Spring-heeled Jack is an entityin English folklore of the Victorian era. The first claimed sightingof Spring-heeled Jack was in 1837. Later sightings were reported allover the United Kingdom and were especially prevalent in suburbanLondon, the Midlands and Scotland.
There are many theories about thenature and identity of Spring-heeled Jack. This urban legend was verypopular in its time, due to the tales of his bizarre appearance andability to make extraordinary leaps, to the point that he became thetopic of several works of fiction.
Spring-heeled Jack was described bypeople who claimed to have seen him as having a terrifying andfrightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy, clawed hands, andeyes that "resembled red balls of fire". One reportclaimed that, beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and atight-fitting white garment like an oilskin. Many stories alsomention a "Devil-like" aspect. Others said he wastall and thin, with the appearance of a gentleman. Several reportsmention that he could breathe out blue and white flames and that hewore sharp metallic claws at his fingertips. At least two peopleclaimed that he was able to speak comprehensible English.
History
Precedents
In the early 19th century, there werereports of ghosts that stalked the streets of London. Thesehuman-like figures were described as pale; it was believed that theystalked and preyed on lone pedestrians. The stories told of thesefigures formed part of a distinct ghost tradition in London which,some writers have argued, formed the foundation of the later legendof Spring-heeled Jack.
The most important of these earlyentities was the Hammersmith Ghost, which in 1803 and 1804 wasreported in Hammersmith on the western fringes of London; it wouldlater reappear in 1824. Another apparition, the Southampton ghost,was also reported as assaulting individuals in the night. Thisparticular spirit bore many of the characteristics of Spring-heeledJack, and was reported as jumping over houses and being over 10 ft(3.0 m) tall.
Early reports
The first alleged sightings ofSpring-heeled Jack were made in London in 1837 and the last reportedsighting is said in most of the secondary literature to have beenmade in Liverpool in 1904.
According to much later accounts, inOctober 1837 a girl by the name of Mary Stevens was walking toLavender Hill, where she was working as a servant, after visiting herparents in Battersea. On her way through Clapham Common, a strangefigure leapt at her from a dark alley. After immobilizing her with atight grip of his arms, he began to kiss her face, while ripping herclothes and touching her flesh with his claws, which were, accordingto her deposition, "cold and clammy as those of a corpse".In panic, the girl screamed, making the attacker quickly flee fromthe scene. The commotion brought several residents who immediatelylaunched a search for the aggressor, but he could not be found.
The next day, the leaping character issaid to have chosen a very different victim near Mary Stevens' home,inaugurating a method that would reappear in later reports: he jumpedin the way of a passing carriage, causing the coachman to losecontrol, crash, and severely injure himself. Several witnessesclaimed that he escaped by jumping over a 9 ft (2.7 m) high wallwhile cackling with a high-pitched, ringing laughter.
Gradually, the news of the strangecharacter spread, and soon the press and the public gave him the name"Spring-heeled Jack".
Official recognition
A few months after these firstsightings, on 9 January 1838, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir JohnCowan, revealed at a public session held in the Mansion House ananonymous complaint that he had received several days earlier, whichhe had withheld in the hope of obtaining further information. Thecorrespondent, who signed the letter "a resident of Peckham",wrote:
It appears that some individuals(of, as the writer believes, the highest ranks of life) have laid awager with a mischievous and foolhardy companion, that he durst nottake upon himself the task of visiting many of the villages nearLondon in three different disguises—a ghost, a bear, and a devil;and moreover, that he will not enter a gentleman's gardens for thepurpose of alarming the inmates of the house. The wager has, however,been accepted, and the unmanly villain has succeeded in deprivingseven ladies of their senses, two of whom are not likely to recover,but to become burdens to their families.
At one house the man rang the bell,and on the servant coming to open door, this worse than brute stoodin no less dreadful figure than a specter clad most perfectly. Theconsequence was that the poor girl immediately swooned, and has neverfrom that moment been in her senses.
The affair has now been going on forsome time, and, strange to say, the papers are still silent on thesubject. The writer has reason to believe that they have the wholehistory at their finger-ends but, through interested motives, areinduced to remain silent.
Though the Lord Mayor seemed fairlyskeptical, a member of the audience confirmed that "servantgirls about Kensington, Hammersmith and Ealing, tell dreadful storiesof this ghost or devil". The matter was reported in TheTimes on 9 January, other national papers on 10 January and, on theday after that, the Lord Mayor showed a crowded gathering a pile ofletters from various places in and around London complaining ofsimilar "wicked pranks". The quantity of lettersthat poured into the Mansion House suggests that the stories werewidespread in suburban London. One writer said several young women inHammersmith had been frightened into "dangerous fits"and some "severely wounded by a sort of claws themiscreant wore on his hands". Another correspondent claimedthat in Stockwell, Brixton, Camberwell and Vauxhall several peoplehad died of fright and others had had fits; meanwhile, anotherreported that the trickster had been repeatedly seen in Lewisham andBlackheath.
The Lord Mayor himself was in two mindsabout the affair: he thought "the greatest exaggerations"had been made, and that it was quite impossible "that theghost performs the feats of a devil upon earth", but on theother hand someone he trusted had told him of a servant girl atForest Hill who had been scared into fits by a figure in a bear'sskin; he was confident the person or persons involved in this"pantomime display" would be caught and punished. The police were instructed to search for the individual responsible,and rewards were offered.
A peculiar report from The BrightonGazette, which appeared in the 14 April 1838 edition of The Times,related how a gardener in Rosehill, Sussex, had been terrified by acreature of unknown nature. The Times wrote that "Spring-heeledJack has, it seems, found his way to the Sussex coast", eventhough the report bore little resemblance to other accounts of Jack.The incident occurred on 13 April, when it appeared to a gardener"in the shape of a bear or some other four-footed animal".Having attracted the gardener's attention by a growl, it then climbedthe garden wall and ran along it on all fours, before jumping downand chasing the gardener for some time. After terrifying thegardener, the apparition scaled the wall and made its exit.
Scales and Alsop reports
Perhaps the best known of the allegedincidents involving Spring-heeled Jack were the attacks on twoteenage girls, Lucy Scales and Jane Alsop. The Alsop report waswidely covered by the newspapers, including a piece in The Times,while fewer reports appeared in relation to the attack on Scales. Thepress coverage of these two attacks helped to raise the profile ofSpring-heeled Jack.
Alsop case
Jane Alsop reported that on the nightof 19 February 1838, she answered the door of her father's house to aman claiming to be a police officer, who told her to bring a light,claiming "we have caught Spring-heeled Jack here in thelane". She brought the person a candle, and noticed that hewore a large cloak. The moment she had handed him the candle,however, he threw off the cloak and "presented a most hideousand frightful appearance", vomiting blue and white flamefrom his mouth while his eyes resembled "red balls of fire".Miss Alsop reported that he wore a large helmet and that hisclothing, which appeared to be very tight-fitting, resembled whiteoilskin. Without saying a word he caught hold of her and begantearing her gown with his claws which she was certain were "ofsome metallic substance". She screamed for help, and managedto get away from him and ran towards the house. He caught her on thesteps and tore her neck and arms with his claws. She was rescued byone of her sisters, after which her assailant fled.
Scales case
On 28 February 1838, nine days afterthe attack on Miss Alsop, 18-year-old Lucy Scales and her sister werereturning home after visiting their brother, a butcher who lived in arespectable part of Limehouse. Miss Scales stated in her depositionto the police that as she and her sister were passing along GreenDragon Alley, they observed a person standing in an angle of thepassage. She was walking in front of her sister at the time, and justas she came up to the person, who was wearing a large cloak, hespurted "a quantity of blue flame" in her face,which deprived her of her sight, and so alarmed her, that sheinstantly dropped to the ground, and was seized with violent fitswhich continued for several hours.
Her brother added that on the eveningin question, he had heard the loud screams of one of his sistersmoments after they had left his house and on running up Green DragonAlley he found his sister Lucy on the ground in a fit, with hersister attempting to hold and support her. She was taken home, and hethen learned from his other sister what had happened. She describedLucy's assailant as being of tall, thin, and gentlemanly appearance,covered in a large cloak, and carrying a small lamp or bull's eyelantern similar to those used by the police. The individual did notspeak nor did he try to lay hands on them, but instead walked quicklyaway. Every effort was made by the police to discover the author ofthese and similar outrages, and several persons were questioned, butwere set free.
Popularization
The Times reported the alleged attackon Jane Alsop on 2 March 1838 under the heading "The LateOutrage at Old Ford". This was followed with an account ofthe trial of one Thomas Millbank, who, immediately after the reportedattack on Jane Alsop, had boasted in the Morgan's Arms that he wasSpring-heeled Jack. He was arrested and tried at Lambeth Streetcourt. The arresting officer was James Lea, who had earlier arrestedWilliam Corder, the Red Barn Murderer. Millbank had been wearingwhite overalls and a greatcoat, which he dropped outside the house,and the candle he dropped was also found. He escaped conviction onlybecause Jane Alsop insisted her attacker had breathed fire, andMillbank admitted he could do no such thing. Most of the otheraccounts were written long after the date; contemporary newspapers donot mention them.
After these incidents, Spring-heeledJack became one of the most popular characters of the period. Hisalleged exploits were reported in the newspapers and became thesubject of several penny dreadfuls and plays performed in the cheap theaters that abounded at the time. The devil was even renamed"Spring-heeled Jack" in some Punch and Judy shows,as recounted by Henry Mayhew in his London Labour and the LondonPoor:
This here is Satan,-we might say thedevil, but that ain't right, and gennelfolks don't like such words.He is now commonly called 'Spring-heeled Jack;' or the 'RossianBear,' – that's since the war.
— Henry Mayhew, LondonLabour and the London Poor, p. 52
But, even as his fame was growing,reports of Spring-heeled Jack's appearances became less frequent ifmore widespread. In 1843, however, a wave of sightings swept thecountry again. A report from Northamptonshire described him as"the very image of the Devil himself, with horns and eyes offlame", and in East Anglia reports of attacks on drivers ofmail coaches became common. In July 1847 "a Spring-heeledJack investigation" in Teignmouth, Devon led to a CaptainFinch being convicted of two charges of assault against women duringwhich he is said to have been "disguised in a skin coat,which had the appearance of bullock's hide, skullcap, horns andmask". The legend was linked with the phenomenon of the"Devil's Footprints" which appeared in Devon inFebruary 1855.
Last reports
In the beginning of the 1870s,Spring-heeled Jack was reported again in several places distant fromeach other. In November 1872, the News of the World reported thatPeckham was "in a state of commotion owing to what is knownas the "Peckham Ghost", a mysterious figure, quite alarmingin appearance". The editorial pointed out that it was noneother than "Spring-heeled Jack, who terrified a pastgeneration". Similar stories were published in The IllustratedPolice News. In April and May 1873, it reported there were numeroussightings in Sheffield of the "Park Ghost", whichlocals also came to identify as Spring-heeled Jack.
Aldershot
This news was followed by more reportedsightings, until in August 1877 one of the most notable reports aboutSpring-heeled Jack came from a group of soldiers in AldershotGarrison. This story went as follows: a sentry on duty at the NorthCamp peered into the darkness, his attention attracted by a peculiarfigure "advancing towards him." The soldier issued achallenge, which went unheeded, and the figure came up beside him anddelivered several slaps to his face. A guard shot at him, with novisible effect; some sources claim that the soldier may have firedblanks at him, others that he missed or fired warning shots. Thestrange figure then disappeared into the surrounding darkness "withastonishing bounds."
Lord Ernest Hamilton's 1922 memoirForty Years On mentions the Aldershot appearances of Spring-heeledJack; however, he (apparently erroneously) says that they occurred inthe winter of 1879 after his regiment, the 60th Rifles, had moved toAldershot, and that similar appearances had occurred when theregiment was barracked at Colchester in the winter of 1878. He addsthat the panic became so great at Aldershot that sentries were issuedammunition and ordered to shoot "the night terror"on sight, following which the appearances ceased. Hamilton thoughtthat the appearances were actually pranks, carried out by one of hisfellow officers, a Lieutenant Alfrey. However, there is no record ofAlfrey ever being court-martialed for the offence.
Lincolnshire
In the autumn of 1877, Spring-heeledJack was reportedly seen at Newport Arch, in Lincoln, Lincolnshire,wearing a sheep skin. An angry mob supposedly chased him and corneredhim, and just as in Aldershot a while before, residents fired at himto no effect. As usual, he was said to have made use of his leapingabilities to lose the crowd and disappear once again.
Liverpool
By the end of the 19th century thereported sightings of Spring-heeled Jack were moving towards thenorth west of England. Around 1888, in Everton, north Liverpool, heallegedly appeared on the rooftop of Saint Francis Xavier's Church inSalisbury Street. In 1904 there were reports of appearances in nearbyWilliam Henry Street.
Aftermath and impact upon Victorianpopular culture
The vast urban legend built aroundSpring-heeled Jack influenced many aspects of Victorian life,especially in contemporary popular culture. For decades, especiallyin London, his name was equated with the bogeyman, as a means ofscaring children into behaving by telling them if they were not good,Spring-heeled Jack would leap up and peer in at them through theirbedroom windows, by night.
However, it was in fictionalentertainment where the legend of Spring-heeled Jack exerted the mostextensive influence, owing to his allegedly extraordinary nature.Three pamphlet publications, purportedly based on the real events,appeared almost immediately, during January and February, 1838. Theywere not advertised as fiction, though they likely were at leastpartly so. The only known copies were reported to have perished whenthe British Library was hit during The Blitz, but their catalog stilllists the first one.
The character was written into a numberof penny dreadful stories during the latter half of the 19th century,initially as a villain and then in increasingly heroic roles. By theearly 1900s he was being represented as a costumed, altruisticavenger of wrongs and protector of the innocent, effectively becominga precursor to pulp fiction and then comic book superheroes.
Theories
No one was ever caught and identifiedas Spring-heeled Jack; combined with the extraordinary abilitiesattributed to him and the very long period during which he wasreportedly at large, this has led to numerous and varied theories ofhis nature and identity. While several researchers seek a normalexplanation for the events, other authors explore the more fantasticdetails of the story to propose different kinds of paranormalspeculation.
Skeptical positions
Skeptical investigators have dismissedthe stories of Spring-heeled Jack as mass hysteria which developedaround various stories of a bogeyman or devil which have been aroundfor centuries, or from exaggerated urban myths about a man whoclambered over rooftops claiming that the Devil was chasing him.
Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rdMarquess of Waterford (1840)
Other researchers believe that someindividual(s) may have been behind its origins, being followed byimitators later on. Spring-heeled Jack was widely considered not tobe a supernatural creature, but rather one or more persons with amacabre sense of humor. This idea matches the contents of the letterto the Lord Mayor, which accused a group of young aristocrats as theculprits, after an irresponsible wager. A popular rumor circulatingas early as 1840 pointed to an Irish nobleman, the Marquess ofWaterford, as the main suspect. Haining suggested this may have beendue to him having previously had bad experiences with women andpolice officers.
The Marquess was frequently in the newsin the late 1830s for drunken brawling, brutal jokes and vandalism,and was said to do anything for a bet; his irregular behavior and hiscontempt for women earned him the title "the Mad Marquis",and it is also known that he was in the London area by the time thefirst incidents took place. In 1880 he was named as the perpetratorby E. Cobham Brewer, who said that the Marquess "used toamuse himself by springing on travelers unawares, to frighten them,and from time to time others have followed his silly example." In 1842, the Marquess married and settled in Curraghmore House,County Waterford, and reportedly led an exemplary life until he diedin a riding accident in 1859.
Skeptical investigators have assertedthat the story of Spring-heeled Jack was exaggerated and alteredthrough mass hysteria, a process in which many sociological issuesmay have contributed. These include unsupported rumours,superstition, oral tradition, sensationalist publications, and afolklore rich in tales of fairies and strange roguish creatures.Gossip of alleged leaping and fire-spitting powers, his allegedextraordinary features and his reputed skill in evading apprehensioncaptured the mind of the superstitious public—increasingly so withthe passing of time, which gave the impression that Spring-heeledJack had suffered no effects from aging. As a result, a whole urbanlegend was built around the character, being reflected bycontemporary publications, which in turn fueled this popularperception.
Paranormal conjectures
A variety of wildly speculativeparanormal explanations have been proposed to explain the origin ofSpring-heeled Jack, including that he was an extraterrestrial entitywith a non-human appearance and features (e.g., retro-reflective redeyes, or phosphorus breath) and a superhuman agility deriving fromlife on a high-gravity world, with his jumping ability and strangebehavior, and that he was a demon, accidentally or purposefullysummoned into this world by practitioners of the occult, or who madehimself manifest simply to create spiritual turmoil.
Fortean authors, particularly LorenColeman and Jerome Clark, list "Spring-heeled Jack"in a category named "phantom attackers", withanother well-known example being the "Mad Gasser of Mattoon".Typical "phantom attackers" appear to be human, andmay be perceived as prosaic criminals, but may display extraordinaryabilities (as in Spring-heeled Jack's jumps, which, it is widelynoted, would break the ankles of a human who replicated them) and/orcannot be caught by authorities. Victims commonly experience the"attack" in their bedrooms, homes or other seeminglysecure enclosures. They may report being pinned or paralyzed, or onthe other hand describe a "siege" in which theyfought off a persistent intruder or intruders. Many reports canreadily be explained psychologically, most notably as the "OldHag" phenomenon, recorded in folklore and recognized bypsychologists as a form of hallucination. In the most problematiccases, an "attack" is witnessed by several peopleand substantiated by some physical evidence, but the attacker cannotbe verified to exist.
In other countries
A similar figure known as Pérák, theSpring Man of Prague was reported to have been seen in Czechoslovakiaaround 1939–1945. As writers such as Mike Dash have shown, theelusiveness and supernatural leaping abilities attributed to Pérákbear a close resemblance to those exhibited by Spring-heeled Jack,and distinct parallels can be drawn between the two entities. Thestories of Pérák provide a useful example of how the traits ofSpring-heeled Jack have a broad cultural resonance in urban folklore.Pérák, like Spring-heeled Jack, went on to become a folklore hero,even starring in several animated superhero cartoons, fighting theSS, the earliest of which is Jiří Trnka's 1946 film Pérák a SS orSpringman and the SS.
In contemporary popular culture
The character of Spring-heeled Jack hasbeen revived or referenced in a variety of 20th and 21st centurymedia, including:
Spring-Heeled Jack (1989) - acombination prose and graphic novel by Philip Pullman in whichSpring-heeled Jack saves a group of plucky orphans from themalevolent Mack the Knife.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) -a video game by Bethesda Game Studios in which the player can brieflyobtain a pair of enchanted boots called the "Boots ofSpringheel Jak" which allow the wearer to jump much higherthan normal.
Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire(2008) - Springheeled Jack appears in this book as a humanoidcreature with long nails who can jump incredibly far and killsLondoners. While not the original Spring-heeled Jack, he claims to benamed after the version from legend. He re-appears in later sequels.
Spring Heeled Jack (2008) - a songabout the entity by Neil Cicierega as part of his sixth Lemon Demonalbum, View-Monster.
The Strange Affair of Spring-HeeledJack (2010) - an alternate history novel by author Mark Hodder,portraying Spring-Heeled Jack as a time traveler.
The Springheel Saga (2011) - athree-series audio drama produced by the Wireless Theatre Company.
The second season (2011) of the BBCdrama series Luther features a character acting out the role ofSpring Heeled Jack and murdering women in London.
Jekyll & Hyde (2015) -Spring-heeled Jack appears as a secondary antagonist/protagonist inepisodes 6 and 7 of this TV series.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015) -Spring-heeled Jack is featured as an antagonist in this video gameset in Victorian London.
Houdini and Doyle (2016) - episode 4 ofthis TV series is titled "Spring Heel'd Jack" andfeatures Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle investigating a newrash of Spring-heeled Jack sightings.
The Life and Fantastical "Crimes"of Spring Heeled Jack (2020) - a novel in memoir form positioning thetitle character as a Victorian-era superhero.