I believe the stakes Bram Stoker describes in the novel Dracula were around three feet long, actually. I recall seeing a documentary somewhere or other where the presenter brought one out and said Hollywood and Hammer had modified it to what we are used to seeing because something that big would look "ridiculous."
One of the few bits used from the novel in the new BBC film version was that the stakes were more like the ones described in the book than we usually see. Of course they were used in a totally over-the-top manner...
This isn't the first time in history, by a long shot, that a dead dictator's grave has been desecrated by a vengeance-seeking mob. I believe it was in fact by Parliamentary order that the dead bodies of Cromwell and Ireton, the leaders of the 1640s "English Revolution" that ended in the decapitation of Charles I, were exhumed and hung from a gallows to exact a posthumous punishment.
G.
