They
seek him here, they seek him there…but Spring-Heeled Jack can turn up anywhere.
Here
is a legend that first began in early Victorian England. A man with the apparent
ability to leap over walls and capable of turning up anywhere from the Black
Country (in the Birmingham, West Midlands area) to Liverpool, Chichester, and
London - even a foray to Scotland. Sightings of this fantastical and scary creature grew to a peak in the
1880s – especially in the West Midlands.
So
what did he look like? Descriptions vary with the witness, but some
characteristics occur more frequently than others. He was alleged to possess a
goatee beard and devil’s horns, pointed ears, and flashing eyes of fire. The
popular Penny Dreadfuls of the day depicted him looking like a swarthy devil.
Another feature common to all sightings was his ability to leap high over
hedges, walls, rooftops with complete ease. He terrified his victims by suddenly leaping
in front of them, or up behind them.
In
1855, one report saw him in Old Hill in the West Midlands, where he leaped from
the roof of the Cross Inn public house over to the roof of the butcher’s shop
across the road. This occurrence was swiftly followed by reports of other
sightings in the area and a wave of panic from the local populace.
A period of quiet
was followed in 1877 was followed by a whole spate of sightings in Blackheath,
Dudley and the Acocks Green area of Birmingham in 1877. Spring-Heeled Jack
continued to be active through the 1880s. The Birmingham Post in 1886 reported
that: “First a
young girl, then a man, felt a hand on their shoulder, and turned to see the
infernal one with glowing face, bidding them a good evening.”
He usually appeared at night and
targeted mainly young women. Originally his intention appears to have been to
scare rather than cause actual harm to his victims. But before too long, he
tired of this tame pursuit and his modus operandi turned from scary to full
blown assault. On one occasion, he was said to have been accompanied by
companions, all dressed in armour, who attacked a carpenter, ripping his
clothes to shred. There was a suggestion in the press that the assailants were
a group of, essentially bored, young gentlemen out to get their kicks by
frightening people so much they lost their wits. Most of the people prepared to
talk to the newspapers about Jack presented mere hearsay. It hadn’t happened to
them, but to a friend of a friend.
The first credible account came
from 18-year-old Jane Alsop who, in February of 1838, reported to magistrates
that she had been approached by a man dressed in a cloak, near the gate of her
home in Bearbinder Lane, near Bow, London. He had asked her to bring a candle
as the police had caught Spring-Heeled Jack nearby. She duly did so. He took the
candle from her, opened his cloak and she caught sight of his “hideous and
frightful appearance”. He then vomited a blue and white flame and his eyes became
like “balls of fire”. He wore a helmet and tight-fitting clothes and he began
to set about her with metal claws, ripping her dress and tugging out her hair.
She managed to escape his clutches when her older sister, hearing her cries,
opened the door and dragged her inside before shutting the beast firmly out.
In Limehouse, London, a girl called
Lucy Scales, along with a female friend, was accosted by a gaunt man, of
seemingly gentlemanly appearance. She was so scared she collapsed in a fit. In
this instance, two men were actually brought to court charged with her assault
but were released owing to lack of evidence.
Outside London, Spring-Heeled
Jack seems to have toned down his fire-vomiting behaviour in favour of his more
athletic accomplishments and, for the rest of the century, it is for this
incredible ability to leap to great heights that his fame persisted and spread.
In 1904, in Liverpool during one
of his last appearances, he was reported as leaping over rooftops and bounding down
the street. He was even reported as being seen on the rooftop of St Francis
Xavier’s Church in Salisbury Street in the Everton district of the city.
By the end of the nineteenth
century, his notoriety was such that almost any strange encounter with a
swift-footed criminal could result in Spring-Heeled Jack’s name being associated
with it. In Edwardian times, his name was quoted to children by parents, to
ensure they came home before dark. A convenient and effective bogeyman.
There were rumours that he was a
real person – Henry de la Poer Beresford, the Marquess of Waterford no less,
who was certainly in London at the time of the 1830s sightings and was known to
be something of a rake at the time, being hauled up before magistrates for
drunken, brutish and outlandish behaviour on more than one occasion. However, that wouldn’t
account for all the other sightings or the fact that the legend persisted into
the twentieth century, with no apparent diminishing of athletic prowess that
would be caused by the natural aging process.
No one was ever convicted of the
assaults he is alleged to have committed and some sources at least believe he was capable of the earlier attacks but, following his marriage in 1842, he appears to have led a
blameless life. Maybe he had imitators.
These days, Spring-Heeled Jack is
once again providing entertainment for the masses, through steampunk literature
and appearance in popular TV shows, such as Dr. Who. No doubt, as with most
urban myths, there is a grain of truth there somewhere, but rumour, numerous
retellings and embellishments have gifted us a larger-than-life character that
merely adds to our cornucopia of rich folklore traditions.
Of course… if you are out one
dark night and see a strange man leaping over the rooftops, you may yet prove me wrong…
Images:
Wikipedia
Boydell Press
"...if there is a crown of queen of gothic horror, [Catherine Cavendish] should be wearing it." — Modern Horrors
