Episode Information

In summer 2007, at a site in Ireland, archaeologists were uncovering layers of graves. They were astonished to find two skeletons with large stones lodged in their jaws. This was exceptional; all the other skeletons in the cemetery had been normal Christian burials. The archaeologists believe that the skeletons were treated as if they were ‘revenants’ – individuals who might return from the dead to prey on the living. The film attempts to discover who these people were, how they died, and when the stones were forced into their jaws. It’s a fascinating journey first into the medieval mind, and back to our earliest fears of the undead. And we come up to date, with an interview with a Romanian villager who saw his neighbours cutting the heart out of a corpse that they believed to be a vampire. It’s a story through time, to uncover the fears, the rituals, and the truth about vampries.