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As the cold midwinter of 1610 seeped through the stone of Čachtice Castle in Hungary, screams could be heard coming from within. The 50-year-old widow, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, was indulging in some entertainment. At her feet lay a young serving girl who was being burned with red-hot irons. She would not survive.
The countess, who would come to be known as the most prolific female killer in history, seems to have found pleasure in inflicting pain and misery on her servants, serfs and anyone who crossed her. Over the years, these tales of torture grew so monstrous that she was thought to have bathed in the blood of virgins, a pastime that granted her eternal youth. Like the fictional character Dracula, with whom she is often compared, she is seen as a monster and someone who inflicted pain on others for personal pleasure. Over centuries of folklore and embellishment, fact and fiction has become muddled, with the number of her victims cited as high as 650.