Vlad Tepes: The Overwhelming Response

[JIM DAVIS 919-541-3757 <DAVIS.JIM@epamail.epa.gov>]

          Greetings all....
          
          
          Rodrigo Ramirez de Valencia writes:
          
          >Istvan is right about "drakul" referring to the Order of the 
          >Dragon...  
          
          [deletia]
          
          >BTW, the reputation of Vlad Tepes, like King John of England, is 
          >largely based on later opinion, rather than the attitudes of the 
          >time.  While he certainly did have a fondness for stakes and 
          >was, shall we say, a little wanton in his use of punishment, he 
          >was not without some justification (at least in his own eyes). 
          
          Wanton in his use of punishment. I'm going to write that down:-)
          
          >He was a great "hero" of the defence against the Turks and his 
          >massacre of the boyars was justifiable (in his view) because 
          >they were traitors -- to him as their lord, and therefore to the 
          >kingdom and more importantly, to the faith.  It wouldn't be 
          >totally unreasonable to compare his suppression of the boyars to 
          >the suppression of the Jacques during their rebellion in France 
          >in the mid-14th century or the German peasants in their 
          >rebellion in the early 16th.  His methods were merely more mass 
          >productive -- sort of a Henry Ford does the Inquisition.
          
          Certainly he was ruthless in his defense against the Turks. This 
          is to be expected of the uncivilized living outside England and 
          France :-) but to compare it with the rebellion of the Jacquery, 
          well, I don't know about that. After all they were just peasants.
          
          
          
          And then Tibor essentially agrees and says:
          
          >There are one or two Magyarul fluent people on the net. Send me 
          >private email, if you would like me to drag them into it.
          
          
          It's ok I believe you.
          
          
          After which Istvan says:
          
          >From what I've gathered, 'drakul' originally meant 'dragon', and 
          >the association with 'devil' was by proxy.  
          
          [and some other interesting information about the origins of 
          things which have been sacrificed to the bandwidth gods]
          
          To all of which I answer:
          
          Oh. OK. Nevermind.
          

          This, of course, is why I very carefully did not say anything 
          along the lines 'Istvan, you are absolutely dead wrong' or the
          ever hateful 'BZZZT!'. I appreciate the various lessons and the
          tone with which they were presented. That's what happens when an 
          Englishman raised in France talks about things that happened over
          by China a hundred years before his birth. 
          
          Richard du Guesclin
          Elvegast, Windmaster's Hill, Atlantia
          davis.jim@epamail.epa.gov