A 6-year-old Scottish boy who died from meningitis now has a hit song as part of his legacy.
Ladywell Primary School classmates of Caden Beggan recorded a rendition of the Christmas favorite "O Holy Night" to honor the boy, the Wishaw Press reports.
Caden, from Cleland, Scotland, died Nov. 20 after galvanizing well-wishers around the world through his parents' Facebook page. He had contracted meningococcal septicemia last month and had both legs and his left hand amputated to boost his odds of survival, according to the BBC. His fight to live was chronicled by his parents David and Angela on a Facebook page that gained more than 51,000 supporters.
School officials thought they could sell a few hundred downloads of the tribute song on iTunes to parents and friends -- but instead it became a bona fide chart-buster. "O Holy Night" climbed to No. 12 on the iTunes downloads list in the U.K. on Nov. 26. The song at one point was just below Adele's "Skyfall" at No. 18 on the official U.K. Top 40, according to reports.
"We never expected it to go so high into the charts in such a short time," school principal Pat Ashworth told the Wishaw Press.
The Daily Mail reports the chorus had notched about 10,000 downloads at £0.79 a pop in Britain and 99 cents in the United States as of Tuesday morning, raising $5,928 for meningitis research and $659 for the school.