the vampire from in Bram Stoker's novel (1897). It was a surname of Prince Vlad II of Wallachia (d.1476), and means in Romanian "son of Dracul," literally "the dragon," from the name and emblem taken by Vlad's father, also named Vlad, c.1431 when he joined the Order of the Dragon, founded 1418 by Sigismund the Glorious of Hungary to defend the Christian religion from the Turks and crush heretics and schismatics.