Mary Oliver - box of darkness

I never drink ... wine

I don't know where I originally found this. Facebook brought it up as an old post.

I have no idea if this is true, but it's way cool: During a military campaign, Vlad the Impaler, the basis for Dracula, once pulled his troops out of a major engagement in a valley at dusk so that the sun was in their enemies’ eyes. Once they were over the hill, they set loose a bunch of rabid bats who flew away from the sun (towards the enemy) and attacked them, leading to significant infection in their ranks, and Vlad’s eventual victory. Because of how the bats appeared from where Vlad’s soldiers appeared to be at dusk, myth stated that the soldiers turned into bats at night, which is where the “Dracula can change into a bat” thing came from.