(By Herbert Richards).
It has been said that Cornish miners are a class very superstitious, and that they take particular notice of tokens, which they say portend good or ill luck. They also affirm that many lives have been saved from disaster by carefully watching signs and tokens. Nearly everyone, however, is more or less superstitious, though most people would deny this. Ninety-nine persons out of a hundred will walk around a ladder rather than under it. How many will refuse to sit thirteen at table, or to embark on some undertaking on the thirteenth of the month. I would like, therefore, to give to readers of the "Cornishman" some of the happenings which were said to have taken place in some of our local tin mines, when mining was in full swing, and the rattle of stamps made music in the valleys.
Miners affirm that they often see little imps or demons underground, and that their presence is a sign of good luck, and that they indicate the presence of lodes of tin, about which they work during the absence of the miners. A miner was once heard to say that he had often seen them, sitting on pieces of timber, or tumbling about in curious attitudes when he went underground to work.
Another story is that miners do not like the form of the Cross made underground. A man on one occasion going through a level made a cross by the side of one, to mark his way back, as he would have to return by himself. But he was compelled to alter it into another form.
If miners see a snail when going to bal in the morning, they drop a piece of tallow candle by its side.
Two miners who worked at Wheal Vor, in Breage, were in the habit of calling out a dog or two and hunt over the Godolphin estate nearby. One morning while they were with the dogs, one of them gave the alarm that a man on horseback was coming down the road. "It's not possible," said the other. "No horse can ever come over that road."
"Yes it is," said the other, "And old Capn. T is on its back," replied the first.
"Hold thy tongue," replied his comrade. "Capn. T died months ago."
"I know that," said the other, "but tes he sure enough."
Both crouched down behind a bush, but the informant, whose father was one of the parties, declared that the appearance of Capt. T on a black horse passed noiselessly down the road immediately before them, but that he did not notice their presence.
Another strange tale comes from Wheal Vor. A man and a boy were engaged in sinking a shaft, when the lad through accident or carelessness, missed in charging a hole, so it was found necessary to pick out the charge. This they proceeded to do, while the man severely repremanded the boy for carelessness. Several miners were on the plat above, chatting with the man and boy. Suddenly the charge exploded, when man and boy were seen to be thrown up in a volume of flame. A party quickly descended, and the remains of the poor fellows were seen to be scorched beyond recognition. A bystander, in order to spare the feelings of the relatives, caught the burning mass on a shovel and threw it into the blazing furnace of Woolf's engine nearby. From that time the engine man declared that numbers of little black dogs continually haunted the place, even when the doors were closed, and it was found very difficult to get an engine-man to work the engine.
On Christmas Eve, in former days, the "small people," known as "Spriggans," met at the bottom of the deepest mines and sang Christmas carols, and the miners during their work could hear melodious voices beyond all earthly voices singing the well-known carol "Noel" and the strains of a deep-toned organ shook the rocks.
It is said that miners often hear with alarm, noises as if other miners were at work deep underground, and at no great distance, the wheeling of barrows, the sound of pickaxes, and the fall of earth, are distinctly heard through the night. This is supposed to be the echo of their own labours, but sometimes the noises continued long after their labours were ended and voices were occasionally intermingled with the sounds.
Midsummer-eve and New Year's Day were holidays with the miners. It is said that they refused to work on those days from superstitious reasons.
I heard recently that just before the accident at Wheal Reath, a few weeks ago, when three miners were trapped by an inflow of water, that a miner had a warning that something was going to happen at the mine, and he did not go underground. The following incident illustrates this belief in warnings. A workman once lodged in a house near Wheal Grey, in Breage. He says the daughter of the person with whom he lodged, came in to her mother crying, "Billy and Jim ben out theer for more than an hour, and I ben chasing them among the banks and they wa'ant let me catch them. As fast as I go to one bank, they go to another."
"Hold your tongue, child," said the mother. "Twas their fore-noon core, an they have both ben in bed these hours..."
"I'm sure I ben chasing them," said the child.
The mother then went upstairs and awoke the lads, telling them the story. One of them at once said: "It is a warning, something will happen in the old end, and I sha'ant go to mine this core."
"Nonsense," said the other. "Don't be so foolish. The child has been playing with some strangers, and it isn't worth while to be spaled (pay cut) for any such foolishness."
"I tell you," replied the other, "I won't go," and as it was useless for one man to go alone, both remained away, and strange as it may seem, in the course of the night a run took place in the end they had been working in, and tens of thousands of kibblefuls (iron buckets) came away. Had they been at work both men would have been buried alive.
At Wheal Vor it has always been believed that the appearance of a white rabbit, or hare, in the engine house presaged a fatal accident, and some of the miners solemnly declare that they have chased hares and rabbits till they were hemmed in apparently without being able to catch one. A white rabbit on one occasion, it was said, ran into a windbore, lying on the ground, and though stopped in it escaped.
Another strange token comes from Wheal Vor. A man on being relieved from his turn as watcher during the night heard a loud noise like the emptying of rubbish in front of the account house, where he was staying; on going out, nothing was to be seen. The poor fellow thinking this strange sound was a bad warning pined away and died within a few weeks.
The following about the knockers is very interesting. These used to be heard in Cornish mines and caused a great deal of discussion as to who or what they were. They are miners say, the ghosts of the Jews that crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves to work the mines in Cornwall and we find their old smelting houses, which we call Jews' houses, and their blocks at the bottom of the great bogs, which we call Jews' tin.
We used to break into old shafts which they had made, and they say that if a man on a still night works about these shafts he may hear the ghosts of them at work, knocking and picking as clearly as if a man were working in the next level. In some mines these little knockers were known as Buccas, and miners affirm that these sprites have been heard working away in the remote part of a lode of tin repeating the blows of the pick with great precision, and have often indicated to miners where they might find productive lodes.
The following interesting account of the knockers is related: One Saturday night after I had retired to rest and had been some time in bed, I heard a bedroom door open and footsteps moving about on the landing of the stairs, and a movement in the kitchen beneath. This noise continued so long that I feared that one of the children had been taken suddenly ill, and on the Sunday morning when I went down to breakfast, I asked the servant what occasioned the noises during the night. She declared that none of the family had left their bedroom during the night. But one of the family informed me that the house was haunted, and that they often heard strange noises as of miners beating a borer, but I believe they all come from the lode of tin which runs under the house. They were the "knockers" which you heard working upon a lode of tin.
Numerous stories have come from mines in the Lelant and St. Ives district, where the "knockers" have been heard. Since the decline of Cornish mining, very little is known of these things, but in the old mining days it is a fact that all these curious superstitions were believed in.
The Cornishman, 4th March 1937.
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