The REAL creature that inspired Dracula

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is often linked to Vlad the Impaler, but the evidence is far less certain than popular culture suggests.Could an Irish revenant called Abhartach offer another clue to the origins of the world’s most famous vampire?Dracula’s origins are more complicated than the familiar story of Vlad III of Wallachia inspiring Bram Stoker’s Count. Stoker certainly encountered the name “Dracula”, yet his surviving research notes reveal surprisingly little interest in Vlad the Impaler himself. That leaves room for other influences, including Gothic fiction, European vampire folklore and a disturbing Irish legend from County Derry. Abhartach was described by Patrick Weston Joyce as a tyrannical dwarf and magician who repeatedly returned from his grave until he was buried upside down. Later retellings transformed him into something even closer to a vampire, demanding blood from the living and becoming associated with the neamh-mairbh, or walking dead. Folklorist Bob Curran argued that Stoker might have encountered the tale through Ireland’s literary and folklore circles. But how much of that connection can actually be proved?