Part One: Aqua Tofana: How to Kill Your Husband

Margaret talks with Shereen about how, in the era before divorce, a group of women sold poison to aspiring widows.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff.
I'm your host, Margaret phil Joy. Sophie says that I
have to start each episode with a joke in order
to be part of the Cool Zone Media network of podcasts. Yeah, so, okay,
let me tell you. I remember that detail of my
contracts because I've got a photographic memory. It's just that
i left the lens cap on bump. That's my joke. Okay.

(00:25):
And today we've got a returning guest, the one and
only Sharene Sharne. How are you hi, I'm okay, Hi,
thanks for having me. Yeah, what do you? What do
you do? How do you justify your existence? That's a
hard question for me to answer right now. I've been
going through a very extended existential crisis, like extended by
like years. Uh oh, Now I feel guilty. It's fine.

(00:47):
I should know at this point how to answer that
after all this time. But I uh, I make stuff
and try every day to stay alive. But yeah, I've
I write and wrecked and I can't say that I've
done that in a while though. So there's what. There's
what the imposter syndrome comes in. But you're not asking

(01:07):
me all these questions. This is not therapy. I do
need therapists and want to shut up. Yeah, hotly, I
was trying to get you to talk about your podcast
really quickly. Oh my podcast. I do co host a
podcast called Ethnically Ambiguous. It's uh, it's evolved over the years.
It used to be about news, and we do a

(01:28):
lot of guests in tributes now because the news hurts.
That's true. Yeah, Sophie is our producer and is on
the line too. How are you, Sophy? It's just Sophie.
As we established ahead of this podcast, we do believe
I have been cursed. So, um, if if you're listening

(01:50):
and you are the one who did that, how dare you?
How dare you? And I believe we could probably do
like a Peter Pan thing where if everyone starts clapping
and says I believe and Sophie, then that will help
lift Sophie's curse. If everyone who listens to this does that, yeah,
please let me know or if you know how to
lift a curse? Um, you know? Yeah? Thanks Ian as

(02:15):
our editor and on women wrote our theme music. So
Sharine Margaret, I want to talk to you today about
that sacred bond between two people the bond of marriage. No,
in particular, we're going to talk about the most important
part of any successful marriage, which is to say, today

(02:38):
we're going to talk about women who have murdered their husbands. Okay,
that's better, Okay, cool, I'm doubt. I'm doubt. I'm doubt.
I like that twist. I told Serene that we we
picked this episode specifically for her, so it would have
been particularly cruel. Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean the
context behind that is that I do not like marriage,
and that's all you need to know. Like, oh great, Well,

(03:00):
today we are going to talk about a multi generational
crew of which is roughly we'll call them, which is
in seventeenth century Rome, who sold poison to anywhere between
forty six and six women so that those women could
murder their abuse of husbands during an arrow. And I
know this is during an arrow where divorced wasn't a

(03:25):
thing and where women were basically the legal property of men.
And we're also going to talk about the the real
and yet also mythical concoction that they came up with
called aqua to fauna. And along the way, we're going
o to also talk about skincare routines like bathing in
the Blood of innocence. I do love skincare. All right, well,
this is some good stuff for you today. So everyone

(03:47):
buckle up for the How to Kill Your Husband episode,
which we're going to call the how to Kill your Husband.
We're just gonna call it how to Kill your Husband
and see if we get in trouble. M cool. Cool,
So first we have to talk about whenever we talk
about the cool things people did, we have to talk
about the bad things that they're going against. Right, So
marriage m hm, the history of marriage in Europe, really

(04:09):
anywhere that's been controlled by Catholicism or even more importantly, patriarchy.
But the research I did for this episode was primarily
about Europe. It's dark as fun, it's so dark. The
history of marriage is so bad. Italy didn't legalize divorce
until nineteen seventy. What, Yeah, it was way late three

(04:32):
years ago. Yeah, No, it feels like thirty years ago. Yeah,
it feels like yeah, you know what I mean, the
real ones now, okay, yeah, Spain didn't legalize it until what.
Ireland didn't legalize marriage until nine six. I was alive

(04:52):
in both of them. Wait, what was the second one,
I'm I'm spring Chicken, but that was way to nineties
six and and the reason for I mean the reason
for those three is all Catholicism, but but Ireland in particular,
because they the Catholic Church that is very clever thing

(05:14):
where they position themselves as like the anti colonial choice
for the Irish rebels right against that damnable Protestant England.
And so when Ireland got it's like kind of independence,
the Catholic Church was like, hell, yeah, now you're free
from England and you can just serve the pope and
no one's allowed to enjoy sex anymore. Um, and kind
of instituted a theocracy, which is not what we're talking

(05:34):
about today. But I always want to get that off
my chest. Yeah, yeah, I I I don't like marriage
for a lot of reasons. One of them is that
it's usually really based in religion and control and it's
just become this archaic thing we've gotten used to in
my opinion. But um, that's just my two cents. Because

(05:57):
also not all of the hashtag all religions, Um, but
I'm not. I don't really believe in anything, but I
will say that in the Muslim faith, the woman keeps
her name because she's not necessary, because why would you
take your name if she's not related to you? Is
the logic behind that, Like she's not your sister, she's
not your mom, So she's going to keep her maiden

(06:18):
name or her just her name, and she can divorce
anytime she wants. Like it's in the it's in, it's allowed,
you know. So I'm not saying every religion is that way.
I think it's become. I think the institution of marriage
itself has become something really out of our control, regardless
of religion. Yeah, totally. I started trying to look up more,

(06:40):
you know, like I was looking up divorce in Islam,
and you know, finding overall a much better history than
divorce into various Christian faiths. Although ironically, the Puritans, who
hated sex and all this other ship, they were more
pro divorce then the Catholics. Maybe hating sex has something
to do with that, I wonder, Oh yeah, maybe, oh yeah,

(07:00):
they're like, oh yeah, I get divorced, you can't funk anymore. Totally. Um, alright,
so divorce hard. In a lot of times in places
and a lot of places, men were allowed to divorce
their their wives but not vice versa. So like, because
the woman is property, the man can be like I'm
done with this property, but the property can't be like

(07:21):
I'm done with my owner, you know. M hmm makes sense.
Yeah and yeah, so okay, throughout history you've got this
this ship that says wives of the legal property their husbands.
In medieval England it was called coverture, which means that
the wife's legal identity is subsumed by her husband's and
so an unmarried woman could own property, but a married
woman couldn't because if once you're married at all goes

(07:43):
to the husband. Wow, that is backwards as ship, I know.
So it's like, why the funk would anyone get married?
And mostly it's because of arranged marriages and being forced to.
So there wasn't any like benefit. There wasn't the excuse
of like tax breaks, right like back then, there wasn't
really like why wouldn't woman get married if she had
the choice? I you know, everything that I was reading

(08:07):
just basically had the like you kind of like couldn't.
It was very hard to Also in many ways it's
very hard to go through life as an unmarried woman.
And I think this, I think it does change like
century to century and like country to country, like exactly
how free people are kind of in the same way
that I feel like whenever I read about like historical gayness,
it's so different. It will be like twenty years of

(08:29):
awesome on this island and then everyone dies and that,
you know, it's like and I feel like the rights
of women, um, as best as I can tell, in
medieval Europe would would fluctuate a lot. But I think
people were getting married because they're you're like fucking told to. Basically,
it's just like the path of life that was laid
out for you. Yeah. And I think you also literally
don't have a choice in a lot of cases. Um.

(08:51):
And so so English law does this thing. And there's
this problem where if English law does this thing, then
the rest of the fucking world's law does this thing.
Because I don't know if you knew this shream, but
England hasn't always stayed on its island, Oh really, has
it go other places? English people been places they don't belong. Yeah, well,

(09:13):
you know, and they showed up as tourists and took
some pictures and went home and then um, for some
weird reason, when they showed up as tourists. All the
other countries swore allegiance to their monarchy and um anyway
with all colonization and ship their bullshit legal institutions get
inherited by legal systems all around the world, including the US.
And in the US all coverture wasn't really challenged until

(09:35):
the nineteenth century, and it lingers in legal codes today
still in various places, but state by state, each state
slowly got rid of coverture. Louisiana, I'm the stand in
for the dummies in the room. What is coverture? Oh? Sorry,
So that's the the idea that the wife's legal identity
is absumed by the husband. Okay, got it. And so

(09:58):
it's it's it's a little bit like because the wife
is the property, but it's a little bit like the
wife doesn't exist like legally, you know, it kind of disappears. Yeah. Yeah.
Louisiana was the last state to get rid of coverture. Nine.
They finally got rid of it and in the Supreme
Court ruled it federally unconstitutional. And I'm currently I'm hoping

(10:20):
that the current Supreme Court is not listening to this
podcast at getting any ideas. Yes, I hope not, Sophie.
Can we add a legal disclaimer that anyone who is
currently serving on the Supreme Court or who determines what
cases are heard by the Supreme Court isn't allowed to
listen to this episode. I think you just did all right.
If you are listening and you are on the Supreme Court,

(10:41):
you have broken the law and you should report directly
to jail. Also, most of you fuck off. Yeah. Non
English conquered areas also managed to have similar ship because
of other like kind of internal colonization of Europe. You
have the Napoleonic Code which spread throughout Europe, which may
women the property of husbands as it went. Ironically, the

(11:03):
Napoleonic Code, I think also like spread legalization of homosexuality,
but it also spread anyway, makes bag double edged. French
women didn't get the right to work outside the home
without their husband's permission until nineteen wow, famously liberal or
I guess famously neutral. Switzerland didn't offer marriage equality until

(11:24):
with like a super narrow vote that is unsettling. I know,
it was like it was like fifty three or fifty
six percent of the population was like, yeah, let's let's
make women equal in marriage. Yeah, we're always just like, oh,
that place is fine, they're neutral, nothing bad happens over there.
They make pocket knives, yeah, exactly, and hide all the money. Okay. Um,

(11:48):
So in the US, women didn't have the right to
open credit card accounts, or rather, they could be denied
open credit card accounts if they don't have their husband's
permission or whatever until guess what year I mean at
this point Okay, well, well it was actually I kind
of set you up. I was really thinking the worst

(12:12):
of humanity, which is fine usually usually that's true. Yeah.
In n seventy four, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prevents
creditors from discriminating against people based on race, sex, or
marital status. And even then, the thing about sex and
marital status was literally slipped into the bill at the
last minute. There was a congress person named Lyndy Boggs

(12:34):
who hand wrote it onto the bill and made photo
copies to pass out and was like, oh, I'm sure
this was just an oversight that you made this Credit
Opportunity Act and didn't include women in marital status in it, right,
And they were like okay, fine, and they passed the bill. Wow.
Interesting critical support for someone I know nothing else about

(12:55):
bog BLUs. So most of the past thousand years or
so Western women again, at least Western women. That's what
I've looked at in the context of this particular episode
ship run of It. When it comes to marriage, there's
this essay that I think you Sharene would like. It's
from nineteen o seven and it's by Voltering Declaire, and

(13:17):
it's called those who marry do ill Oh yeah, that
sounds sick. Yeah, And it was a response to there
was like this like debate and someone else presented those
who marry do Well, and so she was like, Nah,
those who marry do ill well Epic seven. That's that's
a good Who's it by Vulturing Declare one Future Friend

(13:42):
of the Pod Vulturing Declaire. She wants um. She's like
against the prison system, and so when someone tries to
assassinate her, she like doesn't call the cops on him
even though he shot her, and then like gets handled
in other ways and all this ship Um, I don't
think he disappears or anything. Anyway. I don't know enough
about that story yet because I haven't researched that episode yet.
But Future Friend of the Yeah, that's a little crumb

(14:04):
for later. Okay, And so if you know this show,
you know, if there's a bad set of laws and
social practices, there are people fighting against it. And how
do you think people fought against marriage shrine when divorce
wasn't an option assuming they're already married or like, I mean,
the only logical like solution seems like they would have

(14:28):
to kill their husbands. Yeah, poison. Poison is a really
um women solve the problem of marriage with poison. Hell yeah. So,
but like, honestly, like really think about it. What was
the choice? There wasn't like not all murder. Actually I
shouldn't say that, but I think, uh, when you push

(14:55):
people against the wall, this isn't in context of so
many things, so many things, but people will do things
that they wouldn't normally do. Uh, And everyone's capable of
the same amount of things. You know, no one's like
born unless it's like actually like a chemical thing. But
I think anything that you see someone do and you're like,

(15:16):
oh my god, you can also do that because you're
like you're the same species and you have the capability
of like, in my opinion, anything can push you to
the edge. Yeah, you know, so my point is I
support this kind of murder. Yeah, and that's all I'm
gonna say. I mean, I I am putting them on
my show, cool people who did cool stuff. So no,

(15:37):
but that that makes a lot of sense. And even
that point about anyone can do any of these things
is worth thinking about also from the other point of
view of like, you know, when when we do episodes
that are about like people who like organized and did
all this crazy ship that is a little bit more
above boord and a little bit less murder. Um, that's
stuff we can do, you know, And I like, I
do a history podcast not to be like all the

(15:59):
cool people are dead and everyone to listen as this sucks,
you know. But like I mean, it's hard for me
to remember that even like I just said it out loud,
like soundly, like I really believe that I was saying.
But it's hard for me to believe that like real
change can happen because you hear about all these revolutionaries
and you hear about people that were like fighting in

(16:19):
a much more impressive time, and you're like, wow, those
are badasses, and you forget that you can do the
same thing. Um, I forget anyway for myself because I
think we get a little bit complacent. And also I
think like history in general makes things seem really romantic

(16:40):
and like far away. So yeah, I think reminding ourselves
that we are just as capable, if not more so,
if we wanted to be. But it's just about wanting
to be, and it's about executing executing that want, executing
something something. Wow, I did not even set that up. Yeah, no, no,

(17:04):
and it's such a I don't know. That's an important point.
And and I will say the institution of marriage is
still not inherently great, but is a different structure than
it was before, and divorce is available to more people.
Um So I'm not advocating. I'm just describing what people
who had their backs up against the wall I chose
to do. So. Medieval Italy had this reputation that may

(17:27):
or may not have been deserved, of being fucking obsessed
with poison. Supposedly, Medieval and Renaissance Italy had in whole
poison factories. The authorities were like constantly testing poison and
antidotes on prisoners and animals. Italian perfumers had side gigs
making poison. Wait, so what was this? What was most

(17:48):
of this poison comprised of like was there like a
hot one. Yeah. Well, we'll actually talk about a lot
of what people used to poison people in detail on
this episode. Um, but the big new poison on the
scene for most of what we're talking about is Arsenic Okay, okay,
I was I was gonna say that. I was just like,

(18:08):
I don't know, smart suggestion, but I'm glad in my
mind was on the in the right trap. Yeah, yeah, no, totally.
And so Italians had this reputation of being these master poisoners,
and so they would get hired by courts all over
Europe to be like, oh, we need a court poison er,
come on over, or like at one point supposedly, and
but all of this is wrapped up in myth right,

(18:29):
and we'll talk about that some too, But supposedly at
one point, like you know, some monarch is like, oh,
I need fifty poisoners to win this war for me
by going and poisoning all the wells over you know,
enemy land or whatever. That's crazy. One English guy wrote
at the time, the Italians, above all other nations most
practiced revenge by treasons and are especially and especially are

(18:51):
skillful in making and giving poisons. Um, and so it's
kind of this like oh those sketchy Italians, right, but
you know whatever, that's so interesting. I mean, I guess
it kind of it makes sense. Like I mean, obviously
there are movies or whatever, all the stories you hear

(19:11):
about that time. There is a lot of poison involved.
There's a lot of like assassinations involving poison or like whatever,
and so I guess I for I forget that that
that's like an actual thing that makes sense, yeah, because
it seems like like a like a wizard spell or yeah, totally. Yeah,

(19:32):
the dragon came or the court poison or slipped their
ring open and poison the king drank the wine and
then fell over and whatever. Yeah. Oh no, And I
actually didn't write this in the script, but the kings
and ship were fucking obsessed and paranoid where they would
have like food testers, and the food testers would like

(19:52):
like the kings ate ship because like the food tester
would come and eat a little bit of everything, but
sometimes we just stir it all up to other and
like and so the food by the time it is
ready for the king to eat is like cold and
like take like just destroyed and also strong flavors would
mask the scent and taste of poison, so they would

(20:14):
avoid the like strong flavors. And their concept of strong
flavors was like onions and garlic. Maybe not explains English cuisine.
I know, That's what I was trying to figure out.
I couldn't find a direct link, but it seems because
it's like, well, we don't know about those. But then
I'm like, but I bet the peasants, I mean, they're
already like turnips and ship, right, so the peasants are
probably eating some spicy ship. Yeah, I mean the solution

(20:35):
to that, Mr King's whoever you are, is to make
your own fucking food, totally. Yeah, And and they would
like eat alone, and then they would like, like one king,
I can't remember which one because again it didn't make
it in the script, he would like wet all of
his napkins and have his like testers lick the napkins,

(21:00):
and so the like the fucking handkership is cleaning his
face with or whatever is like wet and covered in
someone else's spittle. Well, why in case there's poison on
doesn't happen? Oh my gosh, that's a little bit too far.
And the best part is none of it worked, because
these these poisons don't take five minutes to show up.

(21:20):
They take take a couple of hours at least, you know. Yeah,
so poison times, ye oldie poison times. But a lot
of it was fake. But there was like everyone was
like freaked out about it, and it's hard to tell
how much was real or not. One Italian poison of
note was used by the Borgia family to murder a
ton of political folks like bishops and all that stuff.

(21:42):
And it was cantarella or thought and it might have
been copper arsenic and phosphorus prepared in the decaying carcass
of a hog. Because what's cool, And we're gonna get
to more of this. This is the time when science
and magic are just fucking science and magic are just
in bed, just fucking I I appreciate that. Yeah, I

(22:06):
was gonna say that sounds kind of witchy. Yeah, you know. Yeah.
And one of the reasons why I think that's a
lot of this is exaggerated. There's so many things to say. Yes,
Italy was obsessed with poison, there's all these poisons, blah
blah blah blah blah. But then like for example, Palmero,
Paul Armo, Palmaro. You'd think I would have spelled it
right when I wrote it down into my script. The

(22:26):
town in Sicily that a lot of this story takes
place in it only had over like a three hundred
year period, there was only seven executions for poison. So, like,
I think a lot of this is this sort of
moral panic where basically anytime anyone important dies, people like
it was poison. You know, Yeah, they've just like perpetuated

(22:48):
this like fearful rumor, I mean more than it probably was. Yeah, yeah,
that sounds like what we do now, So it checks out.
But people definitely fucked with poison. Killing people never goes
out of style. Poison has always also been a weapon
of those who don't have access to more direct means
of violence, which is to say, a woman's weapon again
or has it been? Who knows? Because women kill people, right,

(23:10):
Obviously we're gonna talk about some women who absolutely kill
some people. Um, but patriarchal society condemns women in what
amounts to which trials over and over again. Also, and
everyone loves a good moral panic. So a lot of
the killing we're going to talk about this week of
women and by women was actually about robbing property, and
so I want to talk I'm gonna go on this

(23:32):
like little side quest before we get back to the
main question. I really excited about side quest. I want
to talk about Countess Elizabeth but Torri, which I always
thought was pronounced Bathory. Have you ever heard of this person?
Just that not I have not heard of the tor Okay,
So so this just to be clear listeners. Also, there's
a little bit more of a content warning than usual
on this episode because I'm not going to linger on

(23:54):
anything in graphic detail. But there's some torture and murder
and sexual assault and ship in this week's topic. It's
very medieval, and I'm sort of making a pun but
also realizing that's just where the fucking word medieval, meaning
torture and ship comes from. Guess that's yeah, that makes sense,
that's the root meaning of that word. Yeah. Okay, So
the story goes there was this woman, Countess Elizabeth Pattory,

(24:17):
the Blood Countess, the alleged inspiration for Dracula. She's been
claimed to be the most successful serial killer in history,
with upwards of six fifty bodies. And I'm gonna tell
um I'm going to tell the most commonly heard version first.
But first before we do that, I want to know

(24:38):
so normally we're sponsored by very positive things. Um. I
think this time we're sponsored by Arsenic. But I'm wondering, um, uh, Sharine,
if you have anyone that you would like this show
to be sponsored by something that's just like a pure,
unadulterated positive thing for the world, like potatoes or arsenic,
a positive thing for the world. Uh. I mean I

(25:01):
need more of this. Uh. This is sponsored by my
will to live because it's running out and I need more.
So if I can buy some, that'd be great. Yeah.
So if you purchase the products and services that we advertise,
you will have more will to live. That is the
promise and trap of consumer capitalism. Here's some ads, Okay,

(25:28):
So the commonly heard version of that. Tori. She was
born in fifteen sixty royalty in the Kingdom of Hungary.
She wasn't born in Transylvania, but which was a region
and Hungry at the time now Romania. But her uncle
was in charge of Transylvania and she was She was
an epileptic child, or what got called at the time
the more metal name falling sickness and how do you

(25:50):
treat falling sickness? Well, Sharine, you should try rubbing the
blood of someone without falling sickness on your lips or
just drink that mixed up with powdered skull. Oh, I
mean they do do that like plasma facial these days,
the vampire facial where they like literally take plasma out

(26:10):
of you and put your your face. So yeah, and
it's supposed to like do wonders for keeping you young
forever and like skin rejuvenation. So it sounds like she
was onto something then. But Torre is definitely ahead of
her time because we're going to get to even more
of her skin care rotine. Hell, yeah, she probably looked

(26:30):
so good. So her family was in bread as hell
because their royalty and falling sickness and insanity ran in
her family. Again, this is the sort of legend version
of all this. Her family raised her up to be cruel,
as rulers were at the time, so she grew up
watching brutal torture and executions at the hands of her family.
She watched one Roma woman who was accused of stealing

(26:52):
and selling children into slavery, which was almost certainly like
a racist attack on the Roma woman, because Roma people
get accused of that kind of ship. This woman was
sewn into a horse's stomach. Yeah we alive, Yeah, I
think so. Not for that long though. Mm hmmm yeah,

(27:15):
m I'm sorry. There's going to be some yep. The
medieval ship. She watched her own cousin cut out the
ears and noses off rebellious peasants. Mm hmm. Now I
feel bad. I feel like I've done a bastards. No,
you have not notice. Notice how I'm not flinching so
used to the sewing of the inside of the horse.

(27:41):
I've never heard that, and if I have, I blocked
it out my memory. That is that is sick. There
are numerous types of torture and execution in this episode
that I had never heard of, and I have been
reading fantasy books since before I knew how to read.
I don't know how that worked, but I was probably
doing it. Her family was Calvinist on paper her, but
they practiced Satanism and witchcraft at home. She spoke Hungarian, Slovak, Greek, Latin,

(28:06):
and German, and was one of the most educated people,
let alone women, of her era. When she was thirteen,
she bore her first child, who was fathered by a
peasant boy. The child was whisked away and never seen again,
and the peasant boy was castrated for having dared. And
then the same year she was married off to a
baron named friend Dadsi, who was about five years older

(28:30):
than her and was from a family that supposedly wasn't
all fucked up like the Batteries. And this joined like
two of the most powerful families in the country, right,
because women don't have any fucking choice and they're married,
especially if you're fucking royalty and your Yeah, totally, she
did get given a castle that she didn't even have
to live in. She had a different castle to live in.

(28:50):
She got like her own extra castle and seventeen villages
to own, because feudalism is fucking weird. Her husband was
a noble on a soul journey, was always away from home,
which I think probably suited her just fine. They didn't
conceive their first child until they've been married for like
ten years. He fought mainly against the Ottomans, because I
think everyone who was an Ottoman was fighting against the

(29:12):
Ottomans at that point, and he was a brutally effective
leader and a monster to his prisoners. He would impale
them for fun. The Black Knight of Hungary, leader of
the Hungarian troops. And yeah, it's pretty cool. I can't
deny that it's kind of metal. I know. Yeah, no,
this whole there's multiple metal bands that I mean. One

(29:36):
of them is just called Bathory or maybe but Tory.
Maybe it's pronounced correctly. I'm not sure. He teaches his
wife even more cruelty. At one point, he punishes a
girl by smearing her with honey so insects bite her.
He has this whole game called kicking the Stars. I
don't understand this game. To quote Alexandra Bartoswitz is right

(29:58):
up of this legend. It consisted of putting a piece
of oil soaked paper between the fingers of a disobedient
servant and setting it on fire. What was it, king
called kicking the stars? I don't know. If it was
between the toes, it would make a little bit more sense.
That sounds way more pleasant than it is. I don't

(30:19):
know totally. Hey kid, you want to play kicks in
the stars. Yeah, it's where I sent some stuff on
fire in your hand. That's interesting and strange. I never
heard of that from the same I know, from the
same source. He also presented Elizabeth with a pair of
gloves that ended in claws, which she used to punish
her servants, the original Wolverine and Dracula. Well, she really

(30:43):
had had had layers absolutely like like Shrek. Yeah, I mean,
also just like a side note that I haven't forgotten
since you said it. I forget that Transylvania was a
real place, and I know there are people out there
that do the same thing. So that's already wild to me,
Like it's already set in this fantasy reality time. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,

(31:09):
I have a friend of mine gave me a necklace
that's a little vial of dirt from Transylvania. That's cool,
that's okay. And so meanwhile, while her brave and cruel
husband is off at war, Lizzie Bettore is at home
and she's getting into the evil ship all of her own. Now.
She's making potions and casting spells and fucking people, even women.

(31:31):
She travels around and has lesbian orgies. She invites witches
and wizards to court. She keeps a guy who looks
like a vampire around. He's pale and has sharp teeth
and wears all black, and she gets the name the
Beast of Setcha, which is the name of her castle.
It was. I mean, this is definitely not something you
need to know, But when did the vampire myths start? Like,

(31:52):
when when did that being first get introduced into lore?
I wonder. I used to know the answer to this
better I got. I fell into a vampire rabbit hole
a couple of years ago, I want to say. I mean,
historically versions of it have kind of existed forever. It's
kind of from the like we thought someone was dead,
so we buried them, but they weren't dead, so then

(32:14):
they came back and it scared us, right. Um. But
it's around this time period that you start getting more
and more folkloric vampires, and they're kind of interesting. In
the old vampire stories, some of them are like, um, aristocrats,
and it's kind of this like fear of the aristocratic,
but then some of them are also like all kinds
of other ship. I should do a vampire episode at
some point when I actually know the off the top

(32:36):
of my head, you're atively sucking the blood of the people. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Um,
like staying young forever by you know. Um, and so
by her mid twenties, again, supposedly, she's torturing people, mostly
peasant women in her castle because you see, Sharine, have
you ever had a migraine? Yeah? Yeah, they suck. Okay,

(33:00):
Well what if I told you that nothing cures a
migraine like the screams of your victims? Mm hmm I do.
I am pausing for a moment of thought. Um oh yeah,
that'd be hard to turn down if it was really
bad migraine. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, fair enough. So
so she starts torturing people to cure her migraines. And

(33:22):
that's that's that's what she believed, Like my my, that
is if my victim screaming. Yes, this is what the
legend about her has right, right right, allegedly all of this. Yeah,
and she's doing all kinds of ship according to this
legend that I'm not going to get into details about.
By the time she's forty one, she's got a which

(33:42):
best friend who moves in with her. Um just a
gal pal named Anna Darvoulia, who is described as a
wild beast in a female body, which is objectively cool.
So with Anna around, but Torre gets crueler and starts
killing her victims. She claims that there's a aller outbreak,
and that excuses all the dead people, including now the

(34:04):
daughters of the gentry who have come to learn manners
at her court. So she's like, oh, send your daughters
to learn manners. They will live as prey in my
castle and I will hunt them. She probably leaves that
part out of the letters Interesting and most Famous, so
she's not just killing peasants at that point the right
she moves on to the royalty or the gentry. Most famously,
she's known to bathe in their her victim's blood to

(34:26):
stay young forever, which is why it's a shame it's
pronounce batory instead of bathroing um. Supposedly she put other
girls and women into iron maidens with drains at the
bottom of the iron maiden and like attached it to
a chain that swings above her takes showers and blood

(34:46):
h and I know. And the way that she learned
that blood is good skincare, much like century has learned
that blood is good skincare, is that whenever maids would
suck up while doing her hair for she would massacre
them and noticed that their blood was good for her skin,
but the blood of aristocrats works better. So I would

(35:09):
say that basically, the blood of billionaires will keep you
young forever. I would say that as a fact. Yeah,
In case anyone's wondering, is this is this where the
problematic vampire facial thing comes from? I was, I was
thinking about that. I don't know, there's no way this
is how it started. Maybe, but like the the modern

(35:32):
version of that is definitely interesting to think about because
a lot of people dismissed it, but apparently it's actually
a very um it works like because I mean what
what the first thing you have to do is though,
is like you have to like micro needle your skin,
so you're you're you're wounding your skin and then the
blood over it your your face is apparently like the

(35:54):
act of your face healing the wound and like generating
new skin. That's what it used. It used to be.
And the reason why it was um. Where there was
primarily the issues is they were using not your own blood.
That was the thing. I didn't do that. That was

(36:14):
a thing. Um, But I can't create market for blood.
Where does the blood come from? Great question? And there
was all kinds of you know, as you can imagine
health and sanitary issues there. Um that is that is bad.
But yeah, no, no, but what I know exactly what
you're talking about, which is you know, he or like

(36:38):
it's and it's done by like board certified like dermatologists.
You don't know what's like. But no, this other thing,
you just can't create a market for blood, that's the
bad thing. Yeah, yeah, I did not realize that, but
um that yeah, it was in fact a thing. I'm
just wondering if this is the original source of it.
I mean it sounds like which would be kind of cool.

(37:01):
And what Margaret saying is you're remperencing something from pop
culture Sharena and Sophie. I don't know the answer to that.
Fair enough, Yes, that is what's happening, fair enough, Um,
please continue. Yeah, but I mean, you know, sixteenth and
seventeenth century vampires. I have a little bit more knowledge about. Yeah,
thank god, I will say I I if I had

(37:24):
the money. I don't think I'm above the real, like
the actual version of the PRP plasma facial thing, because
collagen your body can't create college and once it's gone,
you're just gonna get more hollow and sad. There's nothing
wrong with the hollow and sad. But but the thing is,

(37:45):
if something works, regardless of how weird it is, you
will do it. And I think this lady is doing
the same thing, you know, like it's working for her,
and so she's gonna keep doing it fair enough and sick.
Oh okay, and so yeah, so she she doing this
bathing of blood, and she also keeps girls as prey
in her castle to be hunted at a whim. Why girls?

(38:06):
Why just girls? I'm not sure be easier to get Probably,
so I actually I do have an answer that will
come in the second half of when I'm talking about her,
when I when I say what the actual story is,
and I think that all In sixteen o four, her husband,
the Black Knight, is off at war again and he's
forty eight years old, and he either gets slain in

(38:27):
battle or gets poisoned by his wife, depending on the
story you read. And with him dead, suddenly his widow
inherits everything, and rumors are spreading about what's happening in
the castle at this point, and the king sends his guy.
His Palatine is the name of the title, basically the
hand of the King I can make a pop culture
reference that just has to be about two shows about

(38:48):
people with swords. The Hand of the King goes to
go investigate over three witnesses to torture and murder come forward.
They're exhuming all these bodies and shipped from graveyards to
find all of the torture. They find other bodies and
the tunnels under the castle. So on December six ten,
the Hand of the King goes personally to her castle

(39:11):
and arrests her and four of her servants accomplices. When
they arrived, she's covered in blood over the corpse of
a mutilated girl with another living as prey in the castle.
And when they searched her castle, they find her journal
detailing the deaths of six hundred and fifty people. She
kept a diary about all this. Again, well anything like

(39:35):
no DNA nothing, you're writing how many people you've killed? Yeah,
but I have a question. Sorry, it's okathi about the answer.
What was the gender of the kid that they had together?
Was it a boy or a girl? And I don't know?
Oh no, no, no, you said that they oh they did.
I think she ended up having like ten of his

(39:56):
kids in the end. But like I don't remember how
many of them are vibed. All of these stories are like,
and then they had seven children, three of whom survived
to adulthood. I guess my question is, like, would normally
the air get everything versus the queen. I oh, it's
an interesting point. I don't know how the inheritance was

(40:16):
working in this particular setup. I do know that she
inherited everything from her dead husband. That's pretty I mean,
that's a cool point to think about, because it's a
pretty sick deal. Yeah. And it might have been because
she wasn't a ruler. I mean, she was a ruler,
you know, not high up, right, or she was high up,
but she wasn't the fucking queen of Hungary ever. Right.
So they all get arrested, The accomplices confess, and three

(40:40):
of them are executed, one is given life in prison,
and the countess gets convicted of vampiresm sorcery, paganism, and
it's bricked up in a room in her own castle
and lived out the rest of her days. And the
blood Countess was defeated. Wow. Except basically none of that's

(41:00):
sucking true. Oh, which is like, I know, I'm a
little bit like I mean she was. She's a terrible
person if that was true. If that was true, she's
like a disgusting torturer, serial killer person that had great skid.
But yeah, interesting. But I find I found a bunch
of things in this when i'm when I'm finding this
kind of history where they'll be like a woman who
is like attacked as this horrible witch or whatever, right,

(41:23):
and then it'll be like, oh, actually, all that's lies,
and so then people will be like, actually, she was
perfectly fine and normal and everything was fine, and she
was upstanding, and then you go like one step further
and you're like, oh, no, she was really interesting and
cool in a different way than being a vampire. Okay,
i'm I'm I'm in. You've hooked me. So. She was

(41:44):
raised Calvinist, She had falling sickness, she might have been
treated with blood. She probably witnessed cruelty at the hands
of her parents. The sewing the woman into the stomach
of a horse thing it was probably didn't happen, not
because they didn't do that, but because they did that too.
They didn't do it to peasants, because a peasant's life
isn't worth killing a horse for, because a peasant is

(42:06):
worth less than a horse, so she probably did see
someone get sewn into a stop horse of whatever stomach
of a horse. H She certainly married the Black Knight,
who absolutely was the Black Knight and a cruel, fucking
terrible person. He likely didn't die valiantly in battle. It's
also really unlikely that she poisoned him, although I would
not rule it out. He'd been mysteriously sick for several

(42:29):
years before he died, and actually had been unable to
walk the last several years of his life. It was
likely that he had poisoned himself with the treatment he
was taking for venereal disease, but some of those same
treatments were used in popular poisons around that same time,
so I don't know. She might have been trying to
get rid of her cruel husband. That's the head canon
for me, is that she did poison him and he

(42:50):
deserved it. But the investigation into be tory about want
and murder and witchcraft. It started at the same time
as her husband started getting sick, because is when they
knew that she was going to inherit his wealth um
and most importantly, the king owed them a funck ton
of money, and that debt was canceled when she was convicted. Interesting,

(43:13):
so the whole trial was almost certainly just about money
and power. And then later the folkloric demonization of this
Hungarian aristocrat was useful for Slovak nationalism, So so it
became a useful folklore. Right when she was arrested, she
was eating dinner and not probably covered in blood. Um.

(43:34):
The evidence of her journal was that a servant claimed
to have talked to an investigator who saw the journal,
but the journal was never entered into um evidence during
the trial, so it didn't exist. Her three accomplices did
confess to doing all those things while they were having
their fingers ripped off with red hot pinchers and being

(43:56):
burned alive. One who was I think would say, little person,
he got off lucky and he was just beheaded. Um,
he wasn't quick. And they never acted as witnesses in court.
They just had their confessions before they were tortured to death. Wait,
so you're saying the killing of the the young girls

(44:19):
to stay a young thing was true? No, No, so
they didn't know. They didn't kill anyone as far as
I can tell. No, So they only confess under torture
the deal. Yea, and huh interesting. She was never bricked
into her castle. She was just put under house arrest
um despite theoretically having like personally murdered more people than

(44:42):
anyone before since it ever personally murdered. And they just
were like, whatever, you have to stay in your castle
because we successfully robbed you. It would also take about
thirty people's blood to fill a bath, and the detail
about the blood baths was added to the folklore a
hundred years after her death. There were probably no lesbian orgies,

(45:02):
which is the saddest part for report. And she actually
so she real yes, and I believe in the gal
pal being gal pals m because and she wasn't accused
of witchcraft or satanism in court, just the murders. All
the witchcraft was added later. The Iron Maiden never really
existed in Europe. Uh, it's an invention. Like the concept

(45:25):
of the Iron Maiden is like, so we the Victorians
were like kind of being like it was like a
Victorian like con artist was like, look at this murder
thing that the medieval people had pay me a dollar
to go look at it or whatever. Damn that guy
really grifted, I know, you know, speaking of more metal
bands that came out of this um and you know,

(45:46):
an iron maiden For anyone listening who doesn't listen to
Iron Maiden, it's an upright human shaped coffin with metal
spikes that you put the person in your close in
and they die, right. But it is true that they
would soep people up into the stomach of horses. Um,
so maybe they did have spiky boxes. It wouldn't surprise
me if they had spikey boxes. You know, they also

(46:06):
had things close to iron maidens. They would like put
you in like kind of a barrel with spikes, but
you the spikes don't puncture you unless you move, so
it's so like, hey, don't move kind of bullshit. I mean,
if you were rolling down a fucking hill, that sounds
worse than just a quick little snap of the iron maiden,
you know what I mean. That's true, that's true. And

(46:27):
where did have an iron maiden was ninth century bag Dad.
The vizier Ibn al Zayatt made a wooden chest full
of spikes and would like throw people in it, but
live by the wooden chest full of spikes, died by
the wooden chest full of spikes in ety seven, he

(46:47):
got thrown into his own box and killed. Wow, karma,
I guess that's what you would call that. But what
but Tor was is really fucking interesting. She was a
healer and her accomplices basically were witches. They were midwives
and healers that she hired and her her She turned

(47:08):
her castle into a place that taught women in natomy
and medicine, which of course was all of medieval as
hell and involved blood letting and like burning people's wounds
with hot irons and ship um. The like red handed
that she got caught was well, actually, before I tell
you that, you know who else will heal you and

(47:28):
heal your soul and give you the will to live.
Everything that comes after which we have personally that we
have not personally bet it the ads that are coming
after a randomly generated and we are back from those
ads that we all personally endorse in love because everyone
who participates in capitalism appreciates their own role in the

(47:50):
perpetuation of a society that's destroying the entire globe. Yep, okay,
where were we handed? She was caught red handed, So
she was caught red handed, which was because yeah, she
was there. She was in the middle of like I mean,
she was a mile of eating dinner. But there was
someone there who was being treated, a young local woman

(48:11):
who had been attacked by a wild animal and so
had like been taken to the castle where you know,
the weird ass countess with all of her like weird
ass probably lesbian, which friends would heal you up. And
so that was where like the dead bodies and stuff
would come from that, and like there were all of
these you know, disease outbreaks happening at the time. I

(48:32):
was killing a lot of people. But interesting, that's a
that's a really unfortunate twist or like way to change
that story. You know, like she was just because before
you said, but you described her as very smart, like
knowing all these languages and like all this stuff, and
so it makes sense that she would be interested in
like their version of medicine back then. That's that's a

(48:57):
I mean, not surprised that I got twisted that way,
but it's unfortunate and it's just like such a classic
way that like I mean it all has to do
with witch hunts and not serial murder, you know. Yeah,
And also just like that stereotype of like I guess
it's like a witchy stereotype, like an older like someone
uh like sucking the life out of a young person

(49:20):
to stay young because that's what they because like it's
vanity and like whatever. So in this case it was literal.
But I mean you can say that about a lot
of I don't know, shitty people. Yeah, but in my
head canon version, they're doing blood letting and they're using
leeches and showing people why not use some of that

(49:41):
blood for your own skin? So I mean he said
that when she was younger, her epilepsy was treated that way.
I don't think she's above that. I think it's especially
with these vampire facials. I'm calling them that because that's
essentially what they are. There's blood, but they work apparently,

(50:06):
And so yeah, I don't think she would have had
to gone gone out of her way if that, if
she was already doing healing and stuff anyway, like blood living,
you know what I mean totally yeah, exactly yeah. And
it's like, you know, because like people want to be like,
ah ha, she was actually perfect, right, Like she's still
like in my head she still might have murdered her husband,

(50:26):
who might have probably had it coming, you know, and
she's still like I don't know, like it, like we
just don't know. Because when things get muddied so completely
by like misogynist trials and the misogynist folklore, you take
someone who is probably genuinely really weird, but you don't
know how you know. Wait, so did you tell me

(50:46):
how she died yet or no? So she so she
gets put on house arrest and she kind of just
like way, so she like doesn't actually live all that
long after that, but she doesn't die of any like
particularly notable way. Maybe she don't kill her, just like
exile her essentially into her own castle. Um, yeah, but
they banish There is one really interesting end of this story.

(51:10):
So she was buried at the local church and the
locals were like, no, what are you fucking doing. She's
like an evil vampire sorcerers Deamon from Hell, get her
out of here. So she was moved to the family
crypt somewhere else in the country. But that crypt was
open and her body wasn't there. Oh damn, that's cool

(51:34):
as shit, right, that's so interesting. So maybe she was
a vampire maybe. Okay, so she's like a healer vampire, right,
who like occasionally has to cop or whatever, but like
mostly she's like, yeah, she uses her powers for good. Yeah,
and her husband sucks so away with him. And you know,

(51:54):
I mean, where is her body that you have to
want her? I don't know, Like maybe someone like unearthed
her to keep the legend alive or something or total
a lot of effort though to like years and years later,
I don't know. Yeah, and it was before black metal
kids were really much of a thing. So like, although
I mean basically black metal kids have always you know,

(52:14):
the black metal kids in our hearts have been doing
this kind of ship forever some so they're absolutely were
some women doing some some poisoning, and like most cool
things in history, that wasn't done by a single person.
And we're going to talk the main Okay, we finished
our side quest and we're off to the main quest.

(52:36):
We're going to talk about a whole multi generational ring
of women in seventeenth century Italy. Collectively, they've got upwards
of six kills, which might make them the most successful
serial killer group in history. But as you kind of
pointed out the top of the hour, I think that
murdering men who legally own you from whom there is

(52:56):
no divorce should not be a crime, and neither should
be providing the poison. So I don't really see them
as serial killers. Yeah, if anything, gets an active self
defense because who knows what they were experiencing too, to
like we to have to do that. Oh we we
unfortunately know what they what they were experienced. I won't
get into the details about that, but I'm prepared, prepared. Yeah,

(53:20):
And maddeningly, this beautiful, like multi generational group of of
women gets their complex history has been reduced to a
legend of a single woman, which is also untrue. It's
the era of arranged marriages seventeenth century Italy, so not
only are women in capable of leaving unhappy marriages, they
don't even get to pick their husbands in the first place.

(53:42):
They're basically auctioned off. Ah, so your best bet was
to be a aspiring widow and to get a sense
for the life of married women. At the time, there
was a best selling book from the previous century, Rules
for Married Life, which advised husbands, you must be your
wife if delights in standing at the window and willingly

(54:02):
lends a ready ear to any dishonest young men. WOWK, Yeah, sir, what, Yeah,
them's the rules, sofiae Yeah, okay, gaze like foreloring ly
or whatever out of window because it's the only thing

(54:23):
that we could do. There wasn't any TV. They're like window, window,
not find door. Okay, yeah, no, yeah, it's just such
a like you can't Yeah, the fact that you can't
even gaze forlornly at the wind, like oh, you better
not be looking sad in your life, that I have
made into a nightmare. Yeah, basically, Yeah, And so this

(54:48):
is going to be the murkiest story I've ever told
on this show because it's the one I found the
greatest variety of versions of. I'd even written a ton
of this script before I found history book that basically
through out everything else. And so I'm gonna do my best.
But I'll say that half the pop retellings of the
story you'll find on various websites are completely fucking wrong,

(55:08):
and so mine might be completely fucking wrong. But again,
I've read a fuctin of sources around this try to
try to piece it all together. I mean, essentially, all
of history is made up. You know, no one actually
knows whatever happened, and books are written by people that
wanted to write them. That makes sense absolutely, And I
have so much respect for historians who actually just like

(55:30):
do the work of trying to piece together all of
these fucking things and be like, Okay, here's why the
court record might be biased in the following ways, and
here's why you know. Um and I'm I'm one of
these pop historians I'm complaining about because I'm not actually
a historian. But ah, the story that gets passed into
legend is that there's a woman in Italy named Julia

(55:51):
too Fauna. She's a second generation poisoner, and she concocted
a poison that mixed arsenic lead and belladonna. It was
odorless and flavorless when put into wine, that would kill
a man with only four drops over the course of months.
You do one drop like once a month or so,
and it made the man appear to die of natural causes.
She sold this poison to ambitious and evil women who

(56:13):
wanted to rob their poor, unsuspecting husbands. It was sold
as awkwate fauna, a cosmetic so as to not arouse suspicion,
or alternatively, a vial of holy water with St. Nicholas
on the label. This is a whole con like, oh yeah,
we'll get to the an entire operation rest. Juliet Ta
Fauna supposedly worked for fifty years killing the six hundred

(56:34):
people before being found out and execute in sixteen fifty nine,
which is an awkward way for her to have to
work for fifty years because she was born in sixteen
supposedly born in six thirty nine years before I supposed death.
Never mind such details. Fifty years six people all by herself.
When she died, she passed on her legacy to her kid,
and that version of the story conflates a ton of people,

(56:55):
Like I was saying, so I'll try my gust to
get it right, but this isn't like the Elizabeth Patry story.
Don't worry. They actually did some murder, a lot of
people getting poisoned, and the lies and the histories are
around the motives and around who did the poisoning and
the scope of the world they lived in. But that's
where I'm going to cliffhanger it, because that's where we're

(57:15):
gonna leave it today. When we come back Wednesday, we're
going to hear the true story, which is actually cooler,
like just frankly cooler. And involves a whole underworld of
magicians and witches and cities, which is cool, which is
very cool. You're a pro even I'm excited about that
even there yet, Sue, do you have any thing you'd

(57:36):
like to plug? Uh? Not particularly. You can follow me
on the Internet if you want, but to be honest,
I don't even post on there anymore. I'm very disillusioned
with the act of posting right now and have been
for a minute. But you know what followed me anyway.
It'll give me a little ego boost when I say,
when I see it on my phone, which is sometimes

(57:56):
all I need. And you you host a podcast with
callically ambiguous um, and listeners can also catch you on
on Clozon Media's Daily show. It could happen here like
several times a month, right, Yeah, Sophie, can you just
do all my interests for now? On? I mean, because

(58:17):
I appreciate that I do. I do Margaret's too, what? Yeah?
So you could? You can follow Margaret on Twitter at
magpie ki okay, and you can follow her on on
Instagram at Margaret Killjoy. I knew there was my handles okay, okay.

(58:39):
You can follow Sharne on Instagram at shiro hero and
you can follow Shrine on Twitter at sharer hero six
six six. Hell yeah, okay, I really I really know that. Also, Margaret,
you have a book coming out? Correct or is it?
It's out? I'm on tour for it right now. Yeah.
Margaret is recording in a in a car vehicle. Yeah,

(59:01):
dedicated to to uh you know, her book and her podcast.
Oh yeah that too, Margaret. What what's your book called?
And where can people find it? Well, it's called we
Won't be Here Tomorrow because we'll be here Wednesday. No,
I've already made that. Oh my god, that was perfect though. Yes,

(59:21):
the Book of Short Stories. If you like the kinds
of things that I tell stories about here, whether it's
which is or revolutionaries, you will find both in my
book about people who feed men to mermaids or whatever. Um. Yeah,
and you can get from a cake press. Oh yeah, bye.

(59:48):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
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