Bram Stoker’s Dracula: The True Location of “Lake Hermanstadt” and How to Get There. With Notes on Contemporary Publications. PART 1 Lake Hermanstadt, its Location in Emily Gerard’s Writings and in the Cindrel Mountains With a Travel Report.
Résumé
Part I of this paper discusses the location of Dracula’s “Lake Hermanstadt” near the Scholomance, the mythical School of the Devil mentioned by both Bram Stoker (1897) and Emily de Laszowska Gerard (1885 and 1888) . It addresses the question whether either of the authors actually was familiar with the lake’s exact site, which I was able to reconstruct from Gerard’s 1888 travel account, military maps from the Habsburg era and by personally traveling there in August 2013 and July 2015; this article also shows maps and photos from my exploration trips . Part II discusses other reports from the second half of the 19th century, describing foot walks to this lake. These travel logs confirm many curious details presented by Gerard, including the lake’s alleged ability to influence the weather and its supposed connection to the open sea, but no clear association with the Scholomance, the “Devil’s Cauldron” and the dragon sleeping under the surface . For this, Gerard must have consulted other sources, or conflated separate notions. It is Stoker, finally, who tightly fixed the site of the mysterious Scholomance’s to that of Gerard’s lake in the Cindrel Mountains
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Bez nazwy (English)Références
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/kh.2026.0.10-40
Date of publication: 2026-10-20 13:44:10
Date of submission: 2026-06-25 10:54:06
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