In Scotland and Wales there lives a type of vampiric fay called a redcap. Looking like a small and twisted old man with big teeth, long fingers, and skinny arms, it wears boots made of iron with iron spikes on the soles. The redcap gets its name from the hat it wears upon its head. White originally, it has turned red because the little fay is always trying to mop up the blood of its victims.

Redcaps live in abandoned places where there was once a great amount of violence, like a battlefield or a place of execution. Highly territorial, they will attack anyone who walks too near their home by utilizing their amazing strength to drop boulders on victims’ heads.

Unlike most fay, the redcap is not susceptible to iron, as its boots prove. However, reciting verses from the Bible, showing it a CRUCIFIX, or sprinkling it with holy water will drive it off.

Lord Soulis of Hermitage Castle had a redcap as a familiar (see SOULIS, LORD OF HERMITAGE CASTLE).

Source: Dorson, The British Folklorists, 111; IGI, Folklore, 248; Masters, Natural History of the Vampire, 140; Summers, Geography of Witchcraft, 205