Matthias's monsters? Vlad Dracula, Vuk Branković II and the vukodlak

One of the captains recruited by the 15th-century Hungarian King, Matthias Corvinus, to fight against the Turks was Vlad III Dracula, "son of the Dragon," who – thanks to Bram Stoker – later morphed into the world's best-known vampire. While the historical individual – "Vlad the Impaler" (1431-76) – is remembered as a ruthless and blood-thirsty voivode, he was never regarded in folklore as a vampire. Few Dracula fans would be aware that another of Matthias's Turk-fighting captains was a Serbian Despot named Vuk Grgurević Branković (1440-85), who was also said to be the son of a dragon. Immortalised in Serbian heroic poems as Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk – "Fiery Dragon Wolf" – he is enshrined in folk memory as a werewolf. In southern Slavic mythology, the vampire and the werewolf share many characteristics, and the Serbian term vukodlak can mean either of the two; accordingly, what Stoker initiated for Vlad through his Gothic novel had long since been completed for Vuk through folklore, seemingly in fulfillment of an ancient Slavonic paradigm. Although both men were promoted to supernatural status, their legacies are in fact very different. A third commander – an antecedent of Elizabeth Báthory, the so-called Blood Countess – completes Matthias's legend-making line-up.