Bram Stoker's iconic creation Dracula has been translated into numerous languages, but as it turns out, some of these translations are more like adaptations. One such adaptation is Iceland's Powers of Darkness (Makt Myrkranna) by Valdimar Ásmundsson, originally published in serialized format in 1900 - 1901 in an Icelandic newspaper. The story introduces new characters, shifts the emphasis of the plot, and focuses on a satanic Euro-conspiracy plot.
How much of Powers of Darkness incorporates Bram Stoker's early draft ideas for Dracula? What if Dracula had a coven of evil ape men living in his basement? Does this Dracula even drink anybody's blood? All these questions and more will be explored on this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.
You know, this reminded me that there were some new books masquerading as Harry Potter translations.
ReplyDeleteIn Chinese, apparently there was Harry Potter and Bao Zoulong, Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, Harry Potter and the Golden Turtle, and Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_in_translation#Fake_translations
I had no idea those existed and now I wish they could be found in English...
DeleteRegarding the connection between our Sanguine Count and black magic, there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it passage in Chapter 23 which posits that Dracula studied at the Scholomance, which was a sort of Evil Hogwarts run by the Devil:
ReplyDelete“I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist—which latter was the highest development of the science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man’s stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet—he may be yet if we fail—the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life.”
Jason Colavito has a nice post about the Scholomance, and how Stoker became aware of it.
Thank you! I was sure that was in there too, but without certainty didn't want to mention it and be wrong!
DeleteDrat, I knew there was an even more explicit reference to congress with Dark Powers, this one from Chapter 18:
ReplyDelete“Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record, and from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man, for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the `land beyond the forest.’ That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as `stregoica’ witch, `ordog’ and `pokol’ Satan and hell, and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as `wampyr,’which we all understand too well. There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good, in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest.”
It's pretty interesting that the Icelandic version picked up on this and made it explicit (as in Harker actually sees a Satanic rite) whereas Stoker left it as part of Dracula's fiendish background.
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