[Dr. Marius Mircea
Crişan is a senior lecturer at The West University of Timişoara, Romania. He
obtained his PhD from The University of Turin, Italy, with a thesis on Stoker’s
sources on Transylvania. He has published on reception theories and imagology.]
“Built on the corner of a great rock, … it was
quite impregnable.” (Dracula 49)
Much has been written on
Stoker’s possible models for Castle Dracula. Some point to castles in Great
Britain visited by Stoker; others to historical fortresses in Romania
associated with the Wallachian prince, Vlad the Impaler.[1]
But scant attention has been paid to the descriptions of castles provided in
four specific texts that we know Stoker consulted while working on his novel:
Charles Boner, Transylvania: Its Products and its People (1865); Major
E.C. Johnson, On the Track of the Crescent (1885); Nina Elizabeth
Mazuchelli, Magyarland (1881); and Andrew F. Crosse, Round About the
Carpathians (1878).[2]
The most
significant of these potential influences is Terzburg (mentioned in Boner,
Mazuchelli and Crosse). This is the famous castle of Bran, originally named
after Törzburg, the German name of the village of Bran. This castle has been
often associated with the myth of Dracula and has even “won” the name of
Dracula’s Castle. For example, almost every Romanian tourist brochure refers to
it as such. But is there any connection between the fortress of Bran and the
castle of Stoker’s vampire? While it is true that, as Elizabeth Miller
suggests, the connections have been vastly exaggerated,[3]
Bran Castle might very well have influenced Stoker. I base this contention on
the likelihood that Stoker saw an illustration of the Terzburg/Bran fortress in
Boner’s book and possibly another that appeared in Magyarland.
Castle of Terzburg (Boner 278)
It is a reasonable assumption that if a
writer is using a source for verbal description of an unfamiliar country and if
the source also includes illustrations, he will be influenced in some part by
the images. Among the many drawings of mansions, fortified churches and
fortresses, Boner includes one of Terzburg/Bran. Of all of the drawings in
Boner’s book, this is the most similar to Stoker’s castle. Boner presents Bran
as a natural barricade “built on a rock rising just where the mountains on
either side slope down and meet as if to barricade the way” (278). It is a
prototype of a romantic fortress not only because of its position, but also
because of its interior:
Nothing can be
more romantic than the fortress; its position among the solitary rocks, its construction
and seeming inaccessibility, make it the very ideal of such sort of dwelling.
It might have been the abode of some robber knight, or of Blue Beard, who from
the windows high up over the perpendicular rock saw and defied the knights
scouring across the plain riding amain to save their sister's life. A path up
the rocks leads to the entrance, which is gained by mounting an outer wooden
stair, and crossing a trap-door or drawbridge in the flooring. Within are
narrow passages and galleries, strange nooks and zigzag stairs, and dark
corners irresistibly attractive, and in the thick wall was a low prison where
no ray could ever enter. (278-279)
Like Castle Dracula, it is perched on a
rock and seems inaccessible. In Dracula the inaccessibility is more
emphatic: “The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone
falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything!”
(38). The citadel of the Count is built on the corner of a great rock, so that
on three sides no “sling, or bow, or culverin” (49) can reach.
In both cases the
visitor on his way to the castle has to ascend. In Stoker, the whole trip to
the castle follows an ascending route; in Boner, one has to climb a path up the
rocks leading to the entrance. Boner sees the construction as a gothic castle,
with passages and galleries, and associates it with extraordinary stories, as
the castle seems to be populated by heroes of Romantic fiction or horror fairy
tales. In his description we also find the gothic association between nobility
and villainy, as he writes that the castle might have belonged to a robber
knight. This is the only castle in Boner’s book associated with a fictional
villainous possessor. And it is the only castle Boner describes as a potential
place of horror. The strange nooks and zigzag stairs, as well as the dark
rooms, suggest an atmosphere similar to the one described by Harker in
Dracula’s castle. The darkness and the mystery of the castle are irresistible
for Boner, as they will be for Stoker’s character. The dungeon mentioned by
Boner reminds us of the fact that Harker sees the whole castle as a prison and
describes himself several times as a captive: “The castle is a veritable prison
and I am a prisoner” (38). The dungeon in Boner is devoid of light; when Harker
enters the castle after midnight, he notices that no ray of light comes from
the black windows of the ruined castle.
Bran Castle is also
mentioned in Magyarland. For Mazuchelli, the castle is a tourist
attraction. Her way to this spot is a special experience, as, before seeing the
castle, she is impressed by the magnificence of the Făgăraş Mountains, with
“their noble buttresses and steep sides surrounded by a thousand watercourses,
showing rugged in the sunlit portions, and blue, deep and mysterious in the
shadows” (2:149-150), but she is also surprised by a group of wild looking
gipsies who perform some roadside acrobatics, as a form of begging. Before
reaching the castle, she also notices herds of black buffaloes idly browsing,
which “give quite an Eastern appearance to the scene” (2:150). Magnificent
mountains, gipsies and the “Eastern appearance” are associated with Dracula’s
Castle too.
Illustration in Magyarland
(2:151)
For Mazuchelli,
Bran is representative of Transylvanian castles, which, being “very
interesting, and, like those of the Robber Knights of old, are almost
invariably perched on the summit of some inaccessible mountain or high pinnacle
of rock, where the dwellers could defy all foes” (2:151). Her description of
the village of Bran as “situated on the extreme confines of Transylvania,” and
“one of the most barbarous description, inhabited solely by herdsmen and their
families” resonates in the backward rural environment described by Stoker. The
author of Magyarland shows that at the architectural level, the Western
and Eastern elements coexist in the structure of Bran Castle. Like Dracula’s
Castle, this ancient fortress dominates the landscape, and Mazuchelli
emphasizes its position, in a similar way to Boner:
The castle or
fortress, which, with its many turrets and towers, is a mixture of the
Byzantine and Gothic architecture, stands on the topmost ridge of an isolated
rock commanding the pass into Wallachia, and was originally garrisoned by a
military religious Order of Teutonic Knights. It is approached by a steep
pathway, the interior of the castle being entered by a small postern under the
tower now reached by a wooden staircase, but in ancient time by a movable
ladder. (Magyarland 2:151)
There
is no proof that Mazuchelli read Boner’s description of Bran.[4]
But like Boner, she describes the castle as a gothic place, the ideal spot of a
fairytale world. Her attitude, after more than twenty years, is, however,
similar to Boner’s, whom she sometimes seems to paraphrase:
Anything more wild
and romantic than the position of the castle cannot be conceived, its
accessories reminding the spectator of the nursery tales of his childhood – of
Blue-beard and Giant Despair. Inside there are grim passages, trap-doors, and
yawning depths, all bearing silent witness to the troublous times when these
borders were invaded by the Tartar and the Turk. (2:151–152)
The picturesque aspects of Bran Castle are
emphasized in the image of the bivouac the author takes near this fortress. She
spends the night in the company of some inhabitants of Terzburg, “so barbarous
and formidable a folk” who take care of her trip in the region, and before
falling asleep watches how “the setting sun was blazing on the castle walls”
(2:152). Despite the similarities, nothing in Stoker’s Notes indicates that he
was aware of these descriptions.
A brief reference to Bran can be found in Andrew F.
Crosse’s Round About the Carpathians, another of Stoker’s known sources
for Dracula. Crosse notices the fortress when he rides over the Terzburg
Pass: “The picturesque castle which gives its name to this pass is situated on
an isolated rock, admirably calculated for defence in the old days” (213). He
also writes briefly of the history of the citadel, underlining its importance
in the defence of the Transylvanian frontier, as well as the role of the German
community in the tenure of the fortress.
Among his Dracula
Notes are several excerpts that Stoker took from E.C. Johnson’s On the Track
of the Crescent, including descriptions of the castles of Gorneşti
(Gernyeszeg, in Johnson), Brâncoveneşti (Vécs), and Beclean (Bethlen in
Hungarian). One that is relevant to the discussion at hand is his description
of a Transylvanian chateau at Gorneşti. Stoker made these notes:
Transylvanian house
usually built two wings with central archway main entrance – upper room open
stone corridors, staircases, floors etc. and furniture polished oak – strips of
carpet beside rest of floor uncovered. (Bram Stoker’s Notes 230-231)
Johnson also describes this
building as “furnished throughout in a very luxurious manner,” the carved
cabinets “beautifully inlaid à la Louis Quatorze” and the ceiling of the
dining-room magnificently painted with classical subjects” (246). In his novel,
Stoker stresses the richness of Dracula’s castle.
Another possible
inspiration for Stoker is Johnson’s description of the castle at Brâncoveneşti
– in Hungarian Marosvécs (or Vécs, in Johnson). On his way to this castle,
Johnson observes some manifestations of people’s religiosity. He visits a
Romanian church and describes the crosses by the roadside and the people who
are worshiping Christ in front of them. Only after he passes a big cross does
the “grand old castle” (256) come into view. In Dracula, before meeting
the Count, Jonathan Harker also notices many crosses by the roadside and the
people’s absorption in praying in front of the shrines in natural settings.
Johnson describes the building as the prototype of a medieval castle that
dominates the surroundings. Like Stoker’s imagined castle, it has frowning
battlements and old towers. Placed on a steep hill, the castle dominates the
whole village and the comparison of its placement with the relationship between
chickens and hens reflects the medieval rapport between the aristocrat and his
vassals. The relationship between Dracula and the Transylvanian peasants has
also been interpreted in similar terms, because the vampire count exploits the
unhappy peasants, feeding himself and his “brides” on their blood, as happens
with the child brought to the castle.
The winding
approach, the spiral staircase and the panoramic view towards the mountains are
other elements found in Stoker’s book. Here is Johnson’s first impression of
the castle at Brâncoveneşti:
Perched on a
height, its frowning battlements and grim old towers presented a perfect
picture of a medieval stronghold, while the cottages which constituted the
village if Vécs were clustered round the base, like chickens round the parent
hen. The approach to the castle wound round the hill on which the latter stood,
and, after passing this, we crossed the drawbridge which spanned the moat, and
drew up before the hall-door, in front of which was a charming terrace, planted
with trees and flowers. From here there was a lovely view down the road by
which we had come, and up the valley to the mountains. (256-257)
Like Harker, Johnson is also kindly received by the
landlords of the castle. The castle at Brâncoveneşti is full of history and the
hunting trophies are associated with the warlike times when the ancestors of
the aristocratic hosts “made their mark in the sanguinary field of war in days
gone by” (257). Dracula is proud of his warlike ancestors and his castle is the
place where Harker learns about Transylvanian history. In the castle at
Brâncoveneşti, Johnson enters a long picture-gallery, wherein hung the
portraits of several warriors, “grim-looking Magyars, in gorgeous attire, and
with fierce moustaches whose up-curled points seemed to endanger their
eyesight.”
The old tower of
the castle is the witness of a terrible medieval time. Like Stoker’s future
castle, it is a place of horror, where the prisoners were tortured. It is a
dark place, as light can enter only through a long slit, and there is no
window. In this torture-chamber the prisoners who had been racked and tortured
were cast through a trap in the floor into a deep pit below, to spend in pains
the short remnant of their lives. The castle had also dark dungeons, even below
the level of the moat, where the wretched prisoners had passed “weary years in
damp and darkness, without a ray of light, or of hope” (259). The antique
tower, where “monsters, capable of inflicting such fiendish cruelties on their
fellow-men have lived” (259), is haunted. The castle is a typical medieval
place, as “there is no doubt that in the Middle Ages such horrible practices
were pretty general” (259).
But the castle of
Vécs mirrors both past and present; it presents its English visitor the hell of
human existence, but also the delight. While some parts of the castle reflect
the cruel medieval past, other rooms are places of delight because of the
artistic objects they present. If Harker sees Dracula’s castle as a great
museum, Johnson is also impressed by the interiors of this building. With a
tall easel in one corner of the room and a great piano in another, the great
drawing room looks like a museum space, furnished and ornamented in the most
luxurious manner, with “magnificent Gobelin tapestry,” exposing handsome glass
cases full of old coins, medals, military orders, inland cabinets, mosaic
tables, and escritoires, thick Turkish carpets, or impressive chandeliers.
Even more than the
beauty of the interiors of the castle, the natural scenery impresses Johnson.
In a little wood next to the gardens, the English visitor finds an ideal place
for admiring the whole valley: the forests, the smallness of the people seen in
the distance, the ascending road, the unconquerable position of the castle, the
height of the mountains in the background, the peak “Isten-Szék” (God’s Seat).
All of these traits appear in Stoker’s novel. The landscape associated with
Castle Dracula is indeed very similar to Johnson’s descriptions.
Other descriptions
from Johnson that Stoker noted refer to the two castles of Beclean (Bethlen in
Hungarian) – the newer and the older one, as Johnson refers to them. Johnson
visits the new chateau and leaves it on a moonless night. Although Bethlen Castle
is presented as “a heavenly spot” (272), certain elements resonate in Stoker’s
novel, such as the large gate at the entrance to the chateau or the old fine
architectural elements (the stone steps in the Florentine cinquecento style,
the handsome balustrade). The new castle has two wings, and Johnson takes the
left one, which was unoccupied. Like Harker’s room in Castle Dracula, the room
Johnson takes here is only partially furnished, but is fine and octagonal in
shape. If Harker’s room gets less light, Johnson’s has three large windows,
with a view of the adjacent mountains, with their forest-clad sides, and the
winding stream running at their base. The furniture is plain, but comfortable.
The cool mountain air gave Johnson a strong appetite; he takes aristocratic
dinners, and a frequent chicken dish is paprikás csirke. In Dracula’s
castle, Jonathan’s first meal consists of chicken.
Another element
that may have inspired Stoker is the dress of the gentlemen. When he visits the
older castle at Bethlen, Johnson finds the aristocratic family gathered at the
table and notices that “all the gentlemen wore black coats, black trousers, and
boots up to their knees” (273). Seeing the people who take part in a meeting
about the elections, the traveler notices again that they are dressed in black
or grey coats, like in England. Thus, it is possible that Count Dracula’s black
clothes are inspired in part by Johnson.
During his sojourn
at this castle, Johnson took a raft driven by a Slovak and crossed the Mureş in
order to climb a hill in the neighbourhood. This Slovak does not accept money
from the English visitors, showing that he works for the Count who owns the
castle. In Stoker’s novel, the Transylvanian vampire count is served by
Slovaks. The rafters who carry Dracula’s box from Galaţi to the neighbourhood
of Dracula castle are also Slovaks.
Charles Boner’s description of the castle
at Criş (near Sighişoara) might also have caught Stoker’s eye. While not
referred to specifically in the Notes, there are points of similarity. This
castle is the property of a Hungarian nobleman. Boner crosses the hills and
passes through a very bad road before arriving there: “None but horses of the
country would have dragged a waggon up such steeps, and through hollow ways so
narrow that our vehicle was always tilted on one side” (365). One is reminded
of the comment in Dracula about the bad state of the Transylvanian
roads: “it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order”
(16). Dracula’s abode is a “vast ruined castle” (24). The Count notes, “the
walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold
through the broken battlements and casements” (35). At Criş, Boner is impressed
by the decay in which he finds the old castle. When he visits Transylvania,
many of the destructions since the 1848 revolution were still not repaired:
“And so this old place so historically interesting, so picturesquely beautiful,
moulders year by year into decay. Thus here in a once handsome room, the blue sky
looks in through the broken roof” (365). The entrance is “by a broad
stone archway into a large court, where all that meets the eye tells of ancient
time.” At the end of the court there is a “massy tower to which a covered
flight of steps leads, as well as to an open gallery that runs along one side
of the court.” Like Dracula’s castle, this building fascinates its visitor with
the remembrance of the past. The two tenses used in the description of this
castle, present and past, emphasize the melancholic reaction of the English
visitor. All that was once glorious is ruin at the time of his visit: the
second court is a garden “where formerly were handsome halls, as the remains of
frescoes and the slender shafts of columns plainly show” (363-364).
Harker too is aware
of history while walking in Dracula’s castle. For him, the discovery of this
fortress means a meeting between contemporaneity and history. He sits “at a
little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with
much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love letter” (49) and narrates in
his diary in shorthand his own experience in the castle. Harker enjoys the
experience of the past, and realizes that “the old centuries had, and have,
powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill” (49). He imagines the
rooms in the old time of the “remorseless wars” when the ladies waited for
their husbands to come back from the battlefield. While exploring the home of
the mysterious count, the English solicitor finds great heaps of golden coins
older than three hundred years, old chains and jewelled ornaments. What he
observes is different from what he sees in an English museum, because the
ancient has another value:
There are certainly odd deficiencies in the
house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me.
The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of
immense value. The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the
hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must
have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old,
though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but they
were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. (29-30)
Boner observes at the castle of Criş that “Everywhere
are interesting traces of antiquity” (364). In his view, this castle has
several gothic elements, such as the court, the garden with historical relics,
the cellar (which was also used as a chapel), the coats-of-arms. While describing
the building, the author shows several times how impressed he was by the signs
of the past (for example, see 365).
Two other castles described by Boner are worth noting:
Hunyadi Castle and the fortress of Deva. Because of a fire, which broke out at Hunyadi
Castle in 1854, a few years before Boner’s visit, “the noble castle” is
transformed into “a place of desolation.” Boner is impressed by the grandeur of
this castle, situated “on a steep limestone rock,” and presents it as “the most
picturesque of castles, that of the great Hunyadi, ruinous and blasted by fire,
but still grand in its proportions, and imposing from its commanding and massy
forms.” The gothic elements are present here too: two rivers which meet at the
foot of the rock on which the castle stands, the bridge, high up in the air,
which “led across from the steep bank to the portal of this royal palace,” the
large courtyards, the corridors, the “bow-windowed chambers overlooking the
roaring current beneath,” the chapel “defaced and desecrated,” “the mighty
cellars once well stored with luscious Transylvanian wine,” the broad regal
terrace with a view upon the plain. “There are so many remains of what is
beautiful, that it is painful they should be thus left, uncared for…” (527),
Boner concludes. This castle is also mentioned by Crosse, who although he could
not visit it, writes about the famous building associated with John Hunyadi,
who was born near by, and who subsequently built the castle. Situated on a
lofty spur of a rock, washed on three sides by two rivers which unite at its
base, and accessed by a high draw-bridge, Hunyadi fortress has a “romantic and
singular position” (158). Also in a ruinous state is the fortress of Deva,
placed on the top of a hill, but in spite of the sadness provoked by the state
of the building, the traveler feels here the same fascination with history and
nature. This castle, too, offers a panoramic outlook and Boner writes, “the
view from the castle which is very much higher than Heidelberg, is magnificent”
(530).
There can be no doubt that the fictional Castle
Dracula had many inspirations, including – of course – Stoker’s own
imagination. But the preponderance of echoes in Stoker’s novel of books that we
know he consulted (whether he took notes from the relevant passages or not)
leads to the conclusion that his sources played an even more prominent role
than previously acknowledged.
Works Cited
Boner, Charles. Transylvania: Its
Product and Its People. London: Longmans, 1865.
Bram Stoker’s
Notes for Dracula.
Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, eds. Jefferson NC and London: McFarland, 2008.
Crosse, Andrew F. Round
About the Carpathians. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1878.
Frayling, Christopher. Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula.
London: Faber and Faber, 1991.
Johnson, Major E.C. On the Track of the Crescent: Erratic Notes from the Piraeus to Pesth. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1885.
Leatherdale, Clive. The Origins of
Dracula. London: Kimber, 1987.
Leatherdale, Clive,
ed. Bram Stoker's Dracula Unearthed. Westcliff-on-Sea, UK: Desert
Island Books, 1998.
[Mazuchelli, Nina Elizabeth] A Fellow of the Carpathian Society. “Magyarland”: Being the Narrative of Out Travels Through the Highlands and Lowlands of Hungary. 2 vol. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1881.
McNally, Raymond T. and Radu Florescu. In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires. 1972. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
Miller, Elizabeth. Dracula: Sense & Nonsense.
Revised edition. Southend-on-Sea, UK: Desert Island Books, 2006.
Stoker,
Bram. Dracula. 1897. Penguin Popular Classics, 1994.
[1] See for instance
Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu, In Search of Dracula 7-15, 60-78,
150.
[2] For a list of
Stoker’s known sources for Dracula, see Bram Stoker’s Notes for
Dracula: A Facsimile Edition, eds. Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth
Miller, 304-305. This book also contains the actual notes that Stoker recorded
from these four books: Boner (240-243), Johnson (220-233), Mazuchelli
(200-205), Crosse (210-219).
[3] Miller discusses
the relationship between the fortress of Bran and Castle Dracula in Dracula:
Sense & Nonsense 130-132. Arguing that the connection has been
exaggerated, to the point that it has been written that Bram Stoker himself
(who never was in Transylvania) visited this castle, she contends that it is
next to impossible that Stoker knew of Bran Castle. She explains that the
association of this fortress with the myth of Dracula started when overseas
visitors began flooding into Romania looking for the vampire Count and
subsequently projected everything they knew from Stoker’s novel onto this castle.
[4] Indeed, she most
likely did not. Although Boner is quoted by other British travelers who visited
Transylvania after him, the author of Magyarland seems not to be aware
of his book. Mazuchelli narrates how the English traveler is remembered by
several Transylvanians who met him about twenty years ago. The fact that she
spells his name “Bonar” instead of “Boner” suggests that she was not familiar
with his book. When people talk to her about Boner, she has a rather
indifferent attitude, which makes me doubt that she heard about his
contribution.
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