Strange sounds, smells and sights at Morfa colliery

Lingering Remnants of Welsh Superstition.

It is extraordinary that, notwithstanding the spread of education and the enlightening influences which are popularly supposed to have been brought to bear upon the people by the pulpit and the Sunday schools, there still linger in the minds of hundreds in the Principality remnants of the superstitions which prevailed in the days of the "Canwyll Corff" and the "Tylwyth Teg." Such is this fact, however, that the news that the workmen of the Morfa Colliery left the pit on Monday because they had heard "strange sounds" is an instance in point. Doubtless, there are districts in which such credulity dies harder than in others, and Morfa appears to be a neighbourhood in which superstition lingers longingly, for the story of the "sign," or foreboding of evil, conveyed by the appearance of a dove perched upon a colliery tram - absurd as such a fear may seem - reminds us that immediately after the occurrence of the great disaster at that colliery some six years ago, rumours were set afloat that omens of evil had just previously been seen. One of our represeentatives, who at that time interviewed a chapel deacon who had narrowly escaped with his life, had an opportunity of letting in some light upon such ridiculous canards as the appearance of a "red dog" underground and the overpowering influence of an "odour of roses."

Further investigations among miners then revealed a curious taint of such beliefs, occurring, strange to say, in several cases, among people possessed with a strong religious tendency. We are, of course, far from suggesting that such doctrines are propagated by the leaders of religion, but, surely, if isolated cases in other districts and a whole pitful of illustrations in Morfa indicate the presence of relics of a superstitious age, there is ample scope for the most active of ministers and preachers to explode the fallacies which still keep members of their flock so far behind the age. Let us hope that Mr. Robson, the inspector of mines, will be successful in exorcising the spirit which disturbs the Morfa men, and that we shall hear no more of "strange sounds," which have a tendency to make Welsh colliers a laughing-stock, for outside the southern portion of the Principality there will be many who will fondly imagine that the intelligent miners so recently praised by Justice Vaughan Williams are all tarred with the same brush as their innocent brethren at Morfa.

The Western Mail, 10th December 1895