The Strange Action of Morfa Miners.
An Echo of Ancient Legends. Uncanny Noises Underground. The Coblyn Knocker. Interesting Chapter on Coblynau.
In connection with the extraordinary conduct of the miners employed at the Morfa Colliery, it is interesting to read of Welsh miners' superstitions as described by Mr Wirt Sykes, who in 1879 was the United States Consul for Wales at Cardiff. The author classes, under the general title of Coblynau, the fairies which haunt the mines, quarries and underground regions of Wales, corresponding to the cablistic gnomes.
"The word coblyn," says he, "has the double meaning of knocker or thumper and sprite or fiend; and may it not be the original of goblin? It is applied by Welsh miners to pigmy fairies which dwell in the mines, and point out, by a peculiar knocking or rapping, rich veins of ore... The coblynau are described as being about half-a-yard in height and very ugly to look upon, but extremely good-natured, and warm friends of the miner. Their dress is a grotesque imitation of the miners' garb, and they carry tiny hammers, picks, and lamps. They work busily, loading ore in buckets, flitting about the shafts, turning tiny windlasses, and pounding away like madmen, but really accomplishing nothing whatever."
It would appear that the miner of old was not particularly afraid of these sprites, because "They have been known to throw stones at the miners when enraged at being lightly spoken of, but the stones are harmless. Nevertheless, all miners of a proper spirit refrain from provoking them, because their presence brings good luck." ..."Miners are possibly no more superstitious than other men of equal intelligence. I have heard some of their number repel indignantly the idea that they are superstitious at all."
The author quotes from the South Wales Daily News, which in June, 1878, recorded a superstition of the quarrymen at Penrhyn, where some thousands of men refused to work on Ascension Day. "This refusal did not arise out of any reverential feeling, but from an old and widespread superstition, which has lingered in that district for years, that if work is continued on Ascension Day an accident will certainly follow. A few years ago the agents persuaded the men to break through the superstition, and there were accidents each year - a not unlikely occurrence, seeing the extent of works carried on, and the dangerous nature of the occupation of the men. This year, however, the men, one and all, refused to work."
"These," proceeds Mr Sykes, "are examples dealing with considerable numbers of the mining class, and are quoted in this instance as being more significant than individual cases would be. Of these last I have encountered many. Yet I should be sorry if any readers were to conclude from all this that Welsh miners are not in the main intelligent, church-going, newspaper-reading men. They are so, I think, even beyond the common. Their superstitions, therefore, like those of the rest of us, must be judged as 'a thing apart,' not to be reconciled with intelligence and education, but co-existing with them. Absolute freedom from superstition can come only with a degree of scientific culture not yet reached by mortal man. ... When they (the miners) hear the mysterious thumping, which they know is not produced by any human being, and when in examining the place where the noise was heard they find there are really valuable indications of ore, the sturdiest incredulity must sometimes be shaken.
Science points out that the noise may be produced by the action of water upon the loose stones in fissures and potholes of the mountain limestone, and does not actually suggest the presence of metals. In the days before a Priestley had caught and bottled that demon which exists in the shape of carbonic acid gas, when the miner was smitten dead by an invisible foe in the deep bowels of the earth, it was natural his awe-struck companions should ascribe the mysterious blow to a supernatural enemy. When the workman was assailed suddenly by what we now call firedamp, which hurled him and his companions right and left upon the dark rocks, scorching, burning, and killing, those who survived were not likely to question the existence of the mine fiend. Hence arose the superstition - now probably quite extinct - of basilisks in the mines, which destroyed with their terrible gaze. When the explanation came that the thing which killed the miner was what he breathed, not what he saw, and when chemistry took the firedamp from the domain of the faerie, the basilisk and the fire fiend had not a leg to stand upon. The explanation of the Knockers is more recent, 'and less palpable and convincing.'"
South Wales Daily News, 13th December 1895.
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