This is a story that has been extensively researched by Dr Petr Janecek of the National Museum in Prague. Petr has spent years collecting oral narratives relating to the Spring Man from the Czech Republic, and has authored several articles on the subject for the upcoming book on Spring-heeled Jack I'm editing.
Briefly, stories of an SHJ-type entity go back to the period after World War I and come from the industrial areas of the Sudetenland. They were collected by the Czech folklorist Milos J. Pulec and published in the 1960s. Pulec noted that in these first accounts, the 'Spring man; was supposed to be a disguised 'agent of the Catholic church' and interpreted them as a reaction to the mass decline in church attendance that occurred in this period. Janecek adds that the details in the stories have clear parallels to earlier Prague ghost stories that circulated in the late C19th.
With the passage of time, Spring Man narratives from the 1930s and the 1940s drop the motif of subversive evil agent of Catholic Church. The Spring Man becomes more ephemeral, slowly turning into an amorphous phantom. So, for example, in region around town of Kladno in the 1930s, he is described as a 'voyeur and thief on springs,' or near towns of Havlickuv Brod and Humpolec, in 1936-1937, as a ephemeral shadowy figure jumping over moving trains.
In World War II, accounts date mainly from the end of 1944 to May 1945.Jaecek notes:
'Rumours and legends about the Spring Man came mainly from big cities and towns of Central, Eastern and Northwestern Bohemia (most of them were collected in capital of Prague, which was most probably theepicentre of the tradition), but very quickly hit Southern and Western Moravia (most directly the border region of Czech-Moravian Highland and Moravian capital of Brno), Silesia, and Northern and Western Bohemia; regions which almost lacked Spring Man narratives were Southern and South-Western Bohemia. The early wartime Spring Man is usually described as mysterious jumping figure, most often seen in night in urban setting; the majority of these narratives are simple recollections of his short sightings. In these early narratives, the Spring Man was very often confused with other Czech wartime urban phantoms such as Razor Blade Man, Phosphoric Man, or even Canal Man, but Spring Man narratives soon started to overshadow stories about other urban maniacs, and Spring Man himself even started to absorb some of their characteristics, most often those of the Razor Blade Man.
'So, for example, in some oral narratives we can find Spring Man equipped not only with his typical jumping springs, but also with razor blade hidden in his boot or special 'razorblade gloves' like second most popular Czech wartime phantom, slasher Razor Blade Man, or clad in black dress with his ribs covered with phosphoric luminous paint like Phosphoric Man.
'In the spreading of the Spring Man oral tradition, it was the physical abilities of this phantom which fascinated popular imagination and they were exaggerated during its dissemination. So, with help of his steel springs, the Spring Man – who was at first able to jump only over low walls and fences – soon started to jump over cars, trams and buses, and finally over whole houses, wide streets, block of flats, huge chasms or even river valleys. His most spectacular achievements in Czech capital were supposed jump over ancient walls of Vysehrad fortress, jump over whole Wenzelsplatz square and finally over Vltava river valley at its widest point, from Baba resident colony to Bohnice quarter.'
For further details and first-person accounts, watch out for Petr's contributions to
Spring-heeled Jack: Sources and Interpretation, which will hopefully appear later this year. Publication will be announced at
www.mikedash.com.
