Dracula ‘cried tears of blood,’ says new study

We know Dracula as the infamous 15th-century Romanian governor Vlad III ‘Dracula, who inspired the 1897 novel ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker.

The claim of Stoker’s inspiration may be contended by historians, but he was inspired by the sadistic nature of Vlad III, better known as Vlad the Impaler, who earned the nickname after he purportedly impaled over 80,000 people throughout his lifetime, according to local legends. Centuries later, the reputation of Vlad the Impaler must have motivated Stoker, for he wrote the iconic novel as a tale of a vampire from Transylvania who survives on drinking human blood.

And now, a study published by researchers from the University of Catania claims that when Vlad the Impaler cried, blood came out of his eyes. Spooky, right? But there’s a scientific explanation for it.