Nobody knows for sure what dark character Bram Stoker was inspired to create his most famous protagonist: Dracula, the famous vampire . Many scholars of his work believe that it is based on the figure of Vlad the Impaler, however, since Ireland , birthplace of Stoker, voices have been raised to claim that it was possibly the legend of the Irish Abhartach, the origin of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Join us to discover who was that terrifying character.
The legend of the Irish Abhartach
The most extensive mention of Legend of Abhartach It was made by the Irish historian and writer Patrick Weston Joyce . In his work "The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places" of 1875 he explained the history of that man. Previously, he had been cited in the seventeenth century, as a real character, by another Irish poet and historian who was also a Catholic priest named Geoffrey Keating.
We must go back among the 5th and 6th centuries , to the area Glenullin , to find Abhartach. At that time that area of Ireland was a mosaic of small kingdoms in which a caudillo or local ruler dictated rules and laws that all his subjects had to abide by. Legend has it that Abhartach , whom they describe as a dwarf, was a chief especially cruel and ruthless and those who were subject to him hated him and feared since they thought he had dark powers . Finally, they went to a neighboring caudillo called Cathain to ask for help and get rid of his yoke. East He confronted Abhartach and killed him.
They buried him as the Celtic tradition dictated: standing up. Legend has it that the next day he reappeared , more cruel if possible, and he asked to feed himself with blood extracted from the veins of the wrist of one of his subjects. Cathain returned and killed him again, however Abhartach again escaped from his grave and appeared in his domains demanding more blood to continue living . Cathain consulted a druid who explained that it was a "neamh-mairbh" or "dead walker" and to finish him he had to stick a sword made of yew wood , to bury it face down and in a tomb surrounded by hawthorn and to put on this a great stone so that it could not return to escape. He followed the instructions and Abhartach did not appear again .
It was the teacher Elizabeth Miller which in 1990, studying Stoker's notes to create his novel, realized that he had very little information about Vlad III and hypothesized that his character, really, was based on the legend of the Irish Abhartach . Another of the curiosities that the scholars of the work of Stocker assert to affirm that the origin of Dracula is Irish, is the existence of a Celtic word that means "contaminated blood" and is "Dreach-fhuola" . They believe that the name of their main character derives from it.
What do you think of this theory? Do you think Bram Stoker could be inspired by Abhartach instead of Vlad the Impaler? Or maybe both? If you want to know other vampire stories, we invite you to read: The legend of Brodka, the Polish witch who became a vampire.