Elisabeth Bathory was born in Hungary in the year 1560. She was married at the tender age of 15 - not uncommon in a time when life expectancy was roughly around 35-40 years. Her husband, Count Ferencz Nadasdy took her away to his rough fortress as one might expect. But once there, rumors quickly spread (rumors that perhaps were added, indeed fabricated, after the awful details of her crimes became known) that dark, evil, ungodly rituals were taking place within the corrupt walls of Castle Csejthe.

The Count eventually passed from this life, worn away by his hard years on the battlefields of his country. But the widowed Countess carried on - with her own, inbred sense of superiority. Of royal (and legal) omnipotence.

Alone in her mighty castle, she had nothing but time on which to dwell on her lonely state of affairs - and clearly in that time her mind began to decay. She perceived her rather plain features as glorious and beautiful. But without a kind word, or reasonable distraction, she began to dwell obscenely on her outward appearance and the terrible effects of passing time. It became an all consuming mania that she should remain young, beautiful, desirable. As physically impressive as her station in life.

The story goes that in a rage towards one her careless servants, she lashed out at the poor young girl who had pulled her hair while combing it - drawing blood. It splashed upon the Countess - in her demented obsession she actually believed that the skin upon which the young servant's blood had splashed, had, somehow, reverted to a clear, vibrant tinge of youth. The blood had made her young. Or so she thought.

The Countess now entered the most notorious aspect of her life. Deluded by the thought that blood would keep her eternally young, she took to torturing and killing young girls. First came the servants – and when she went through them like a scythe, even more local girls were recruited. All butchered to line the royal bath of the countess with their precious blood.

The locals were in an uproar, but had little power to move against the powerful woman. Her family were kin to the ruling elite of Hungary – and to accuse a noble of such a savage act, without real evidence, was something no peasant was prepared to do. Even the church was powerless.

The Countess and her close group of willing murderers – including it is alleged her own aunt, whom she was accused of having a sexual relationship with – did as they pleased within the thick stone walls of their fortress. It is estimated that perhaps 650 young women were drained of their life to appease the insatiable madness of Elizabeth Bathory. This number by Elizabeth's own reckoning - in a foolishly well notated diary she kept.

Finally, with the local towns and villages denuded of teenaged girls, other members of the ruling powers finally felt "compelled" to act. But they were slow to action until one last debased act was committed -- before the eyes of virtually the entire town, four recently murdered girls were tossed from the battlements of Bathory's castle. Count Thurzo, the Prime Minister, was now compelled to move rapidly against his own, "indiscreet" kin. They stormed into the castle and found the horrifying evidence of a human abattoir.

Shocked beyond comprehension, the tales told by the locals were sadly exposed to be all too true. But the guilt of inaction was something that the decaying ruling �ites of Europe were never much troubled with.

Most of the lesser accomplices of the Blood Countess were either tortured (some had their fingers pulled off), or put to swift death. But not the instigator of the horrifying sacrifices. Elizabeth Bathory was walled up in a room in her own castle. Food and water was passed to her through small openings in the stone.

She remained in her stone coffin for many years to come – a living corpse - until she finally shriveled away, ugly and old, into the arms of death on August 21, 1614.