Spring-heeled Jack

Spring Heeled Jack (contemporary illustration).

Spring Heeled Jack is a character said to have existed in England during the Victorian era. Sightings of Spring Heeled Jack officially began in 1837 and are recorded all over England, from London up to Sheffield and Liverpool, but they were especially prevalent in suburban London and later in the Midlands, where they peaked between the 1850s and 1880s. Although some unconfirmed reports claim that it could still be active, it is generally believed to have disappeared after 1904, year of the last recorded incident. Many theories have been proposed to ascertain its nature and identity, none of which have been capable of clarifying the subject completely, and the phenomenon still remains unexplained to this day. Other mysterious characters include England's Piano Man and Mauritania's Silent Flute Man.

The story of Spring Heeled Jack gained an immense popularity in its time due to the tales of his bizarre appearance and his capacity to perform extraordinary leaps, to the point that it transcended the role of a mere paranormal phenomenon and attained the status of urban legend. Since the moment the events gained notoriety, it gradually became an integral part of English folklore, exerting a lasting influence on England's popular culture that endures to present date.

Description

Spring Heeled Jack was described by his victims as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy that included clawed hands and protuberant red eyes, which "glowed like fire". One of these victims also recounted that, beneath a black cloak, he wore a helmet and a tight fitting white garment like an "oilskin". Many depositions also mention a "Devil-like" aspect, wearing a tight fitting oilskin outfit, although its color alternated between white (the most frequent) and jet black. Every witness stated that Spring Heeled Jack's complexion was athletic and sturdy and that he was capable of effecting great leaps. Several reports mention that he had the ability of breathing blue and white flames from his mouth, and that he wore sharp metallic claws at his fingertips. At least two testimonies denote that he was able to speak in comprehensible English, albeit with an uncommonly deep voice.

History

Early reports

File:Springheel Jack.gif

Spring Heeled Jack jumping over a gate.

Isolated accounts of a strange leaping man were in circulation as early as 1817 ¹, but the first confirmed sighting occurred in September 1837 in London, England. A businessman returning home late one night from work was suddenly shocked as a mysterious figure jumped with ease over the considerably high railings of a cemetery, landing right in his path. No attack was reported, but the submitted description was disturbing: a muscular human male with devilish features, which included large and pointed ears and nose, and protruding, glowing eyes.

Shortly after this incident, the same character leapt out of the darkness and attacked a group of passers-by ². He grabbed a woman, who managed to get away after getting her coat ripped, followed by her companions. One of them, however, a barmaid named Polly Adams, tripped and fell behind. Hours later, the police discovered her lying right where she was attacked. According to her statement, the assailant tore off the top of her blouse, and after grabbing her naked breasts, he deeply scratched her belly with his claws, leaving her unconscious and bloodied, but still alive.

Later, in October 1837, a girl by the name of Mary Stevens was walking to Lavender Hill, where she was working as a servant, after visiting her parents in Battersea. On her way through Clapham Common, the strange figure leapt at her from a dark alley. After immobilizing her with a tight grip of his arms, he began to kiss her face, while ripping her clothes and touching her flesh with his claws, which were according to her deposition “cold and clammy as those of a corpse“. In panic, the woman screamed, making the attacker quickly flee from the scene of the assault. The commotion attracted several residents who launched an immediate search for the aggressor, but he was nowhere to be found.

The next day, the leaping character chose a very different victim near Mary Stevens' home, inaugurating a modus operandi that would become typical of his future deeds: he jumped in the way of a passing carriage, causing the coachman to lose control and crash, injuring him seriously. Several witnesses claimed that he escaped by jumping over a nine foot-high wall, while babbling with a high-pitched and ringing laughter.

A few days later, another woman was attacked near the Clapham churchyard. For the first time, police investigators discovered evidence at the scene of the crime: two footprints about three inches deep, which implied that they may have been made by someone who had landed from a great height. Upon a closer inspection, some curious imprints were found within the impressions, which suggested that the attacker had been wearing some sort of gadget on his shoes, "perhaps some kind of compressed springs" in the opinion of a present police officer. In spite of its importance, the lack of forensic investigators in those days made the police forget about such evidence, and instead of making plaster casts of the impressions, they simply allowed the weather to erode them. Gradually, the news of the strange character spread, and soon the press and the public gave him a name: Spring Heeled Jack ³.

Official recognition

File:Session1840.JPG

A public session at the Mansion House, London (c. 1840).

A few months later, on January 9th 1838, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Cowan, revealed at a public session held in the Mansion House an anonymous complaint that he had received several days earlier, which he had withheld in the hope of obtaining further information. The correspondent, 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 a wager with a mischievous and foolhardy companion, that he durst not take upon himself the task of visiting many of the villages near London in three different disguises – a ghost, a bear, and a devil; and moreover, that he will not enter a gentleman’s gardens for the purpose of alarming the inmates of the house. The wager has, however, been accepted, and the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven 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 stood in no less dreadful figure than a spectre clad most perfectly. The consequence was that the poor girl immediately swooned, and has never from that moment been in her senses.

The affair has now been going on for some time, and, strange to say, the papers are still silent on the subject. The writer has reason to believe that they have the whole history at their finger-ends but, through interested motives, are induced to remain silent." ⁴

Though the Lord Mayor seemed fairly skeptical, a member of the audience confirmed, "servant girls about Kensington, Hammersmith and Ealing, tell dreadful stories of this ghost or devil". The matter was reported in The Times and other national papers the next day, and the day after that (January 11th) the Lord Mayor showed a crowded gathering a pile of letters from various places in and around London complaining of similar "wicked pranks". The quantity of letters that poured into the Mansion House suggests that the activities of Spring Heeled Jack were common knowledge in suburban London by that time. One writer said he had ascertained that several young women in Hammersmith had been frightened into "dangerous fits", and some "severely wounded by a sort of claws the miscreant wore on his hands". Another correspondant affirmed that in Stockwell, Brixton, Camberwell and Vauxhall several people had died of fright, and others had had fits; meanwhile, another reported that the trickster had been repeatedly seen in Lewisham and Blackheath, but the police were too frightened of him to act.

The Lord Mayor himself was in two minds about the affair: he thought "the greatest exaggerations" had been made, and that it was quite impossible "that the ghost performs the feats of a devil upon earth", but on the other hand someone he trusted had told him of a servant girl at Forest Hill who had been scared into fits by a figure in a bear’s skin; he was confident the person or persons involved in this "pantomime display" would be caught and punished ⁵. A special police task force was formed to search for the individual responsible for the attacks, and rewards were offered. The Duke of Wellington himself (who was in his seventies at the time) and Admiral Edward Codrington decided to join the search. Some sources point that the Duke did actually encounter Spring Heeled Jack on a few occasions, but to no avail: he was never caught. Furthermore, he seemed to have grown bolder, and his attacks multiplied.

The Scales and Alsop incidents

File:Jack3.gif

Spring Heeled Jack as depicted on an early penny dreadful.

Perhaps the best known incidents involving Spring Heeled Jack were his attacks on two teenage girls, Lucy Scales ⁶ and Jane Alsop. Both events were widely reported by the press, which fuelled the mass hysteria surrounding the case.

On February 18th, 1838 ⁷, 18 year old Lucy Scales and her sister Margaret were returning home after visiting their brother, a butcher who lived in a respectable part of the district of Limehouse. Lucy slightly ahead of her sister, was passing the entrance to Green Dragon Alley when a figure leapt upon her from the shadows. The figure breathed fire into Lucy’s face and then bounded away as the girl fell to the ground, seized by violent spasms which lasted for several hours. The attacker, claimed no less than four witnesses, escaped by climbing from the ground to the roof of a nearby house on a single jump.

Two days later, on February 20th, 1838, Jane Alsop, also 18, opened the door of her father’s house in the district of Bow to a man claiming to be a police officer, who asked her to bring a light because he and other policemen had "caught Spring Heeled Jack in the lane", but this man then attacked her, tearing at her dress and hair until other members of her family ran to help her. She told the Lambeth police investigators that "he was wearing a kind of helmet, and a tight fitting white costume like an oilskin. His face was hideous; his eyes were like balls of fire. His hands had great claws and were as cold as ice, and he vomited blue and white flames."

A couple of days later, Jane's deposition was strengthened by the testimony of a butcher from Limehouse. He was the brother of Lucy and Margaret Scales, the victims of the Green Dragon Alley attack ⁸.

A week after the attack on Jane Alsop, once again a black-cloaked figure knocked on the door of a house, this time in Turner Street, off Commercial Road. When a servant boy answered the call, the visitor asked in a harsh and deep-sounding voice to speak to the master of the house, a Mr. Ashworth. The boy turned to call his master when he noticed that the man standing at the doorway had glowing red eyes. In state of panic, he screamed, attracting the attention of the neighbors. With an angry and frustrated groan, Spring Heeled Jack waved his clawed fist at the boy's face and darted over the nearby rooftops. At the following interrogation by the authorities, the child claimed that he had noticed what became a significant piece of evidence: as Spring Heeled Jack was turning his back at him, he observed that he had a golden embroidered letter "W" on his shirt beneath the black cloak, much like a coat of arms.

The legend spreads

Ad for a Spring Heeled Jack penny dreadful (1886).

After these incidents, Spring Heeled Jack became one of the most popular characters of the moment. His exploits were reported in the newspapers and became the subject of several penny dreadfuls and plays performed in the cheap theatres that abounded at the time. But, as his fame was growing, his appearances became less frequent, while spreading over a large area. In 1843, however, a wave of sightings swept the country again. Then he appeared in Northamptonshire, in Hampshire, where he was described as "the very image of the Devil himself, with horns and eyes of flame", and in East Anglia, where reports of attacks to drivers of mail coaches became common.

Although terrifying citizens with his apparitions, and in some occasions causing injuries of diverse consideration to his victims, so far Spring Heeled Jack had never killed a person. However, that changed in 1845. That year, he was seen at Jacob’s Island, Bermondsey, a low class slum of decaying wooden houses and full of pestilent ditches, which had been immortalized by Charles Dickens as the lair of Fagin and his band of child thieves in Oliver Twist. He was said to have cornered a 13 year old prostitute named Maria Davis on a narrow bridge that crossed one of the foulest ditches in the neighborhood, called Folly Ditch, breathed fire into her face and hurled her into the stinking waters below. Witnesses reported the affair to the police, who dragged the ditch and recovered the girl’s body. The verdict at the subsequent inquest was one of death by misadventure, but the inhabitants of the area branded Spring Heeled Jack as a murderer.

During the 1850s and 1860s Spring Heeled Jack was seen all over England, particularly in the Midlands. On the night of February 8th 1855, during an unusually severe winter, long trails of prints appeared in the snow in at least thirty different places in Devon. Each was about three-and-a-half inches long by three inches broad, resembling a donkey's hoofprint, and some seemed cloven. They were said to have crossed roofs, high walls and haystacks, adding to the supernatural impression. The story was taken up in The Times on February 16th, reporting that the marks had "caused an uproar of commotion among the inhabitants in general" and that "several of the very superstitious" were saying "it must be the marks of Old Nick", while many others thought it was the work of Spring Heeled Jack.

The last sightings

In the beginning of the 1870s, Spring Heeled Jack began to appear repeatedly in London again, while continuing to be seen in distant places. In November 1872, the News Of The World reported that London was "in a state of commotion owing to what is known as the "Peckham Ghost", a mysterious figure, quite alarming in appearance". The editorial pointed that it was no other than "Spring Heeled Jack, who terrified a past generation". In April and May of 1873, there were numerous sightings of the "Park Ghost" in Sheffield, which local newspapers came to identify as Spring Heeled Jack. These incidents culminated with thousands of people gathering each night to hunt the ghost.

File:Aldershot1866.JPG

Aldershot Barracks - North Camp, Central Road as it looked in 1866.

These news were followed by more sighting reports, until in August 1877, Spring Heeled Jack made one of his most notable appearances before a group of soldiers in Aldershot's barracks. John Regan, a sentry on duty at the North Camp, peered into the darkness, his attention attracted by a peculiar figure bounding across the road towards him, making a metallic noise. The soldier issued a challenge, which went unheeded, and the figure vanished from sight for a few moments. As he turned back to his post, he appeared beside him and delivered several slaps to his face with "a hand as cold as that of a corpse". Attracted by the ensuing noise, several men rushed to the place, but they claimed that the character leapt several feet over their heads and landed behind them. According to their testimony, Spring Heeled Jack simply stood there, watching them and grinning, as if he was waiting and challenging them to make their next move. One of the guards shot at him, with no visible effect, other than enraging him; some sources denote the fact that the soldier may have fired blanks at him, merely used to make warning shots. The strange figure then charged towards them and spat blue flames at them from his mouth, making the guards desert their posts in panic and then disappearing into the surrounding darkness.

There were several more attacks of Spring Heeled Jack on guards at Aldershot. All these sightings concurred in the description: tall, muscular complexion, wearing a helmet and a white tight fitting oilskin suit.

After these incidents, a massive spree of Spring Heeled Jack's sightings hit all England. In Lincolnshire, he was seen leaping over several houses, wearing a sheep skin. An angry mob chased him and cornered him, and just like in Aldershot a while before, residents uselessly fired at him. Many witnesses claimed that the shots did hit him, sounding as they were hitting a hollow metallic object, like an "empty bucket". As usual, he made use of his leaping abilities to lose the crowd and disappear once again.

File:StFrancisXavier3.JPG

Modern view of Saint Francis Xavier's church, Liverpool.

By the end of the 19th century, the geographical pattern of sightings of Spring Heeled Jack indicated that he was moving towards western England. In September 1904, in Everton, at the south of Liverpool, Spring Heeled Jack appeared on the rooftop of Saint Francis Xavier's church, in Salisbury Street. Witnesses reported that he suddenly jumped and fell to the ground, landing behind a nearby house. When they rushed to the point, they faced there a tall and muscular man, fully dressed in white and wearing an "egg shaped" helmet, standing there waiting. He laughed hysterically at the crowd and rushed towards them, making several women gasp in dismay. Clearing them all with a gigantic leap, he disappeared behind the neighboring houses.

The Liverpool incident is usually considered the last time Spring Heeled Jack was ever seen. Although there have been reports of later sightings as recently as 1986, some of them outside England (even in the United States), such claims are too scarce and ambiguous to be confirmed.

Theories

The fact that Spring Heeled Jack was never caught, combined with the extraordinary abilities attributed to him and the very long period of time he was at large, have led to all sorts of theories to determine both his nature and identity. While several researchers seek a rational explanation to the events, other authors echo themselves in the more fantastic details of the story to propose different kinds of paranormal speculations.

Skeptical positions

File:MarquessWaterford.JPG

Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford (1840).

Skeptical investigators have repeatedly deprecated the legend of Spring Heeled Jack. Some of them sustain that it is nothing but an exaggeration of the story of a certain mentally ill zealot, who danced and leapt over rooftops claiming that the Devil was chasing him ⁹. Other researchers believe that some individual(s) may have been behind its origins, being followed by imitators later on ¹⁰ . It is worthy of note that, following his appearance and for the years that followed, the press, the authorities and most part of the general public considered Spring Heeled Jack to be not a supernatural creature, but rather an individual (or perhaps more than one person) with a macabre sense of humor who delighted in scaring and molesting women. This idea matches the contents of the letter to the Lord Mayor, which accused a group of young aristocrats as the culprits, after an irresponsible wager. A popular rumor that was in circulation as early as 1840 pointed at an Irish nobleman, Henry de La Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, as the main suspect of being behind the events. The responsibility of the Marquess has been accepted by several modern authors, who suggest that a humiliating experience with a woman and a police officer could have given him the idea of creating the character as a way of "getting even" with police and women in general ¹¹. Said authors speculate that he could have designed (with the help of friends who were experts in applied mechanics) some sort of apparatus for special spring-heeled boots, and that he may have practiced fire-spitting techniques in order to increase the unnatural appearance of his character. Lastly, they point at the embroidered coat of arms with a "W" letter observed by the servant boy at the Ashworth incident, a notorious coincidence with his title's name.

Indeed, the Marquess was frequently in the news in the late 1830s for drunken brawling, brutal jokes and vandalism, and was said to do anything for a bet; his irregular behavior and his contempt for women earned him the moniker "the Mad Marquis'', and it is also known that he was present in the London area by the time the first incidents took place. He was also pointed as the perpetrator by Rev. E. C. Brewer in 1880, who attested that the Marquess "used to amuse himself by springing on travelers unawares, to frighten them, and from time to time others have followed his silly example" ¹². In 1842, the Marquess of Waterford married and settled in Curraghmore House, Ireland, and reportedly led an exemplary life, until he died in a horse riding accident in 1859. Meanwhile, Spring Heeled Jack remained active and continued to be for decades after, which leads the aforementioned modern researchers to the same conclusion as Rev. Brewer's: the Marquess may well have been responsible for the first attacks, while it was up to other pranksters who occasionally imitated him to continue the task.

Either if the legend is based in the zealot episode, or if a particular person or a group of them was behind its origins being followed by mimics later on, skeptical investigators are unanimous in asserting that the story of Spring Heeled Jack was exaggerated and altered through mass hysteria, a process in which many sociological issues may had contributed. These include unsupported rumors, superstition, oral tradition, sensationalistic publications, and a folklore rich in tales of fairies and strange roguish creatures. Gossip of his "powers", his alleged "devilish features", and his skill in avoiding all attempts of apprehension captured the mind of the superstitious public, and so his figure was given a supernatural aura. This became especially true with the passing of time, which gave the impression that Spring Heeled Jack had suffered no effects from aging. As a result, a whole urban legend had been built around the character, being reflected by contemporary publications, which in turn fuelled this popular perception in a vicious circle ¹³.

Paranormal conjectures

A wide variety of explanations have been proposed by authors who support the paranormal origin of Spring Heeled Jack. Due to the inherent nature of the phenomenon, such theories are speculative and bereft of any proof. The following are just a few:

• A common hypothesis proposes Spring Heeled Jack as an extraterrestrial entity, somehow stranded on Earth. Supporters of this theory believe this would explain his non-human appearance and features, (i.e., retro-reflective red eyes, or phosphorous breath), his jumping ability (by suggesting that he may have been native of a planet with greater gravitational pull, like astronauts experienced on the Moon), strange behavior (which could have been altered through Solipsism Syndrome or as a result of breathing the gases present at the Earth atmosphere), and his longevity. ¹⁴
• A visitor from another dimension, who could have entered into this plane through a wormhole or dimensional gate. ¹⁵
• A demon, accidentally summoned into this world by practitioners of the occult (a theory that has been incorporated into the RPG "Feng Shui") ¹⁶, or who made himself manifest simply to create spiritual turmoil. ¹⁷

The supporters of the paranormal explanations usually refer as proof of their claims that no human could have ever used a gadget to leap the way Spring Heeled Jack was said to, by pointing that in the 20th century, the German Army experimented on the subject with disastrous effects. Allegedly, such experiments gave an estimated 85% rate of failure, with broken legs and ankles on the testers. They conclude that there was no possibility for an individual to succeed where an official warfare project failed, especially considering that the former had preceded it by many decades. ¹⁸

Spring Heeled Jack in popular culture

Spring Heeled Jack on a penny dreadful cover page (c. 1904).

The vast urban legend built around Spring Heeled Jack influenced in many aspects of Victorian life, especially in contemporary popular culture. The Oxford English Dictionary recounts that, in late Victorian times, his name had become a general term for a street criminal who leapt upon people to rob or frighten them, and then relied on his speed in running to make his escape. It cites a Cheshire source from 1887 as an example, where maids who had just been paid their yearly wage were said to be afraid to go out carrying much money, since "there are so many of these spring-heeled Jacks about" ¹⁹ . For decades, his name also equalled to a bogeyman used to scare children into behaving, by telling them that if they were not good, Spring Heeled Jack would leap up and peer in at them through their bedroom windows.

However, it was in the field of fictional entertainment where the legend of Spring Heeled Jack exerted the most extensive influence, due to his allegedly extraordinary nature. Almost from the moment the first incidents gained public knowledge, he turned into a successful fictional character, becoming the protagonist of many penny dreadfuls from 1840 to 1904. Several plays where he assumed the main role were staged as well. The most notable fictional Spring Heeled Jack's were:

• A play by John Thomas Haines, in 1840, Spring-Heeled Jack, the Terror of London, which shows him as a brigand who attacks women because his own sweetheart betrayed him.
• Later that decade, Spring Heeled Jack’s first penny dreadful appearance came in the anonymously written Spring-Heeled Jack, The Terror of London, which appeared in weekly episodes.
• W. G. Willis' 1849 play, The Curse of the Wraydons, where Spring Heeled Jack is a traitor who spies for Napoleon Bonaparte, and stages murderous stunts as a cover.
• A 1863 play, Spring-Heel'd Jack: or, The Felon's Wrongs, written by Frederick Hazleton.
• Spring-heel'd Jack: The Terror of London, a penny dreadful published by the Newsagents’ Publishing Company c. 1864-1867.
• Spring-heel'd Jack: The Terror of London, a 48-part penny weekly serial published c. 1878-1879 in The Boys' Standard, written either by veteran dreadful author George Sala or by Alfred Burrage in his pseudonym of Charlton Lea.
• Spring-Heel Jack; or, The Masked Mystery of the Tower, appearing in Beadle's New York Dime Library #332, 4 March 1885, and written by Col. Thomas Monstery.
• a 1889-1890 48-part serial published by Charles Fox and written by Alfred Burrage in his pseudonym of Charlton Lea.
• a 1904 version by Alfred Burrage. ²⁰
• a remake of The Curse of the Wraydons, written in 1928 by surrealist Swiss author Maurice Sandoz, which served as base for a movie that bears the same name in 1946. ²¹

All the early works invariably presented Spring Heeled Jack as an arch-villain, but remarkably, his figure experienced a metamorphosis throughout the years, and his role was completely swapped to a superhero. The first penny dreadful to introduce such a change was the 1860s edition, and this variation was adopted by all the publications that followed, reaching its highest development in Burrage's 1904 version.

File:Jack1.JPG

Spring Heeled Jack, depicted on a modern comic (2003).

In these stories (which take place in 1805, after Napoleon Bonaparte has conquered Europe), Spring Heeled Jack is Bertram Wraydon, a young and handsome lieutenant of the British Army, heir to £10,000 a year, who is unfairly framed for treason by his evil half brother Hubert Sedgefield. After escaping from his prison, Wraydon returns seeking revenge on the villains, assuming a secret identity and an odd looking costume with mane and talons, fighting against evil and helping the innocent. He has a secret lair, where he has hidden what he managed to save of his inheritance, selflessly using it to fund his heroic activities. These include the design of a spring mechanism that allows him to leap over thirty feet, and a device to breathe flames at evildoers. He even has a trademark that leaves at the scene of his actions; a letter "S" that he carves with his rapier after his mission is accomplished.

Although lacking durable literary value, the Spring Heeled Jack series exerted an important influence as a predecessor of modern day pulp magazine and comic superheroes, taking into consideration that they were written twenty years before the first Zorro adventure and more than half a century before other fictional characters like Batman or the Lone Ranger were created. Such lasting influence and its consequent cultural importance were, for most part of the 20th century, practically forgotten.

However, a renewed interest in the legend of Spring Heeled Jack has sparked in the last years. Several English comic characters were based directly on him since the early 1970s, like Jumping Jack, the Leaping Phantom, Spring-Heeled Jock and Spring-Heeled Jackson ²².

Even to present day, the tale continues to attract the imagination of writers, like Philip Pullman (author of the best-selling trilogy His Dark Materials), who published his fictional book Spring Heeled Jack - A Story of Bravery and Evil in 1989 (ISBN 0440862299). He retakes there the concept of a good Spring Heeled Jack, who dresses up as the Devil to scare villains, much in the tradition of the Victorian penny dreadfuls.

In 1991, Spring Heeled Jack was one of a number of folklore creatures included in a series of toys called Monster In My Pocket.

In 1994, singer Morrissey released a song entitled "Spring-Heeled Jim" on his album Vauxhall and I.

The Spring Heeled Jack myth has been recently unearthed by several comic authors, like Ver Curtiss ²³, Kevin Olson and David Hitchcock ²⁴, who have made him the protagonist of series that are currently active, in a shady and postmodern environment, and where he is once again given the role of a hero. The legend has also provided inspiration for some music artists who have named themselves after it, like the English duo Spring Heel Jack and the American ska group Spring Heeled Jack.

Resources

Footnotes

• Note 1: A few sources go beyond that date, citing alledged apparitions of Spring Heeled Jack in 1808 in Sheffield. "The Cobra's Ghost." The Legend of Spring Heeled Jack by Sharon McGovern. Accessed on March 22, 2005.
• Note 2: Peter Haining, The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring Heeled Jack (1977), claims that this group was composed of three women and a man, while Joyce Robbins, The World's Greatest Mysteries (1991) argues that only three women were present.
• Note 3: Jerome Clark, Unexplained!: Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences & Puzzling Physical Phenomena (1993), mentions that the press referred variously as "Spring-Heeled Jack", "Springheel Jack" or "Springald". This later name probably derives from a Scottish term for an "active or springy young man". Peter Haining, op. cit., asserts that the term "springald" was rather the origin of the name Spring Heeled Jack, to which it evolved later; alas, there is no proof to support this claim, according to Clark.
• Note 4: As quoted by Jacqueline Simpson, Spring-Heeled Jack (2001).
• Note 5: Peter Haining, op. cit., based on reports from The Times of 10th and 12th January 1838.
• Note 6: This name differs according to the source. "Scales" is the name used by Peter Haining, op. cit., and the usually accepted version, while Charles Berlitz in Charles Berlitz 's World of Strange Phenomena (1989), provides the variation "Sales" and Daniel Cohen, The Encyclopedia of Monsters (1982) mentions it as "Squires" (See Note 8).
• Note 7: Peter Haining, op. cit., based on reports from The Times of 20th and 22nd February 1838. Most sources agree on these dates with the exception of Charles Berlitz, op. cit., who assigns them two days later each.
• Note 8: Daniel Cohen, op. cit., based on Limehouse police's records, where the name is registered as "Squires".
• Note 9: Jenny Randles, Strange & Unexplained Mysteries of the 20th Century (1994).
• Note 10: Mike Dash, Spring Heeled Jack, from Fortean Studies (1995), compiled by Steve Moore.
• Note 11: Peter Haining, op. cit.
• Note 12: Jacqueline Simpson, op. cit.
• Note 13: "Skeptical Enquirer, July 2002." Monkey Man, Spring Heeled Jack; Notes on a Strange World. Accessed on March 24, 2005.
• Note 14: Charles Berlitz, op. cit.
• Note 15: "Cassiopaea." The Beast of Gevaudan, Spring-Heeled Jack, Mothman and other window fallers. Accessed on March 25, 2005.
• Note 16: "Feng-Shui." Spring-Heeled Jack. Accessed on March 29, 2005.
• Note 17: Supporters of this theory include John Keel (author of the best-seller book The Mothman Prophecies) and Jacques Vallee.
• Note 18: "The Triangle - Sci-Fi." Spring Heeled Jack: profitable, unbelievable. Accessed on March 25, 2005.
• Note 19: Jacqueline Simpson, op. cit.
• Note 20: Jess Nevins, The Encyclopaedia of Fantastic Victoriana (2005), and Jacqueline Simpson, ibid.
• Note 21: "Internet Movie Data Base." Internet Movie Data Base entry for "The Curse of the Wraydons". Accessed on March 23, 2005.
• Note 22: "International Superheroes." UK Superheroes. Accessed on March 23, 2005.
• Note 23: "Art Nocturne." The Art of Ver Curtiss. Accessed on March 23, 2005.
• Note 24 "Black Boar Press." The Works of David Hitchcock. Accessed on March 23, 2005.

References

• Jacqueline Simpson. Spring-Heeled Jack (leaflet, January 2001). International Society for Contemporary Legend Research
• . ISBN 0806907681. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 1578590701. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 0396090516. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 1932265082. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 0584102763. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 0449218252. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 1870870557. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 0440236568. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 1850516987. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)
• . ISBN 1850584044. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)

External links

• Justin Gilbert's Penny Dreadful Page—Includes an example of a Spring Heeled Jack-based penny dreadful.
• Anomalies Article—Spring Heeled Jack
• Mystery Mag article—Spring Heeled Jack reappears in 1970s Sheffield?
• BBC - Legacies - Myths and Legends - England - Black Country— Spring Heeled Jack
• Paranormal Phenomena— The Top Ten Most Mysterious Creatures of Modern Times
• Culture UK— What makes Britain so... British! Spring Heeled Jack
• Haunted Britain— Spring Heeled Jack
• The Cobra's Ghost— The Legend of Spring Heeled Jack by Sharon McGovern