SPRING HEELED JACK

The phenomenon which was Spring Heeled Jack began in London in 1837. There had for years been reports in the capital of “ghosts” attacking lone travellers, but in 1837 a more precise kind of monster was born. Described as very tall and thin with a “disturbing physiognomy” including eyes eyes described as “red balls of fire” he also had long claws on cold clammy hands (like a corpse’s) he could make prodigious leaps, including over houses and walls. He is usually wearing a black coat (like a gentleman) and some reports say that he wears a helmet and a tight-fitting suit under the cloak. This character was a trickster – and more. Specialising in terrorising women he was said to have scared some into dangerous fits (sometimes by breathing a blue and white “fire” or smoke at them), wounding to a greater or lesser degree with his claws. Some women are said to have never recovered their wits after an encounter. First dismissed as hysteria or the work of pranksters, it became more and more difficult to explain him away – and if it were a prankster he would surely have been apprehended. Jack’s typical modus operandi was to knock on the door of a woman alone and when it was answered he would tear at her clothes with his claws, attempting to remove them with varying degrees of success, and in the process inflicting wounds. However, he never persevered for long and he seems to invariably have made a run, or leap, for it as soon as the women screamed. Alternatively he would ambush people at night – he seems to have liked to leap in front of carriages, scaring the horses. There is at least one incident in which the driver was badly hurt when he crashed his vehicle.

From London, Jack moved on to other parts of the country, including Scotland. His last appearance was in Everton, Liverpool in 1904 where he was seen leaping over rooftops. Another story has it that his last sighting has him staring out wistfully into the distance, as if perhaps despairing of ever going home. One thing, though, as far as could be discerned, he did not age in the 67 years he was with us. As far as the Midlands is concerned, he seems to have favoured the Black Country, putting in appearances from the 1850s to the 1880s. And it is during the 1880s that the phenomenon is described in Black Hearts And Blue Devils. It is interesting to compare Jack to the folk-tales which my wife heard growing up about the “Blue Devils” of Rowley. They were also able to jump buildings, and were said to come out of a couple of quarries in the area. Of course, as civilisation progressed and education drove out silly superstitions, the Devils came to be a thing only encountered by drunks, something akin to a pink elephants. I Black Hearts I have made much of the similarities between these two types of entity (Jack and Blue Devils that is, not pink elephants). Were they the same thing? Who knows? And, more generally, who or what was Spring Heeled Jack? Ghost? Imp? Devil? Madman? Hoaxer? Alien from another planet? Inter-dimensional interloper? All have been suggested but only one of them applies in Black Hearts: but you will need to read it to find out.

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