Elizabeth Bathory, Blood Countess or Super Freak?

Elizabeth Bathory has been of interest to me since I saw an episode of  "In search of....." on a Saturday morning at some point in the late '70's early '80's. I like many others just got creeped out by the introductory music for the series:  

                       

At this point I am not even certain the Countess got her own episode. I think her story may have been linked to that of the ''real'' basis for Dracula, the Wallachian Prince, Vlad Tepes. I remember the ever creepy Leonard Nimoy visiting a hall of portraits  resplendent  with pictures of Elizabeth, Vlad, and a couple of unfortunate children with fur covering their faces. I digress.....

The information regarding Elizabeth (Erzsebet) Bathory is somewhat scanty. The Encyclopedia Britannica offers the following entry regarding her life and supposed criminal activities written by Richard Pallardy:

"Elizabeth Báthory, Hungarian Erzsébet Báthory   (born Aug. 7, 1560, Nyírbátor, Hung.—found dead Aug. 21, 1614, Castle C̆achtice, C̆achtice, Hung. [now in Slovakia]), Hungarian countess who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Báthory was born into prominent Protestant nobility in Hungary. Her family controlled Transylvania, and her uncle, Stephen Báthory, was king of Poland. She was raised at the family castle in Ecséd, Hung. In 1575 Báthory married Count Ferencz Nádasdy, a member of another powerful Hungarian family, and subsequently moved to Castle C̆achtice, a wedding gift from the Nádasdy family. From 1585 to 1595, Báthory bore four children.

After Nádasdy’s death in 1604, rumours of Báthory’s cruelty began to surface. Though previous accounts of the murder of peasant women had apparently been ignored, the claims in 1609 that she had slain women from noble families attracted attention. Her cousin, György Thurzó, count palatine of Hungary, was ordered by Matthias, then king of Hungary, to investigate. The count palatine determined, after taking depositions from people living in the area surrounding her estate, that Báthory had tortured and killed more than 600 girls with the assistance of her servants. On Dec. 30, 1609, Báthory and her servants were arrested. The servants were put on trial in 1611, and three were executed. Although never tried, Báthory was confined to her chambers at Castle C̆achtice. She remained there until she died.

While documents from Báthory’s trial supported the accusations made against her, modern scholarship has questioned the veracity of the allegations. Báthory was a powerful woman, made more so by her control of Nádasdy’s holdings after his death. The fact that a large debt owed by Matthias to Báthory was canceled by her family in exchange for permitting them to manage her captivity suggests that the acts attributed to her were politically motivated slander that allowed relatives to appropriate her lands. 
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Elizabeth Bathory", accessed June 12, 2013,http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1489418/Elizabeth-Bathory.

Recently a lot of novelizations, movies and documentations concerning Elizabeth have been released. Here is an example from the British Docementary Series on Lady Killers.

                    

I have been reading a novel based on dual timelines on concerning a 20th century descendant of Elizabeth Bathory who had fled the communist ruled Hungary in the 1950's and is living in 1980's New York City, and a timeline dealing with the life and crimes of his ancestress the Blood Countess.........   The Blood Countess by Andrei Codrescu

So far the novel has held my interest. It includes a lot of sex, debauchery, and torture....Great for the 40 year Goth Lady! I am looking forward to finishing it.

In doing the research for this post I ran into all kinds of references to Elizabeth everything from Black Metal Bands, to apologetic accounts of her life. There are numerous books about her most are fictional, and maybe a few have landed in the ever-growing Amazon cart.