Mentioned to be discovered deep within the mountain vary MacGillycuddy’s Reeks in Kerry, Eire, the ruins of Dun Dreach-Fhoula fortress is alleged to be the house of bloodthirsty fairies of the Otherworld. Query is that if it’s an historic legend or a contemporary hoax.
The Fortress of Tainted Blood or the Fortress of The Blood Visage is supposedly a fortress within the mountains in Kerry in Eire, mentioned to be inhabited and constructed by the blood sucking and shape-shifting fairies from historic instances.
Learn Extra: Take a look at all ghost tales in Eire
However how a lot reality is the legend of the supposed bloodthirsty fairies? Is it actually as outdated because the story claims? And what’s the reality about its connection to Dracula? Let’s first take a look at what the legend tells.
The Legend of the Fortress of Tainted Blood
Excessive among the many jagged slopes of Kerry’s MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, that means Black Stacks in Irish, it goes on for 19 kilometers from Hole of Dunloe within the east to Glencar within the west. It’s Eire’s highest mountain vary with the best peak and sharpest ridges.
It’s mentioned that that is the place the place the ruins of Dun Dreach-Fhoula, a fortress of blood and demise, is hidden away within the misty mountains. The “Fortress of the Blood Visage,” because it interprets, was mentioned to protect a lonely mountain move the place few dared to journey. The silence of the peaks, the thick mist that curls round their historic stones, and maybe it was the unusual crimson hue of the stone that generally stains the partitions after rainfall gave rise to whispers of a darker reality. It was mentioned that the very rock itself was cursed, steeped within the blood of the residing and haunted by creatures that had been neither mortal nor divine.
The legends inform that Dun Dreach-Fhoula was not constructed by human fingers alone. In line with the outdated tales, the fortress was raised by beings from the Otherworld and blood-drinking fae who hid from daylight and feasted upon vacationers who strayed too shut. The move they guarded was greater than a highway by means of the mountains; it was a threshold between life and demise.
The Dracula Connection
Now, the legend just isn’t actually advised as a stand alone story, however it’s actually talked about when speaking about various theories to the inspiration behind Dracula. Many have argued that this Irish legend, fairly than the historical past of Vlad the Impaler, might have impressed Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Although Stoker himself claimed in any other case, the hearsay about it being extra Irish than something exists and has taken maintain in lore since no less than the 90s.
He by no means visited Jap Europe and relied on vacationers’ tales to assemble his vampire’s homeland. On the identical time, in Dublin’s Nationwide Museum, Geoffrey Keating’s Historical past of Eire was displayed, crammed with accounts of undead spirits and historic chieftains who rose from their graves to drink blood.
One such story was that of Abhartach, the blood-drinking lord of Irish legend, whose grave was mentioned to exude darkness even in daylight. Across the identical interval, author Patrick W. Joyce printed a narrative about this identical chieftain, spreading his title all through Eire. I
Learn Extra: The Legend of Eire’s Vampire King Abhartach and the Haunted Large’s Grave
The phrases alone, “the place of tainted blood”, look like one thing born from Gothic creativeness, but they belong to Eire’s personal folklore. Or does it? Is it actually only a piece of Gothic creativeness? Some say that the very phrase Dracula comes from the phrase, Droch-fhoula. But when we begin to dismantle the grammar and linguistic historical past of the Droch-fhoula, it appears to disintegrate. And the query is, does the entire legend of Droch-fhoula disintegrate if you happen to take an in depth take a look at it?
The Hunt for Droch-fhoula Fortress
Now, the story will get handed round that Droch-fhoula comes from historic Irish legends. The expression is believed to seek advice from blood feuds between individuals or households. Might it even be for a vampire legend native to Eire?
It seems to be like this declare comes from Peter Haining and Peter Tremayne of their guide The Un-Lifeless from 1997. In line with them, they received the story despatched to them in a letter from Cathal Ó Sándair in 1995. It’s imagined to be from a lecture delivered by a person known as Ó Súilleabháin, the pinnacle of the Irish Folklore Fee, who supposedly talked about a fortress known as Dún Dreach-Fhola in Magillicuddy’s Reeks inhabited by blood-drinking fairies:
It was Ó Sándair, writing to the authors in April 1995, who additionally made the remark that Bram might need been guided to make use of the title of the historic Wallachian hero – Dracula – as a result of it sounded the identical because the Irish droch-fhola (pronounced drok’ola), unhealthy blood; he would possibly even have related the title with a Kerry folk-tale about ‘Dún Dreach-Fhola’ (pronounced drak’ola), the fortress of blood visage. The fortress was mentioned to be excessive up in a lonely move among the many Macgillicuddy’s Reeks, a variety in Co. Kerry, which accommodates Eire’s highest mountain. Ó Sándair might be proper: Seán Ó Súilleabháin, the Kerry-born one time registrar and archivist of the Irish Folklore Fee, talked about this identical oral folk-tale in a lecture at UCD in 1961, previous to the publication of his guide on Irish demise customs, Caitheamh Aimsire ar Thórraimh, translated into English six years later as Irish Wake Amusements. He mentioned it was advised to him within the Macgillicuddy’s Reeks. The story considerations an ‘evil fairy fortress’ – Dún Dreach-Fhola, inhabited by neamh-mhairbh (Un-Lifeless), who sustained themselves on the blood of wayfarers. Sadly there is no such thing as a reference to the story in Caithreamh [sic] Aimsire ar Thórraimh.
Supply: The Un-dead, web page 71
Folklorist, Owen Harding believes the origin of the phrase might come from this phrase and that the connection comes from a manuscript about one other vampiric legend about The Abhartach. An article says:
“Owen Harding says there was a manuscript printed about this legend from an nameless author. It was entitled The Abhartach, Dreach-Fhoula. This doc was exhibited up until 1868 in none aside from Trinity School which Stoker attended. So is it possible that Stoker used this story to base his novel on? Harding believes it’s.”
Is it true that these writers received the story from a folklorist who collected Ó Súilleabháin was a folklorist, however there are as of now, no major sources immediately from him about this legend. In truth, an article about his work really mentioned: Vampires are to not be present in Seán Ó Súilleabháin’s A Handbook of Irish Folklore, printed in 1942. In order that this half is true is fairly doubtful. It’s also value noting that each Hauning and Tremayne additionally wrote a whole lot of fiction and maybe weren’t cautious sufficient of their analysis.
Though they’re claiming these folklorists and writers have been straight up mendacity about it and most hits trying to find it’s a weblog put up devoted to reveal the story as fabricated and never historic and native of Kerry in any respect. So it begs the query, was it extra of a mistranslation and complicated outdated Irish textual content, or about fabricating them to toughen claims about Irish connection to Dracula? Or is it actually a bit of proof someplace, the place the tales and ruins of a fortress inhabited by blood thirsty fairies exist?
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References:
dún dreach-fhola | cassidyslangscam
How Bram Stoker created Dracula with the help of Irish folklore
Extra on Irish Vampires – The Unhealthy Blood of Dracula | cassidyslangscam
https://archive.org/stream/CreepyStories/EncyclopediaOfVampireMythology_djvu.txt
‘Historical’ Vampire Legends from 1997! | cassidyslangscam
Vampires A Area Information To The Creatures That Stalk The Night time [PDF] [6pe6eq38o090]
https://magiaposthuma.blogspot.com/2008/08/perhaps-little-too-high.html
