"Some of you with an interest in folklore and crypto-zoology might be aware of the Victorian bug-a-boo Spring-heeled Jack, a mysterious fleet-footed character who terrorised London in the 1830s and visited other towns and cities in the late 19th and early 20th century. Since the 1960s, when a writer in Flying Saucer Review claimed Jack was really an extraterrestrial, versions of the legend have turned up in the UFO/supernatural press.
"Next year sees the publication of a new book on the SHJ legend, edited by Mike Dash and containing contributions from yours truly [DC] (2 chapters) and other scholars of folklore and Victorian literature.
"Here's the book blurb from Mike Dash's website http://www.mikedash.com/
"Publishing in 2010, Spring–heeled Jack: Sources and Interpretation will be the first detailed, fully–referenced study of perhaps the strangest and most enduring of contemporary legends. Spring–heeled Jack — a leaping, fire–breathing bogeyman who terrorised Victorian Britain — emerged from a welter of wild rumour in January 1838 and has never quite gone away.
"This new study, edited by Mike Dash with contributions from an international line-up of scholars, is firmly based on a comprehensive survey of in excess of 200,000 words of primary source material. It includes brand–new research examining how the Spring–heeled Jack legend originated in the years 1804–1837 and how and why the nineteenth century media reported the story. The book discusses Jack’s impact on the popular culture of the Victorian era, and analyses the spread of his legend around the world, from pre-revolutionary Russia to modern Somalia via Newfoundland, New Zealand and Argentina. Details of how to order the book will appear here closer to the publication date.
"In the meantime, Mike will be appearing on BBC1's The One Show on Friday, 30 October to coincide with Hallowe'en, some time after 7pm that evening, to talk about the legend and the new book.
"He writes: 'I helped them film this last year and it should feature some footage of me tramping around the old cemetery on Barnes Common where SHJ was allegedly first seen in the autumn of 1837.'"
Barnes Common cemetery is just a short stroll from Magonia Central, and it is everything that a spooky old graveyard should be!
I lived in Church Road, Barnes in approx 1942-1944 almost opposite the pond and a few doors from the Sun Inn Pub..I had a terrifying experience there when I was just a very young child about 3 years old,,It was in the war and late at night..I was asleep in my parents big bed with my Sister who was 5, my Dad was away fighting and my Mum was in the kitchen. The french windows were open onto the garden on a warm night in the ground floor flat..I awoke to see what I can now only describe as a Hob Goblin at the foot of the bed, small and hunched with big green eyes and it started to come round to my side of the bed, I hid under the bedcovers for a long time and when I looked it had gone..being a small child I forgot about this very real horrible experience until I was with my Sister and friends when we were teenagers and starting talking about scary things, I told them my story and it was then my Sister said she had seen it too but thought it just a nightmare!!!!!
ReplyDeleteany ideas what it might have been..there was a lot of bombing going on in the area at the time.
Fascinating to get a first hand account like this. This sounds like a classic example of the sort of 'Old Hag' experience tha David Hufford has written about. Read our review of his books here: http://magonia.haaan.com/2009/hufford/
ReplyDeleteBack in the 1960s Peter Rogerson and I investigated a series of 'bedroom visitor' events, and you can read about them here:
http://magonia.haaan.com/1976/visions-of-the-night/
However, not all 'strange awakening' cases are as dramatic as this, as this example demonstrates:
http://magonia.haaan.com/1994/virtual-banality/
So as you can see, such experiences although often very frightening, and we are not really sure what causes them, are really a quite common part of human experiences, and are connected with such experiences as false awakenings, sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming.
Thank you very much for recounting this to us.
John Rimmer