228. Draculae part 2: Surprises in the Vaults
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Happy World Dracula Day to all who celebrate! Visit theallusionist.org/draculae2 for more information about the topics in this episode plus a transcript.
This is the second episode of the Draculae miniseries, about a literary mystery which came to me via a meme: “Someone translated Dracula into Icelandic, and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fanfic rewrite of what he wanted the story to be.”
In Draculae part 2, Ásgeir Jónsson explains how he got that Icelandic adaptation of Dracula back into print, to little fanfare - but then Dutch scholar Hans Corneel de Roos set about making an English translation. Following that: like me, Will Trimble also got meme-struck, and that propelled him to get a translation of the Swedish version that begat the Icelandic one.
Before listening to this, check out the first episode of the Draculae miniseries explaining the three versions of Dracula: Dracula published by Bram Stoker in 1897; the Icelandic version Makt Myrkranna by newspaper editor Valdimar Ásmundsson, serialised in his newspaper Fyallkonan in 1900-1901; and the Swedish version Mörkrets makter by an author known only as A—e, and serialised in a couple of Swedish newspapers 1899-1900.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Zaltzman, am trying to find my way out of language's big spooky castle. |
| 0:11.0 | Happy World Dracula Day for all who celebrate. This is episode two of Dracula, the mini-series about the mystery-laden Icelandic and Swedish versions of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. |
| 0:23.7 | I recommend you listen to Dracula episode 1 before this one, |
| 0:27.2 | to get a synopsis of what each of these books is about and what this miniseries is about. |
| 0:32.0 | To recap, my husband sent me the following meme. |
| 0:35.1 | Someone translated Dracula into Icelandic, |
| 0:37.4 | and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fan-fiction rewrite sent me the following meme. Someone translated Dracula into Icelandic, |
| 0:40.2 | and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fan flick rewrite what he wanted the story to be. |
| 0:44.3 | But there's more. |
| 0:45.6 | Oh, there's more. |
| 0:47.5 | And I'd say the biggest plotline difference |
| 0:49.1 | between the original Bram Stoker-flavored Dracula |
| 0:51.0 | and the Scandy versions |
| 0:52.4 | is that in the former, |
| 0:54.3 | the big danger is that Dracula will vamp all the nice ladies, |
| 0:57.4 | leaving none for the human men, |
| 0:59.3 | whereas in the latter, |
| 1:00.7 | Dracula is at the center of an international eugenicist conspiracy to put the elites back on top. |
| 1:05.6 | Oof, far more scary. |
| 1:07.9 | Remember, there are transcripts of all the episodes at the allusionist.org. |
| 1:12.4 | There is a tab at the top that will take you to the transcripts and also every episode has its |
| 1:16.8 | own post on the main page at the website. And so if you go to the post about an episode, |
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