I got this idea from a post by nightingaletrash: in 1954 Glasgow hundreds of schoolchildren armed themselves with knives, axes, crucifixes and wooden stakes and stormed graveyards to hunt for a vampire, having heard rumors of a "seven foot tall vampire with iron teeth" who had killed two children.
If Beckett had visited Glasgow during this time to search for an artifact or talk with a contact, what would he think of this phenomenon, and what would happen if he found himself being pursued by hundreds of these angry kids? Would he be able to escape without breaking the masquerade?
Hi hi hi! I couldn't find the post you're referring to, so tagging @nightingaletrash to see if she remembers. Mental Floss did an article on the Gorbals vampire here.
A graveyard housing a quarter million corpses sounds like an excellent place to earthmeld. I wouldn't be surprised if Beckett chose to sleep the day away there. He'd definitely be surprised to wake up to a mob of murderous children! I think he'd be startled, but ultimately okay—by 1953 he'd have plenty of options to escape the raving teenage horde. Mist, Protean doggo, Celerity etc. If you want a narrative story about it, hit up @beckettluvr42 I've been enjoying their art!
The Gorbals Vampire might be a fun plot hook, don't you think? Maybe a Presence-user lured the children to the graveyard? As a power move, or a Pied Piper style threat? To scare Beckett specifically? IDK, I'm texting the Mental Floss article to our GM so he can horrify us with it. :D
Thank you for the ask! Historical musings are fun! And even more fun to insert Beckett into, hahaha :D
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The urban legend of the Gorbals vampire first appeared in September 1954 - 7ft tall and with iron teeth, ready to prey upon the children of the city.
As the story spread, in classic Glasgow fashion hundreds of children gathered ready to fight this creature with their makeshift weapons if it showed it's face at the Southern Necropolis 😂
Three nights off a carry-on and the story featured in national papers 🤣
Our carve for GlasGLOW brings this monster back into the modern day 🎃 Our choice of Mackintosh style lettering gives both a nod to Glasgow and it's subsequent association with the horror genre 🖤
Uncover the mysterious Gorbals Vampire incident: a tale of mass hysteria and the power of imagination in 1950s Glasgow.
The Gorbals Vampire: Glasgow’s Collective Hysteria of 1954
This is a true vampire story from 1950s Scotland. It is true that the local school kids all went vampire hunting even if there maybe wasn't a vampire.
From the article:
In September 1954, mass hysteria gripped Glasgow’s Gorbals neighborhood as children believed in a vampire, leading to a media frenzy. Blamed largely on American horror comics, the incident revealed underlying social fears. Ultimately, it resulted in the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955, impacting censorship and folklore narratives.
In Review: The Gorbals Vampire (a new play from Glasgow's Citizens Theatre)
In Review: The Gorbals Vampire (a new play from Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre)
Gorbals Vampire Poster by Frank Quitely Written by Johnny McKnight Performed by Citizens Theatre First Performed 28th – 29th October 2016 Promotional art by Frank Quitely The Play: A new play by Johnny McKnight, performed by amateur actors and inspired by real-life events which took place in the Southern Necropolis in 1954. In 1954, playgrounds across the Gorbals were abuzz with rumours of a man…
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WHEN the extraordinary 'Case of the Gorbals Vampire' happened, it shocked and chilled the nation. The case saw hundreds of schoolchildren roaming…
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Back from the dead! The ghastly tale of the Gorbals Vampire
The Gorbals Vampire, created by Scottish comic book artist Frank Quitely. Image courtesy of The Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
21 Aug 2016 / Judith Duffy, Reporter
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14695521.Back_from_the_dead__The_ghastly_tale_of_the_Gorbals_Vampire/
WHEN the extraordinary 'Case of the Gorbals Vampire' happened, it shocked and chilled the nation. The case saw hundreds of schoolchildren roaming across Glasgow hunting for a vampire - and such was the outcry it led to new censorship laws in the 1950s for the new craze, American horror comics.
More than sixty years on, the story is being brought back to life with the help of the people of the Gorbals. A play inspired by the real-life monster hunt will be staged at the Citizens Theatre, based in the Gorbals, involving performers drawn from the community. School pupils are being invited to join in by creating comic book artwork, short stories and a new mural to mark the weird legend.
The hunt was triggered by rumours which swept around school playgrounds in September 1954 that two boys had been killed and eaten by a vampire with “iron teeth” which was roaming Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis.
Over three nights hundreds of children descended on the graveyard armed with penknives, sticks and stones in a bid to find the ‘vampire’. Even infants “just able to toddle” joined the mini-army, according to contemporary newspaper reports.
The incident was blamed at the time on the influence of American horror comics - such as Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, which had already caused moral outrage. The events surrounding the Gorbals Vampire were a key factor in the UK government introducing legislation one year later to ban the sale of material portraying incidents of a "repulsive or horrible nature" to children.
Guy Holland, associate director, Citizens Learning, at the Citizens Theatre said there was never any record of children being abducted or missing at the time, and various suggestions have been put forward as to what triggered the mass panic.
These included the poem called ‘Jenny Wi’ the Airn Teeth’, a terrifying tale of a monster which chomps up children who fail to go to sleep - which was a popular bedtime rhyme at that time.
The biblical tale of Daniel’s dream of four beasts, including one which devoured victims with its “large iron teeth” has also been suggested as fuelling young imaginations.
Holland said: “Another interesting aspect is the local area at that time was dominated by Dixons Blazes, the iron foundry that would go 24/7, belching out smoke with the night sky lit up orange.
“There was clanking noises of metal going on and the area was polluted and smelt pretty foul – and it was directly behind the Necropolis.
“I think that might have had as much to do with it as anything else, kids knocking about in the graveyard at night and all the smoke and the colour going on, the noise. It is a potent mix.”
Holland said the story was ideal for a stage production and more than 120 local residents say they want to perform in the play, including many from the Gorbals area. The play will be performed at the Citizens on October 28 and 29 this year.
A competition is also being held for children to write a horror story, and a project to publish a new comic book inspired by Tales from the Crypt will be ongoing in the weeks running up to the play.
Secondary school pupils are also being given the chance to design a mural based on the Gorbals Vampire, which is supported by The ScottishPower Foundation and will be brought to life by Art Pistol, a project responsible for some of Glasgow’s iconic street art including the giant tiger on the Clyde.
Playwright Johnny McKnight, who has written The Gorbals Vampire play, described the real-life event as like a “primary school version of The Crucible”, in the sense collective of hysteria being triggered – but the children had decided to confront the problem head on.
He said: “There is something just fascinating about the idea of primary school kids going to take on a vampire.
"That is the very definition of the world gallus.
“If I was at school and there was a rumour a vampire had killed two school mates, I would have been lying awake in my bed at night, terrified I was going to get it next.
“I love that in the Gorbals, the reaction to that was 'let’s get the bastard tonight'.”
The Gorbals Vampire episode is one of my favourite things to have happened.
In 1954, hundreds of children armed with sticks and knives patrolled the Glasgow Necropolis after dark looking for a vampire with iron teeth who had devoured two boys already.
