1862

Superstitions of our colliers. The World Below.

The change from the upper world to the coal pit beneath is a startling one. Above you have the broad fields and distant hills, lit by sunshine; here a river, there a stream; here trees waving, and there woods full of melody. All is life; chimneys are sending up their wreaths of smoke from every point; furnaces are casting forth their glare; engines are pursuing their monotonous beat; voices are heard on every side; and whether in the field or the town, active open day work seems the law impelling every one on in the race of life. 

Visit the coal pit. Your conductor takes a bar of iron and beats it against the signal "gloch," and the sounds seem to sink downward with a melancholy cadence. Again he repeats the warning, and then is heard, as if from a confined spirit immured far below, a wail that echoes again and again, and at last dies away. All is right. You enter the carriage, and with swift gliding motion descend. A strange thrill creeps over the frame as the opening above becomes smaller and smaller; you look nervously at the chains which link you to the world above, and never before has it appeared so bright as now, when, a faulty link, and 'tis gone from you for ever. The car at length comes to a stand still; you are helped out; pass the great fire which maintains the ventilation, and through the long dark heading, with a twinkling light thrown on the path by a Davy lamp, take your way.

Stop! Your conductor has forgotten something; he must return, and you wait his coming in a low stall! Now is the time, in the fell thick darkness, with the solemnity of the pit around you like a shroud, to feel and comprehend the change from the upper to the lower world. Not a voice is heard. Now and then a drop of water splashes down into the pool by your side, or a piece of shale or coal falls with sullen noise in the seeming vault you are in. Fancies crowd upon you, the heavy air seems to hum and to teem with solemn life. List! a distant step; a light creeping like a small thread over the black sides of the heading; it grows, expands, a long demon like shadow passes you, and your friend is by your side! 

I do not wonder in an atmosphere so congenial, that the Welsh collier is in the majority of cases a superstitious being - prone to believe in appearances and warnings before accident or death, and to hand down their warnings in many a social gossip, to the men who succeed him. One of their warnings, told with great earnestness at a congenial time for such relations, was as follows:-

An old collier, of sober religious habits, was at work in his stall one afternoon; he plied his mandril busily, for times were bad, and the hours were fleeting fast. One by one he heard the tread of his companions leaving the pit, some he saw, and one in particular, who spoke to him as he went by. On he worked. Suddenly he heard in the distance a strange and yet a common noise; it was simply the rolling of a tram, but it came from a place where he knew no trams could be at that time, and he rose up from his work and looked out into the dark heading, hearing trams approaching quietly and regularly. Then he heard voices in conversation blending with the noise of the tram. It was strange! he rubbed his eyes, passed his hand across his brow, and still the tram neared him and the voices continued. 

At length a faint light appeared, and in a moment afterwards the tram passed, pushed forward by several colliers, and, inside was a dark heap of crushed limbs with a ghastly face visible, clammy with the dews of death. The tram passed, and before he could step out and speak to the men, it faded away into the black heading, and voices and roll of wheels gave way to the awful stillness of the mine. The old man, aged by labour and by time, instantly gathered his mandrils and tin, and with step quickened by fear made his way to the foot of the shaft. There he met others of the workmen, to whom he told the strange appearance that had been seen, and from these he learnt that the man noticed in the tram had long left his work, and so had the others whom he had recognised as pushing the tram along the heading.

He went home; his old dame shook her head as he related the events of the day, and prophecied something would happen ere long, for the warning was unmistakable. All night long he brooded over what he had seen, at one time resolving to tell his fellow-workmen, at another determined he would not; for, old as he was, he dreaded the fun they would be sure to make of him and his tale, however much in reality they were solemnly affected by it. 

So when the long tardy morning broke, and he again went to the pit, his course was decided- with him and his wife the subject should remain a secret. All that day the slightest unusual movement startled him; but the day passed like other days, and night found him returning home to his anxious expectant dame. And day after day passed with the same monotonous roll, and recollection of the "appearance" he had seen was becoming less vivid, when it was again brought to memory, and there impressed with enduring distinctness. Late one day found him working as usual; step after step passed his stall just as they did on the day when he was so sorely frightened; adn he was in the act of gathering up his tin and mandril, when the same noise of tram and presently the sound of voices was heard. He hastily stepped out to the tramway, determined this time that there should be no doubt left on his mind, and in a few minutes the same faces, the same ghastly countenance and crushed form met his gaze. This time there were no shadows; the men spoke to him, and told the brief tale of the poor fellow's mishap. 

Together they all walked out of the pit, and the old man, after assisting the wounded collier home, retraced his steps to his own little cottage with something to think about during the few years he had to live. His determination to keep the matter secret was not of long continuance, and when it did become known his honest sober character stamped the tale with genuiness. And long after, at the dinner time in the pit, or around cosy fires in the colliers' homes, the narration was told with additions due to the fertile imagination of the narrator, which made the young creep closer to the mother's side, and caused uncomfortable feelings even among the "children of longer growth."

29th March

 

 Superstitions of our colliers. No. 4.

It is but natural that those labouring in the comparative silence and loneliness of the coalpit should become predisposed to superstition. Take the case of men working in daylight - how we scout in open mid-day anything of a superstitious character: tales of witchery, of ghosts, of strange appearance or sounds, uncanny fall flatly on the ear. They pale and wax faint in daylight, and scare nobody. In open day we may hear sounds that strike us as peculiar, but they are put to the credit of some natural cause - a cat, a rat, or the limb of a tree; but at night, when the world is abed, and we sit alone by the fireside, doing bachelor honours for a time to ourselves, the rustling of a tree against the window makes us start, and a strange creaking noise behind the door sends a chill over the frame. Thus, if we open-day men are so affected at night, and when alone, there is but little to wonder at in the superstitions of colliers.

Men of veracity will declare that they heard some one working in a stall where no one was certainly working; they will tell you that they heard the regular sound of the mandril plied by sturdy hands, the fall of a mass of coal, the filling of a tram, and will add that on going into the place neither man nor fall of coal was visible. There is no doubt that subterranean echoes play a great part in awakening these fancies, and that many a case of unaccountably strange to the coal-digger might, to a mind of a higher and a more investigating character, have turned out simply a natural result ensuing from natural causes.

There is a plant akin to some of the fungi tribe found adhering to old trees, which is to be met with in some coal pits. It has a peculiar phosphorous character, and will actually light up a place if the fungi are plentiful. In past times these played strange tricks with some of the earlier colliers - many a glare have they emitted which frightened them sorely, until with experience came a better acquaintance with these same fungi, and research led to a knowledge of their curious properites. 

With regard to sounds heard, there is one anecdote on record which formed one of the budget of a collier's lore. The alleged facts occurred in the Merthyr valley, and to this day no explanation has been given. IT happened in the winter time, some years ago, that one John Morgan - we may not be precisely right about the name - was working with others in a certain heading. Beyond them, for they were working back, there was an old work or heading which had been nearly worked out. The props had been removed, rubbish thrown in, and the place partially but not entirely closed. We are not certain if all the stalls were closed, but at all events it was impossible for any adventurer to penetrate there, and risk his life for the sake of getting a tramof coal that might have fallen. From this old working came strange sounds.

The men heard distinctly the rolling of trams there, and noises issuing just as they did from other parts where bona fide colliers were employed. Every usual action of the collier was parodied by some one or thing in the old working, and as the sounds were heard when the men rested from labour in order to listen, no one thought of the possibility of there being an echo. This was never explained, and to this day the affair is raked up occasionally by a communicative pitman, and, garnished with savoury particulars, laid before his listener.

There is another prevailing impression in the minds of many of our colliers, a belief in omens coming to the individuals who are destined to an early and a frightful death. These we will treat upon in a future paper, and with them complete the superstitions of our colliers.

CLIO. 5th April 1862. 

Merthyr Telegraph, and General Advertiser for the Iron Districts of South Wales.