Almost 150 years ago, a ghastly figure caused panic in Dundee. After a dip into the annals of Courier history, we can bring you the sinister tale of Spring Legs.
Night after night the apparition known as Spring Legs stalked the streets of Broughty Ferry. Of terrifying appearance, his gyrations and leaping gait were described as “highly fantastic and unnatural” by those who witnessed his passing.
So frightened were some residents that they urged any of their fellows who had cause to be out late to carry a pistol.
Now, almost 150 years later, his legend has been unearthed by local historian Kerrin Evans, who discovered a series of bizarre newspaper articles.
It was in February 1867 that Spring Legs made his first appearance on the pages of The Courier and Argus.
One local man, who identified himself only as “Broughty Castle”, reported how he had disturbed the troublemaker placing “devil-faced” turnip lanterns outside homes.
Spring Legs was said to have chased him through the streets, only to be laid low by a plant pot flung accurately at his head by his would-be victim.
His ghastly apparel was found to be a mask and its wearer “a young man of goodly proportions whose nose was bleeding profusely”.
The unmasking did not bring the matter to an end, however, as over the next 10 days there were several more sightings.
On February 5 1867, Spring Legs is said to have burst into a home on the east side of Broughty Ferry, terrifying a servant girl and bewildering the family.
Reports said he showed no emotion and performed “several antics in the middle of the floor with the coolest self-possession” before leaving. Four days later, he was seen near James Place capering in the middle of the road and speaking an “unintelligible jargon”.
Spring Legs imitators also began to appear. One young man dressed all in white in an attempt to frighten residents in the Seafield Road area, only to be caught and subjected to “rough treatment” by unimpressed locals.
A young fisherwoman is also said to have donned a bed sheet to “terrorise” people in an alley close to the beach.
Days later, Spring Legs was cornered by two elderly gentlemen in the grounds of the East Free Church and “poked with their walking sticks” until a horse and carriage distracted the pair and the apparition took his opportunity to flee.
The spectre then appears to have shifted his haunting to Coupar Angus.
There, The Courier and Argus reported that local youths had armed themselves with “good strong catapults” with which to “test his vulnerability”.
Spring Legs then disappeared entirely from sight until, in February 1872, a figure clad all in white dubbed Spring-Heeled Jack began to terrorise Edinburgh and Leith.