Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most,

and keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This shadowy tale story club members might make you not want to walk alone at night. It's an

urban legend I dub the horror called Spring Healed Jack. If you were walking in the foggy

streets of London back in 1837, beloved listeners, then you might have heard of, or even seen,

a strange, dark leaping figure in the mist.

Eyewitnesses claiming to have spotted the figure called him Spring Healed Jack.

The first sighting occurred in October of that year, almost two centuries ago.

A girl named Mary Stevens was walking to her job as a servant in Lavender Hill, South London.

As she was passing through Clapham Common, a bizarre figure suddenly jumped out at her from a dark alley.

The springing specter touched her face with claws that she later said were as cold and clammy as

those of a corpse. Mary also described him as tall and thin, wearing a dark cloak and having a devil-like

appearance with eyes like red balls of fire. After Mary screamed, her menacing phantom

attacker fled into the night. The next night, the devil-like figure was seen again. This time,

the apparition leapt in the path of a passing

horse-drawn carriage. The result was that the coachman lost control, crashing and seriously injuring

himself. Witnesses to the event claimed that the phantom escaped by vaulting over a nearly

three-meter high wall while cackling with a high-pitched laugh.

With these accounts, the press labeled the bizarre leaping figure Spring Healed Jack.

So, Spring Healed Jack kept springing up, not only in London, but in other cities throughout

...