Archaeologists in Pień, Poland found the 17th century grave of a "vampire" child. Incredibly (fortunately?), the little bloodsucker's ankle was apparently secured with an iron padlock to prevent it from rising from the grave. Estimated to be around 5- to 7-years-old at the time of death, the child's gender is not yet known. From Live Science:
The remains were found just a few feet away from the skeleton of a "vampire" woman discovered last year, who was buried at about the same time with a sickle placed over her neck and a similar padlock on her foot…]
"The padlock shows people were afraid of this child after its death," Dariusz Poliński, an archaeologist at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, told Live Science[…]
Although the woman found last year and now the child have been widely labeled "vampires," Poliński said the modern conception of vampires originated later, and the term was not used at this time.
