Springheel Jack - A Hub I WISH was in the Hub Challenge

Springheel Jack - Urban Legend

One of my favourite hubs to put together has been the Springheel Jack one that I published quite a while ago. I wish I had just thought of doing a hub on this notorious leaping entity more recently instead of months ago, because if I'd just completed the hub NOW, I could enter it in the hubpages Hub Challenge to get the hub the exposure I think it deserves!

The hub has had a fairly consistent score of 70+ often in the 80's but the score is starting to slip. Today the score on the hub is only 71, so I'll have to update the hub soon with fresh content.

I've enjoyed the Springheel Jack story and also the research involved in finding out more about Springheel Jack. He/It is a very mysterious entity, made more mysterious by the fact that reports of Jack's first appearances were in Britain during the Victorian era...

Record-keeping was being done back then but methodical , ethical and reliable record-keeping was questionable back when Springheel Jack was leaping around London and various locations in England. Therefore, I can track down a great number of reports - even newspaper reports that can be cross-referenced - about a Springheel Jack persona who terrorized areas of England, but these reports are largely unreliable.

Now, just because many reports from the recent-past are considered unreliable data - this DOES NOT MEAN that the documents are USELESS to us today...

What the old documents, sighting reports and personal accounts/interviews contain are very interesting data, displaying the general state of the human psyche in individuals who reported seeing or coming into contact with Springheel Jack.

No doubt, whoever or whatever Springheel Jack was - his/its presence created hysteria, confusion and fear - in a huge way all over England.

If you'd like to read about what I've been able to dig up so far about Springheel Jack:

Hubpages Hub: Springheel Jack

I'm not sure we haven't also seen a similar sort of hysteria in our own times - even though we are capable of better record-keeping today and though our sciences are more accessible and advanced as compared with Victorian times.

For me, similarities exist between the Springheel Jack legend(s) and a creature that turned up in the U.S.A. in the late 1960's named, The Mothman.

Both entities caused terror of the general public in the regions - several square miles - where they were visible. Though each creature/figure was described a bit differently, we are talking about Victorian era and vocabulary in England versus present-day, modern vocabulary in The United States of America...when discussing the two entities.

Both figures showed up suddenly - and were visible for a short span of time (days to a couple of years) - and then reports of sightings just stopped as suddenly as they had started concerning each of the entities in separate eras.

Makes ya say, "Hmmm"