For today’s main feature, I’ll be focusing on A Boy and a Rat, and in particular the folklore that I used to create its villains (well its cannon fodder), the Spring Heels, as well as explaining why I linked them to a much more infamous Jack, one with a nasty reputation in London….
Before we get started though:
Creator Chaos
This Sunday is the third recording session for our growing podcast, so with luck, next week, I can report that it’s out there for you to listen to!
Now a quick reminder of who you’ll be listening to:
Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, Haskins and the Commander. A master of the pun.
Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the second of which is out soon! A great guy and the defacto leader of our rubble.
Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name.
Matt Brown – A fantasy author looking to make a name for himself with his Ancient Blood series and his Valkyrie story which he serializes in his blog every Monday.
Click here to give our previous sessions a listen!
Vector Unit Orphan’s War
Many apologies as the series is now moving to a fortnightly update schedule, this is due to a number of behind the scenes incidents. Hope you can be patient with me a bit longer.
Check out all the previously released chapters here!
Brief Mentions
Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!
Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology (Harvey Duckman Presents) containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
They Come With Springs Attached
To start, an extract from A Boy and a Rat
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“I want to see what that noise is.” Outside was what you would expect at this time of the morning, dark, quiet and deserted, which is how I preferred things. Then I heard the springs again, and from my limited vantage point I saw movement, just below the tree. Someone was in my front garden, snooping around. It was dark, and they wore dark clothing so, as you can imagine, it was hard to make out anything. Then I saw one of them jump. The figure bent down and then launched itself straight onto the roof. Riz had joined me to witness this as I fell away from the window, speechless.
“Der Spring Heels ave found me...Must ave seen me sneak in ta yer bag. Though I wonder why it took dem dis long?” I heard another land on the roof, and then another. Three ‘Spring Heels’ were now doing who knows what on top of my house.
“What...What are those things?”
“Spring Heels’re specially modded Bogies, a type of goblin. Yer heard of Spring Heeled Jack aven’t yer?” I shook my head.
“Well yer bout to get a crash course in im. Jus hope der other Jack didn’t tag along” Riz started looking nervously at my ceiling, there was a loft in-between us and those Spring Heels. Then a purple haze seemed to be etching itself across my ceiling, at which point, Riz leapt from the windowsill, and darted towards my bag.
“What are you doing? What is that!” I shouted, I envisioned my parents coming in and waking me from one of those waking dreams, but no, they stayed asleep.
Riz reappeared from my bag clutching a pouch in his mouth, and he then ushered me to follow him, and together we legged it downstairs and into the back garden. I hadn’t realised that’s where he wanted to take me, it didn’t seem smart going some where open. I wanted to voice an objection but Riz pre-empted it, something he did a lot of in the early days.
“Dey’re in yer house now, dat mist in yer room, dat was dem breaking in magically. Dere boss musta give dem der power ta do dat. We need ta get ta der field over der fence. Dat shud be perfect fer my plan...” Riz ran up my leg and straight onto my shoulder.
“Your plan? When did you come up with that?”
“A moment ago, yer learn ta think quick in dis line of work.”
“And what line of work is that?”
“Is dis important rite now? Dey aren’t gonna be happy dat we’re not in yer room.” He was right, the situation was getting too much for me and I lost sight of what was going on. What was more astounding was that he had decided that I was helping him, and following his command. Though I guess we were in this thing together, whatever it was.
“Let’s get out of here then!” I said as I ran for the garden gate, throwing it open I ran down the short path and onto the field.
“Dat’s perfect.” He said, pointing to a spot just a bit further on, I cast my eyes back home and saw three heads sticking out of the roof, each of them looking at me with glowing purple eyes that burned from their sunken eye sockets. They started pulling themselves out of the structure, leaving no marks or damaged tiles. I ran towards the point that Riz gestured to, as the springs sounded out and the Spring Heels touched down behind us.
Riz had already pulled out a, what I now know as a Rune. He was thinking several moves ahead of the goblins. Taking aim with the Rune, he uttered something in a language I still can’t identify, and I’ve searched through almost all of them. The Rune broke apart in Riz’s hands, and the fragments shot out in the shape of an arc, covering most of the ground in front of us. The three Spring Heels were stood just ahead of this, their bodies constantly moving, their heads twitching as they observed us .
“What are they waiting for?” I asked, wanting this to be over quickly.
“Dey waitin on sumthin else...” Riz then pointed towards the far end of the block of houses where another figure lurked. This one was taller then the Spring Heels, his arms longer and there was a sheen to his hands that I never understood till he got closer. It was dressed differently to the Spring Heels, wearing a long coat and, amusingly enough, a top hat. “...Oh Shit, fer cryin out loud, can’t I get a break!” Riz shouted out.
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This covers the first proper introduction of Spring Heels, a creation of Faine Hedara, to serve as underlings. Goblins with springs attached to their legs is a bit of a weird thing you might say, and you’d be right, but their inspiration, is a very real bit of folklore. Who am I talking about? None other then Spring Heeled Jack.
Spring Heeled Jack is a curious creature, the first reports of the ‘being’ as he would be identified were in 1837, where several girls were attacked in the dark. His physical appearance does change with each story, with features slowly morphing to the extreme, though there is variants of course. He is said to have metal claws instead of hands, a Cape that is used to hide his appearance at first, eyes like orbs of fire and the ability to break blue and white fire. He didn’t actually have springs on his feet, but was named for the extraordinary jumping ability he possessed.
Of course, there was some very mortal suspects who have been accused over the years of being behind the original attacks that spread the myth, notably a young group of Aristocrats, performing drunken dares. Sightings continued after the first wave until the early twentieth century, though another country did have sightings of their own, Czechoslovakia, during the time of World War Two. Interestingly, there he was seen as something of a hero, even getting his own cartoons were he went after the deadly SS of the Nazis.
So drafting A Boy and a Rat, I was looking for folklore that might be a good fit for the story. While in this process, I came across the old pictures from that time (which can be seen here on the Wikipedia entry for Spring Heeled Jack), I looked into the legend more and decided that I had to feature him somewhere. Then, I refined the idea and settled upon the concept that someone created Spring Heeled Jack then mass produced him for cannon fodder purposes. This further evolved into the Spring Heels you read above.
Except there was something missing, and the name, Spring Heeled Jack, kept me following the train of thought that led to an infamous Jack, that being of course, Jack the Ripper. Everyone knows about Jack, his crimes and all the speculations about his real identity, there was nothing I could add to him, well, aside from making him a goblin. Yes, I turned Jack the Ripper into the original Spring Heeled Jack, and Faine’s first creation. See I wasn’t the first to make Jack a monster, as to my knowledge, that honour belonged to the PlayStation game, Medievil 2, which served as an inspiration in how I ultimately depicted him.
This allowed me to give Faine a second in command, and bring in that little bit more menace then I previously had, and yes, Riz has fought him before…
That’s all I have time for this week, so thank you for reading and beware the sound of springs…
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