A foreign merchant from Hungary visited the capital of Tirgoviste. Vlad ordered him to leave his wagon of gold in the street overnight obviously to show off how his people would not steal. However the merchant was surprised to find 160 gold florins missing in the morning. Vlad then told the merchant "Go now; and tonight you shall have your gold back". He put forward orders for his men to find the thief in the city saying also that if the burglar was not found that he would personally throw one of the hugest tantrums anyone had ever seen and destroy the city.

Dracula then put his own money in the wagon overnight adding one florin to the original sum.

The next morning the Merchant was astonished to find his florins returned with one extra. He went to Vlad and said of his findings. Vlad had by then been brought the thief and had him impaled (probably whilst enjoying breakfast off to the side). He announced to the Merchant "walk in peace now; but if you had not told me about that one florin, I would have had you impaled together with this thief!".

THE VISITING MONKS

A difficult story is this one as there is quite a few variations surrounding different details.

The basics of the story are that 2 monks visited Vlad in his palace at Tirgoviste.

Vlad was curious to see the reactions of two monks regarding his impaling and atrocities. He led them to the rows of corpses in his courtyard and asked their opinions. One of the monks responded saying "You are appointed by God to punish evil doers". The other monk obviously more horrified at what he saw and was honest enough to express himself truly and condemned Vlad for his actions.

The German stories tell of Vlad impaling the second monk and rewarding the first but the Russian story tells of Vlad impaling the first for dishonesty and rewarding the second monk for his honesty. Whichever he impaled you can be assured that Vlad being the lover of impalement wouldn't of missed and opportunity like that and most probably impaled both just to have something to enjoy lunch by.

Another story that there are a few different versions of.

Foreign Ambassadors were at Vlad's court at Tirgoviste. They were granted an audience with the prince and refused to remove their hats which at the time was the custom when in the presence of a prince in Wallachia. Vlad was angered and instead of immediately impaling them he had their hats nailed to their heads so that they could never remove them.

Another version:
The envoys were Turkish. They refused to remove their Phrygian caps. When questioned why they said it was not the custom of their fathers to do so. Vlad ordered their hats nailed to their heads with three nails so that they might never break such and excellent tradition.

THE MISTRESS

Vlad kept a mistress in the back streets of Tirgoviste. The woman was madly in love with the prince and would do anything for him. One day Vlad came to her depressed and to cheer him up and claimed to be pregnant with his child (she did this knowing full well how upset he got over dishonesty). Vlad warned her that she should not joke over a matter so serious but she stuck with her lie. Vlad then ordered her to be examined by the bath matrons to determine if she was telling the truth or not. He was soon informed of her lie and then slit the poor woman open from her groin to her breasts leaving her to die a slow horrible death and wishing for his people to see what happens to a liar.

Vlad got upset at the increase of cripples, beggars, poor and vagrants upon his land. He was very obsessive regarding that all worked and contributed equally. So he offered up a great feast in a great hall in Tirgoviste, saying that no one should go hungry in his land.

The people who were made up of those unfortunate souls that were poor and crippled ate and drank late into the night when suddenly Vlad made an appearance. He asked them "What else do you desire? Do you want to be without cares and lacking nothing in this world?". The crowd were fooled by his question and rose up and answered that they did indeed. Vlad then ordered the hall boarded up and set on fire. No one escaped. Vlad explained his actions saying he did it "in order that they represent no further burden to other men so that no one will be poor in my realm". I think Vlad was reincarnated later as Hitler.

WHAT TO DO WITH A LAZY WOMAN

Vlad pointed out a man working in a field who was wearing a too short caftan. The prince stopped and asked if the man had a wife. He replied "yes". Vlad ordered the wife be brought before him and asked her how she spent her days. The terrified woman answered that she spent her days washing, baking and sewing. Vlad pointed out to her the husbands short caftan as evidence of her laziness and dishonesty and ordered the poor woman impaled despite her husband's protest that he was well satisfied with his wife and she certainly was not lazy. The woman was not spared and Vlad ordered another woman to marry the peasant warning her to work hard or she would suffer the same fate.

In 1459 on St. Bartholomew's Day, Vlad had 30,000 of the merchants and nobles of the Transylvanian city of Brasov to be impaled. In order to enjoy the entire experience (as we know that it's a full day's entertainment for him!) he commanded that his table be set up and that his boyars join him for a feast amongst the forest of impaled corpses. Whilst dining, Vlad noticed that one of his boyars was holding his nose in an effort to try and avoid some of the smell of blood and emptied bowls of the surrounding bodies. Vlad took it upon himself to impale the man higher than all the rest so that he might be above the stench.

Another version has the man as a nobleman, an envoy of the Transylvanian cities of Brasov and Sibiu sent to appeal to Vlad to spare those cities. Whilst hearing the man's appeals Vlad took great enjoyment walking amongst the stakes with some of the bodies still alive. The nobleman was almost overcome by the ordeal and so Vlad asked him if he found the stench oppressive. The nobleman, seeing an opportunity to get on Vlad's side of things responded that his only concern was for the health and welfare of the prince. Vlad was then angered at the nobleman's dishonesty and of course (I bet you've guessed already) had him impaled once again high above the stench.

Other interesting things about Vlad Dracula, Most are actual facts but of course some are simply myths.

-Vlad often had the stakes arranged in various geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring of concentric circles in the outskirts of the city that was his target. The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The decaying corpses were often left up for months. It was once reported that an invading Turkish army turned back in fright when it encountered thousands of rotting corpses impaled on the banks of the Danube

-He signed his name (vlad) Draculea or Draculya - the Devil's son -, a name which was distorted into Dracula.

-Some tell the story of how Vlad used the monastery as a prison where he tortured people in the cells. Apparently there has been discoveries of decapitated skeletons with their skulls placed alongside the pierced bodies.

-Dracula used various means of torturing including, cutting of limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off noses & ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to wild animals and boiling alive.

-Another story similar to the burning of the poor was that Vlad gave a feast for his boyars and their family to celebrate Easter. Vlad was well aware that many of these were part of a conspiracy that led to his father's assassination and the burying alive of his elder brother, Mircea.

During the feast Vlad asked his guests how many princes had ruled during their lifetimes. All the guests present had outlived several princes. One answered that at least thirty princes had held the throne during his life. Vlad immediately had all the assembled guests arrested on the spot. The older boyars and their families were immediately impaled. The younger ones and their families were marched north from Tirgoviste to the ruins of a castle in the mountains above the Arges River. Being determined to rebuild this ancient fortress as his own he forced the boyars to labor for months rebuilding the old castle with materials from another nearby ruin.

They were forced to continue on even though their clothes fell from their bodies and they were naked. Very few of these people survived the building of Castle Dracula.