Vampires in Iceland – How an Altered, Icelandic Version of ‘Dracula’ Hid in Plain Sight for Over a Century
If you are a fan of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you are not alone. It’s one of the most beloved novels of all time. It’s so well loved, in fact, that even today people are still hungry for more info about the book.
However, mysteries abound around not only the novel but the writer’s life. The latest and perhaps greatest addition to the mystery is a recent discovery made in Iceland. As it so happens, the Icelandic translation, one of the first translations to be made of Dracula (oddly enough), does not follow the same plot as its source material. Not only is the plot different, but there are additional, massive differences between the two materials.
Major Differences Between Powers of Darkness and Dracula
The changes are substantial enough that the Icelandic version, called Makt Myrkranna, or Powers of Darkness, really couldn’t be anything other than the translation of an entirely different work.
What might be the most visible difference at first is the fact that Powers of Darkness is considerably shorter than its source material. However, the section at the beginning, where John Harker is in Dracula’s Castle (although he has a different name in the Icelandic version) is actually longer and more developed than the corresponding section in the Dracula that we all know and love.
There is also a different preface in Powers of Darkness. And, oddly enough, the part following the castle episode is written from the point of view of a narrator, not via the scattered collection of different journal entries the way Dracula was so famously composed.
Why Are the Two Texts so Vastly Different?
As is the case with many things surrounding Bram Stoker and his most famous work, it’s a mystery, and one we may perhaps never know the answer to. However, there are many experts who believe that the Icelandic version was a translation of another version of Dracula written by Bram Stoker himself. In fact, the preface of Powers of Darkness is attributed to B.S.
According Dacre Stoker, Bram’s great-grandnephew, this preface by Stoker aligns with the obvious differences in the Icelandic version. He believes it was certainly an alternate story of Dracula written by the very same Stoker.
Could Powers of Darkness Be a Different Version of Dracula Written by Bram Stoker?
Certain clues also point to the likelihood of this scenario being the case. One of my favorite examples lies within the discovered notes from Stoker in which he mentions a deaf and mute servant working within Dracula’s castle. Of course, in the English version of the text, Dracula lives alone in his castle, apart from his female vampire concubines. However, in Powers of Darkness, there is a def and mute servant working in the castle.
Little clues like this seem to be too strong of a correlation between Stoker’s private notes and this other Dracula text to be a coincidence. And while it seems likely that this version of Dracula was certainly written by the same author, we may never know for certain just why the two texts differ.
