Once upon a time, three young children discovered skeleton keys in the sacred fountain wells of the Sidhe Fae and a curious cipher disc under the the Poulnabrone Dolmen portal tomb located in the Burren of County Clare, Ireland. Soon after, their ad...
The Order of the Dragon (Latin: Societas Draconistarum, literally "Society of the Dragonists" and "Order of the Dragon" respectively) was a monarchical chivalric order only for selected higher aristocracy and monarchs, founded in 1408 by Sigismund of Luxembourg, who was then King of Hungary (r. 1387–1437) and later became Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1433–1437). It was fashioned after the military orders of the Crusades, requiring its initiates to defend the cross and fight the enemies of Christianity, particularly the Ottoman Empire. The Order flourished during the first half of the 15th century, primarily in Germany and Italy. After Sigismund's death in 1437, its importance declined in Western Europe. However, after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, it continued to play a role in Hungary, Croatia, Albania, Serbia and Romania, which bore the brunt of the Ottoman incursions. The Prince of Wallachia Vlad II Dracul, the father of Vlad the Impaler, took his name from the Order of the Dragon.
Vlad III, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula 1428/31 – 1476/77), was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania.
... [Vlad] had a big copper cauldron built and put a lid made of wood with holes in it on top. He put the people in the cauldron and put their heads in the holes and fastened them there; then he filled it with water and set a fire under it and let the people cry their eyes out until they were boiled to death. And then he invented frightening, terrible, unheard of tortures. He ordered that women be impaled together with their suckling babies on the same stake. The babies fought for their lives at their mother's breasts until they died. Then he had the women's breasts cut off and put the babies inside headfirst; thus he had them impaled together.— About a mischievous tyrant called Dracula vodă (No. 12–13)
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He was the second son of Vlad Dracul, who became the ruler of Wallachia in 1436. Vlad and his younger brother, Radu, were held as hostages in the Ottoman Empire in 1442 to secure their father's loyalty. Vlad's father and eldest brother, Mircea, were murdered after John Hunyadi, regent-governor of Hungary, invaded Wallachia in 1447. Hunyadi installed Vlad's second cousin, Vladislav II, as the new voivode. Hunyadi launched a military campaign against the Ottomans in the autumn of 1448, and Vladislav accompanied him. Vlad broke into Wallachia with Ottoman support in October, but Vladislav returned and Vlad sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire before the end of the year. Vlad went to Moldavia in 1449 or 1450, and later to Hungary.
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Emma Kiraly
The oldest sister tell the younger ones that when she was a baby, her great-grandfather said that it was fun to kill people, particular the old men, old ladies, mothers and their children during the first Tokyo firebomb raid in 1945 when he and his squadron killed over 80,000 civilians.
