Sacamantecas

Julian Pitt-Rivers reports[3] in his study of Alcalá de la Sierra, the belief that village children can be stolen by an outsider, called el sacamantecas, disguised as a beggar or a trader, who is hired by a rich man whose ill child can only be cured with the blood of healthy babies.

One day, Strachey was walking on rough terrain where he saw three Romani men, of whom he was suspicious.

Fearing that they were bandits, he ran away, but the three men chased him and drew their knives, shouting at him.

They offered to slit his throat themselves, but Strachey claimed in rudimentary Spanish to be a relative of the British King George V and convinced the mayor that he wasn't a monster.

In the urban version of the legend,[1] an old evil marquis needs transfusions of babies' blood to rejuvenate.