The Child Vampire Hunters of Scotland

I've been writing this blog for four years now, and I've come across some pretty weird stuff. But this is one of the strangest stories I've ever heard.

In 1954, a rumor was making its way through the primary schools of Glasgow, Scotland. A seven-foot vampire with iron teeth had made a graveyard just south of the city his home. And he'd already dined on two little boys.

Rumors about vampires are pretty common in primary schools. (At least in MY experience.) But the kids of Glasgow took such things very seriously. On the night of September 23, 1954, four hundred of them armed themselves with steak knives and sharpened sticks and went to the cemetery in search of the vampire.

They found the police instead. (Forget vampires, the scariest thing most adults can imagine is a mob of knife-wielding fourth graders.) The authorities tried to convince the children that the vampire couldn't possibly be real. But the kids knew better. Night after night, they returned to the graveyard as soon as the sun had set, intent on protecting their city from a blood-sucking fiend.

The incident led to a crackdown on American horror comic books. But a new documentary suggests that the rumors had a much different source. (Pay close attention, Japanese parents!)

Check out the whole story at the BBC.