating this mythical monstrous creature...the vampire...Dracula (=Devil in Wallachian).

Tell me your thoughts on Vlad Tepes...Dracula.....