linguistic:translation
Vampire mythology

The stories about Vlad made him the best-known medieval ruler of the Romanian lands in Europe. However, Bram Stoker 's Dracula, which was published in 1897, was the first book to make a connection between Dracula and vampirism. Stoker had his attention drawn to the blood-sucking vampires of Romanian folklore by Emily Gerard 's article about Transylvanian superstitions (published in 1885). His limited knowledge about the medieval history of Wallachia came from William Wilkinson 's book entitled Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia with Political Observations Relative to Them, published in 1820.

Stoker "apparently did not know much about" Vlad the Impaler, "certainly not enough for us to say that Vlad was the inspiration for" Count Dracula, according to Elizabeth Miller. For instance, Stoker wrote that Dracula had been of Székely origin only because he knew about both Attila the Hun 's destructive campaigns and the alleged Hunnic origin of the Székelys. Stoker's main source, Wilkinson, who accepted the reliability of the German stories, described Vlad as a wicked man. Actually, Stoker's working papers for his book contain no references to the historical figure, the name of the character being named in all drafts but the later ones 'Count Wampyr'. Consequently, Stoker borrowed the name and "scraps of miscellaneous information" about the history of Wallachia when writing his book about Count Dracula.