'The Legend of Dracula' as told by Nanny Piggins

Nanny Piggins explains the origin of vampire mythology, and how it involved a distant relative of hers.

Come along to the Book Launch Show for ‘Friday Barnes 14, Nothing to Lose’. I’ll be telling the stories behind the ideas in the book, doing a live reading and probably singing a song about it. Books will be available for purchase and I will be signing them after the show.

Arts Theatre (Adelaide)
20th September 2026, 2pm

Darling Quarter (Sydney)
26th September 2026, 2pm

Powerhouse Theatre (Brisbane)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hello and welcome to Bedtime Stories with me, R.A. Spratt. Well, it's it's a grim and miserable day here in Barrel. Uh it's not technically winter yet, but it's definitely heading that way here. I have had an absolutely huge week. I did the Sydney Writers Festival this week, and um I'm not sure what you imagine when you imagine a writers festival. Probably you have never imagined a writers festival, but the way the Sydney Writers Festival does it, they have these primary school days, which is before the main part of the festival. And from Monday to Friday, they take a group of children's authors into theatres and they uh they we present for these huge groups. So we started off in Chatswood and played an 800-seat theatre. Then we went out to Penrith and played a 600-seat theatre, and then we came back into the centre of Sydney and played the town hall on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and that's it's 2,000 people. So it was pretty amazing. I was doing a presentation, not unlike I would do when I went into any school in Bookweek. Um, but instead of doing it for two or three hundred kids, I was doing it for up to 2,000 kids at a time, and it was so much fun. It's it's like the single biggest honour for a children's author in Australia to get picked to do the primary school days at the Sydney Writers Festival. It's only the second time I've ever done it in 18 years as an author. Um, it's seven years since I last did it, and the only reason I got picked again so soon, because usually I have to wait 10 years, um, is because another author pulled out a couple of months ago, so I had to fill in for them. So so pleased. It was just so much fun. And um uh my publisher especially got the book Um Epically Awesome Odyssey as Told by Nanny Piggins, which we developed here on this podcast. Um, they got it printed early so that um I could present it at the festival. So I was telling everyone the story of the sirens, Odysseus and the sirens, which if you're a fan of the podcast, you've probably heard already. So I was doing that live for all these kids, so that was a lot of fun. So if you're listening and you were there, thank you for coming along. And um, if you weren't there and you're from New South Wales, um tell your teachers to take you next year. I won't be there, but there'll be other authors next year in about 10 years' time when you're all adults. Maybe I'll get to go back. Anyway, let's get into today's story. I don't know how I came up with this idea, but um I got a whole list of ideas from kids at the Writers Festival telling me things I should do for the podcast. But for some reason, I think it's because my daughter was talking about she gets to study uh a book at school where you can pick what the book is, but it's got to be a classic novel. So we're talking about all the fun classic novels, and I think Dracula was one of the ones that came up. So that inspired this week's story. So today we're gonna be doing the legend of Dracula, as told by Nanny Piggins. Nanny Piggins, are vampires real? asked Michael. Well, yes and no, said Nanny Piggins. How can it be both yes and no? asked Samantha. Well, vampires are not real, said Nanny Piggins. But Count Dracula, the original vampire that Bram Stoker wrote his book about and inspired all the subsequent vampire stories. Well, Dracula was very much real. In fact, she was a distant relative of mine. But if she was a she, wouldn't she be a countess? Not a count, then, said Samantha. Indeed, Countess Dracula, said Nanny Piggins. Bram Stoker was a lazy man, couldn't be bothered writing the ESS at the end of the word. I'm pretty sure he never mentioned in the book that she was a pig, either, said Derrick. Well, when you're so amazing you inspire the entire idea of vampires. I guess the fact that you're a staggeringly beautiful pig is easy to overlook, said Nanny Piggins. You're gonna have to tell us the whole story, said Derek. All right, I will. Our story begins in Romania, said Nanny Piggins. So we better eat some papanash, said Nanny Piggins. What's papanash? asked Michael. It's delicious, said Nanny Piggins. Yeah, but what is it? said Michael. It's a Romanian cottage cheese filled hot doughn, covered with cream and sour cherry jam. Yum, I like this story already. So Nanny Piggins whipped up the authentic Romanian dessert for them, and then she began the tale. It all started one hundred and fifty years ago in the olden Gothic story days. What does Gothic mean? asked Samantha. Well, originally the Goths were a Germanic tribe who ransacked Rome in ancient times, said Nanny Piggins. But the Goths we're talking about were from the eighteen hundreds. They liked a miserable style of architecture preferred by church architects who wanted to scare people. And the word gothic has been associated with old, miserable, scary things ever since. But do you want to discuss architecture or do you want to hear the story? The story, please, said Michael. Good choice, said Nanny Piggins. It all began when a young lawyer from London called Jonathan Harker travelled to Transylvania in Romania to help my dear, distant cousin, Countess Dracula Piggins, to buy a house in London. Now, this lawyer was a bit of a cowdy custard. What was he frightened of? asked Derek. Custard, said Nanny Piggins. That's where the expression cowdy custard comes from. Young Mr Harker had an overwhelming fear of egg based gelatinous dessert. He was also afraid of my cousin. Because she was a vampire, asked Derrick. No, because she was staggeringly beautiful, said Nanny Piggins. She had long, beautiful black hair, pale skin, it's not very sunny in Transylvania, and dark red lips, and she always wore fabulous long black dresses with billowing long black sleeves. Being a property lawyer, Mr Harker had not met many beautiful people before, certainly not anyone that staggeringly beautiful, and it terrified him. He did have a fiancee back at home in England who he loved dearly, precisely because she was boring and spent all day writing tedious letters, so he wasn't afraid of her at all. Now, Dracula was a countess. She was Romanian nobility. Normally she would have been a gracious hostess, and put the young lawyer at ease with her effortless charm. But there was a complication. Oh dear, said Boris. Yes, you see, the first mass produced chocolate bar had just been invented. You mean the Fry's chocolate cream bar, first produced in eighteen sixty six at a factory in Bristol, England? asked Michael. Precisely, said Nanny Piggins. Nanny Piggins had given the children a thorough education on the history of the chocolate bar since becoming their nanny. And when Jonathan Harker arrived at my cousin's castle in the Transylvanian mountains, he had one of these chocolate bars in his pocket. As soon as she opened the front door to say, Hello, do come in, Countess Dracula could smell it. You have to understand it, Countess Dracula had never tasted solid chocolate. Chocolate had existed for several thousand years, but it had only existed as hot chocolate, the drink up until that point, so she had no idea yet how good solid chocolate tasted. But she could smell it, and it smelled like it tasted very, very good indeed. Now, the customs of Romanian hospitality dictate that it is rude to throw yourself at a house guest, knock them to the ground, ransack their pockets, and eat any foodstuffs you find. So Dracula held herself back. Really? said Samantha. Are you sure she was a piggins? Oh yes, Dracula Piggins must have had unusually great self restraint, or a blocked nose. Either way, she was able to hold out until night time, when the young lawyer went to bed. Then, under the cover of darkness, she snuck into his room and rifled through his pockets. Jonathan Harker suddenly woke up. What are you doing? he cried. Now Dracula did not want Jonathan to know she was stealing his chocolate bar in case he tried to stop her, so she improvised and said the first thing that came to mind. Um I want to suck your blood, she said. Jonathan totally freaked out. The whole reason he'd gone into property law was because it was boring, and he was terrified of criminals. Now he was in a bedroom, in a castle, in the middle of the night with a bloodthirsty, staggeringly beautiful aristocrat. So he did what any overly emotional young person would do. He screamed and fainted. Being cooped up in a house with someone so fabulous day after day, trying to finalise property deals while, night by night, she broke into his room and searched his pockets for chocolate bars, eventually drove poor young Mr Harker insane. It didn't take very long, less than a week. And it was tremendously inconvenient having an insane lawyer, so my dear cousin Dracula headed out for London herself and left Jonathan in the care of the finest mental health facility in Romania. Countess Dracula travelled through Hungary, Austria, Germany, and then France, until she stood on the beach at Calais. At the time, most people travelling between England and France travelled by boat. Airplanes hadn't been invented yet, and the Guinness Book of World Records hadn't been invented yet either, so no one had been silly enough to try and swim. The problem was Dracula was a mountain pig. She did not care for boats. Did they make her seasick? asked Samantha. Yes, and the worst thing about being seasick, even more than the sickness itself, is that feeling sick totally puts you off eating chocolate. And if Dracula was going to the country that mass produced the world's first solid chocolate bar, she didn't want that to happen to her. She needed another way to get across the 34 kilometer wide channel. Fortunately, England and France had been at war on and off for about 3,000 years at that point. So all along the coast, every seaside town had great big cannons pointing out to sea. And there was a particularly large one in Calais, which gave Dracula an idea. She blasted herself, asked Michael, like you used to do in the cannon at the circus. She did indeed. Now it did scare some locals, as she flew through the sky, the sleeves of her black dress flapping in the breeze. She did look a bit like she had bat wings. Also, she was screaming with joy. Which they took to be some sort of horrible, menacing cry. My dear cousin Dracula shot over the channel in under five minutes. Unfortunately, she had gotten a little carried away with the gunpowder, and she shot straight over London and landed headfirst in the sand on the beach at Whitby, in North Yorkshire, on the north coast of England. Whitby was a lovely, if very spooky, seaside town built into the cliffs and surrounded by the North York moors. Well, what made Whitby so spooky? Well there was a lot of fog, and a lot of sheep poo, and a lot of stairs because of the cliffs, which meant the local people were very miserable because they had to walk up and down the stairs. There was also at the top of the cliffs a ruin of an ancient abbey that had been deserted. Oh it doesn't sound nice, said Boris. Yes, Dracula was a bit taken aback too. Hm, said Dracula. I don't think I have landed in London. The East does not look like a great metropolis to me. Dracula started looking around to see if there was a cannon she could use to shoot herself to London, when she noticed something she had never seen before. What was it, asked Samantha? A shop, said Nanny Pickens. She'd never seen a shop before. Well Dracula had seen shops, but never a shop this glorious, because before her was a shop called the Whitby Fudge Shop. Fudge, said Dracula, trying this new word for the first time. What could this fudge be? Somehow she instinctively knew it was something good. All pigginses have a seventh sense for recognizing hitherto unknown desserts. So Dracula hurried over to look in the shop window, and there was the most beautiful sight. Tray upon tray of the most beautiful fudge she had ever seen. But she'd never seen fudge before, said Derek. I know, and this was the most beautiful fudge in the world, so it was a good place to start. While the streets of Whitby were grey and miserable, the inside of this store was lit up like a Christmas tree. The warm lights glistened off the beautiful fudge displays. There was every kind of fudge imaginable vanilla fudge, chocolate fudge, clotted cream fudge, cherry fudge, fudge with extra bits of fudge in it, too many to mention without passing out from longing. Dracula burst inside, which did somewhat shock the shop workers. They had never seen a staggeringly beautiful pig wearing a stunning long black gown before. Dracula herself was not the most stunning sight in that room, for there on the counter was the most glorious sight of all. Octoch chocolate fudge, fudge that combined eight different types of chocolate, guessed Michael. No, although that is a brilliant idea. Remind me to invent that after I finish this story. No, there on the counter in that Whitby fudge shop was a little plate full of free samples. The green children gasped. They knew just how much their nanny and all her relatives loved free samples. Dracula launched herself at this plate, eating every scrap and licking the plate so hard the pattern came off. The shop staff were naturally horrified to have a strange pig with a foreign accent, dressed all in black, suddenly devour all their samples. Can we help you? asked the manager, the bravest amongst the staff. Yes, I want to buy all the fudge, said Dracula. Which one? asked the manager. All of them, said Dracula. But that would cost hundreds of pounds, said the manager. Is that all? It is worth every penny. Dracula emptied her coin purse full of solid gold coins onto the counter. Um, we usually don't take payment in solid gold, said the manager. Would you prefer diamonds? asked Dracula, dropping a fistful of sparkly diamonds onto the counter. The manager had no idea of the street value of so many diamonds, but she was pretty sure it was way more than the price of the entire fudge shop. Okay, would you like the fudge gift wrapped? she asked. No, I want the fudge mouth wrapped, said Dracula, with which she leapt over the counter and started shoving it all in her mouth. She ate with such fervor and passion that the shop assistants ran away in fear, in case Dracula accidentally ate one of their fingers, mistaking them for a lump of strawberry fudge. That week the people of Whitby grew ever more frightened of Dracula, as she systematically moved about the town, decimating one fudge shop after another. And so one storm swept night everyone in town gathered for a town meeting up on the cliff top church near the ruined old abbey. Oh, that sounds spooky, said Samantha. Yes, it's almost as if they were already envisaging the movie, agreed Nanny Piggins. If we don't do something soon, all the fudge shops will be gone, said one concerned resident. Well the fudge shop owners don't seem to mind, said the mayor. Dracula has paid them so much they've all bought themselves holiday mansions in Spain. But what will the tourists eat when they come in the summer? asked another resident. Well we've got lots of fish and potatoes. We could give them fish and chips, suggested a fisherman, who also liked grown potatoes. Don't be ridiculous, scoffed the mayor. Nobody would want that. Fish tastes too much like fish. Ehp, we've got to drive her out before our town is destroyed. But who could do that? Every shop full of fudge she eats her way through only makes Dracula grow stronger. Just then the doors at the back of the church burst open. The wind and rain from the storm outside whipped about the room as a dark figure in a long hooded cape strode up the central aisle. The only person who can capture a fudge crazed Transylvanian pig is I, Van Helsing, declared the newcomer. Sorry, should we know you? asked the mayor. I am Professor Van Helsing, declared Van Helsing, whipping back the hood of her cloak, and I am a professional deranged pig hunter. The crowd gasped. For Professor Van Helsing was also a staggeringly beautiful pig. Plot twist, said Derek. Was she a piggins too? asked Samantha. I'm afraid so, said Nanny Piggins, although she was from the rarer law enforcement branch of the family. But you're a pig, the mayor pointed out. Exactly. That is how I know all their evil tricks, said Van Helsing Piggins. All right, you're hired, said the Mayor. And so, as the people of Whitby cowered in the clifftop church, Van Helsing descended the really long staircase down the cliffs, into town, in search of her distant relative, Countess Dracula. Dracula was not hard to find. The sound of a crazed pig systematically eating every sugar based product in a town is a distinctive one. Van Helsing tracked her to a mansion on the outskirts of town where the richest resident of Whitby lived. The front door had been smashed off its hinges and left broken on the doorstep. Van Helsing stepped over it and crept through the darkened house. Oh I want to go to the bathroom, wailed Boris. He always did this when they got to the scary spot in the story. It's all right, Boris, said Nanny Piggins. I promise the story gets less scary soon. Really, ninety percent of what makes the Dracula story scary is the bad weather in North Yorkshire, and we're not in North Yorkshire, so we don't need to worry about that. Now where was I? Van Helsing was creeping through the house, said Derek. Oh yes, she made her way through the rooms at the front until she was at the kitchen door, where she could hear the uncontrolled chomping, chewing and guzzling taking place on the other side. Van Helsing reached into a cloak and pulled out her trusty crossbow. A crossbow, said Samantha. Yes, and Van Helsing loaded it with the only thing that can stop a deranged pig, said Nanny Piggins. A wooden steak through the heart? asked Derek. What a horrible thought, said Nanny Piggins. No, a slice of chocolate cake. Van Helsing kicked open the door and saw Dracula for the first time, standing at the kitchen stove, with bright red liquid dripping from her mouth. Blood, Samantha. No! What is it with you children? said Nanny Piggins. You have very morbid imaginations. No, the red liquid dripping from her face was sour cherry jam. You see, all that fudge had made Dracula homesick for Papa Nash, and she was whipping up a batch. Hello, said Dracula, would you care for a hot donut covered in cream and sour cherry jam? Van Helsing couldn't say no to that. She dropped her crossbow and sat down to a delicious meal with her distant cousin. Eventually, the young lawyer Jonathan Harker arrived. He'd recovered quickly in the Romanian hospital once there was no staggeringly beautiful pig going through his pockets, eating his chocolate every night, and he confronted Van Helsing and Dracula. They were both covered in cherry jam by this time, which regrettably some misguided eyewitnesses mistook for blood, which is how the whole vampire rumour got started. Dracula and Van Helsing were both embarrassed by the fuss they caused, and since there was no fudge left in Whitby, Dracula boarded a ship full of fries chocolate cream bars and returned to her home in Transylvania. But the story continued on long after they both left, and like all good stories, it's important to never let reality or facts ruin the plot. Which is why Bram Stoker put so many whoppers in his admittedly fabulous book about my dear cousin, Countess Dracula. The end time for bed. But was Dracula okay? asked Samantha. Did the story end happily ever after? Of course! With a shipful of the world's first mass-produced chocolate bars, how could she not? Now, come along, children, this story has made me hungry for fudge. Let's create that octochock chocolate fudge, Michael suggested. With which Nanny Pickens took off in a sprint to the kitchen, and the children followed close behind. Alright, and that is the end of the story, so we'll leave it there. I hope you enjoyed that one. It was really interesting to research. I've been to Whitby many times because I lived in North Yorkshire for a while. And it really is where uh Dracula was supposed to have landed when he came to England, and there really are an awful lot of fudge shops there. I went to Whitby for the first time when I was eight years old, and I just have these crystal clear, super fond memories of uh the fudge. There was one shop in particular where you could buy a bag of all the broken bits for 20p, and I thought that was the best deal I'd ever seen in my life. Anyway, uh let's leave it there. That's it for now. Until next time, goodbye.