Why Did 400 Scottish Youths Arm Themselves With Knives To Hunt A Vampire?

Posted by on April 13th, 2010

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You, me and the rest of the school. Run home, grab any knife you can and meet at the cemetery. We are looking for someone seven feet tall with iron teeth. He already kidnapped and ate two kids, so be careful.

Let’s go kill us a vampire.

Or so was the logic for 400 Scottish kids in late September 1954 when a local constable had to break up the armed youth mob repeatedly after word got out that a massive vampire was picking off students one by one. Of course now it’s just a(n awesome) story that aged schoolmates can tell each other but while it was happening, it caused quite a stir in Glasgow and beyond.

“I think somebody saw someone wandering about and the cry went up: ‘There’s the vampire!’

“That was it – that was the word to get off that wall quick and get away from it.

“I just remember scampering home to my mother: ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ‘I’ve seen a vampire!’ and I got a clout round the ear for my trouble. I didn’t really know what a vampire was.”

There were no records of any missing children in Glasgow at the time, and media reports of the incident began to search for the origins of the urban myth that had gripped the city.

Unfortunately, outside forces seized on the story as a rallying cry to push through legislation regulating comic book content sold to minors. Instead of, I don’t know, lauding and rewarding these brave kids for knowing that brutal mob violence was the safest most efficient way to take down a child-murdering denizen of the undead.

[BBC via Conspiracy Journal]

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