Skoppuskratti (Spring-heeled Jack) was a notorious figure in England in the 19th century.
He was first noticed in 1837, when a man in London saw a mysterious man who looked very much like a Gaul jumping over a high churchyard wall.
A few months later, a young maid said she had been physically assaulted in a dark alley and described the attacker as similar to the aforementioned man. However, he had fled when she started screaming.
In the years to come, Spring-heeled Jack appeared in countless stories, first in London and later here and there in the British Isles, where he surprised people and shot them in the chest before jumping away, laughing like a coot.
Skoppuskratti became so famous that he was used as a main character in many novels, as well as plays. In the beginning, he was often portrayed as dangerous and terrifying, but as time went on, his character changed and he began to be described as a stealthy hero who protected the less powerful and punished villains under the cover of night, somewhat in the spirit of the Victorian era Batman.
Who was Spring-heeled Jack?
When the British had shown immense interest in Skoppuskratta for one seventy years, he disappeared from the scene at the beginning of the 20th century as suddenly as he had originally appeared on it.
Ever since then, various scholars have struggled to explain the origin of the phenomenon.
Most people today agree that Skoppuskratti was created as a result of mobbing rooted in rumours, superstitions and, not least, newspapers desperate for something bite-sized to write about.
