Leicester Daily Post, Monday 23rd December 1907.
Welsh Miners' Superstition.
A remarkable case of Welsh superstition is reported from Bargoed, Rhymney Valley. Prior to the explosion at the Dinas Main Colliery, Gilfachgoch, a rumour was circulated that an explosion would take place at the Bargoed Collieries of the Powell Duffryn Company, at which nearly 2,000 men are employed. There was no justification for the report, but during the week hundreds of men have absented themselves from work.
Showing posts with label South Wales (various). Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Wales (various). Show all posts
Friday, 10 January 2020
Monday, 16 December 2019
Abertridwr, Caerphilly
Superstitious Colliers.
Despite every inducement to it to make another appearance, no more has been seen of the Abertridwr ghost. The victim of the alleged manifestations, who before the recent ghost scare was employed at one of the local collieries, is now (according to the "South Wales Daily News" debarred from descending the shaft. The colliers in the district are said to ahve made representations that the presence of a "haunted man" in the colliery would be a foreboding of evil. The victim has received many letters of advice upon the matter, but no enclosures. The letters come from all parts of the country, and offer various suggestions for solving the mystery. One writer recommends that he should sleep with a number of knives under his bed, stating that this "cure" had proved effectual in the case of a child who was under a "spell."
Northern Daily Telegraph, 8th March 1906
Despite every inducement to it to make another appearance, no more has been seen of the Abertridwr ghost. The victim of the alleged manifestations, who before the recent ghost scare was employed at one of the local collieries, is now (according to the "South Wales Daily News" debarred from descending the shaft. The colliers in the district are said to ahve made representations that the presence of a "haunted man" in the colliery would be a foreboding of evil. The victim has received many letters of advice upon the matter, but no enclosures. The letters come from all parts of the country, and offer various suggestions for solving the mystery. One writer recommends that he should sleep with a number of knives under his bed, stating that this "cure" had proved effectual in the case of a child who was under a "spell."
Northern Daily Telegraph, 8th March 1906
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
How Our Miners Live.
A week in the South Wales Coalfield.
Having dealt with the historical aspect of the South Wales coal trade, in a cursory and perfunctory manner it is true, but at least sufficiently to clear the ground for a connected and consecutive inquiry, I will now proceed to deal more intimately with the actual subject under notice, and describe the work the miner performs, and what he is, and has been, paid for it. It is important to give these facts thus early for the vital reason that, after all else has been said, the nature of the miner's toil and the remuneration which he receives therefore are the solid bases upon which every other consideration impinges, whether political or social, individual or organic.
To rise with the miner in the morning one must be stirring early. He goes to his work about 6 a.m., for every man is obliged to be at the bottom of the pit before seven o'clock. Here, at the very outset, it is a remarkable fact that several hundreds, if not thousands, of men in the Rhondda, Aberdare, and Merthyr Valleys do what many London flaneurs would consider a fatiguing day's work before they even handle pick and shovel. Say on such a morning as that of Tuesday last, when the pleasant autumn weather of the past weeks was suddenly replaced by an almost arctic temperature, how would one of our "gilded youth" like to leave his bed at Merthyr and trudge five miles over one of the highest and bleakest mountains in the district to a colliery at Cwmpennar, after being fortified against the wintry blast by a draught of weak coffee, supplemented by a modicum of bread and, perhaps, some fried bacon? Yet there are scores of colliers who do this in all weathers, rain or shine, with wind or blinding snowstorm, and medical evidence is forthcoming that when a man is in a weak state of health the exercise and exposure caused by such long walks, apart altogether from the actual labour performed by the collier, are most injurious to the constitution.
Well, the bottom of the shaft is reached at last, but in many instances further pedestrian exercise awaits the miner, for he often has to walk half a mile or a mile before the locale of his day's work is gained. It is useless to follow his methods of work in detail. Suffice it to say that for the next eight or nine hours he delves and hews and shovels with might and main until he has worn himself out with exertion. There is not a single pleasant or invigorating feature about the occupation. Ploughing is hard work, but the man engaged thereat is inspired by the ever-varying beauties of nature, whilst the song of the thrush or the blackbird is so tuneful to the ear that the plough-boy who does not indulge in an emulative whistle is capable of crimes before which Shakespeare's unmusical man would pale. In most other avocations, no matter how wearisome or engrossing, there is some such relaxing feature, but the only diversion afforded the collier is the arrival of a fresh tram, combined with a possibility of being crushed to death or burnt to an unrecognisable cinder at any moment.
Yet in the dark recesses of the coal mine there lurk superstition and imaginative mystery. What can be more weird and gruesome than a deserted pit, and where else could a living mortal have any realistic conception of the silence of the grave? Not even the ordinary sounds of nature can be heard, whilst the black void may be readily peopled with uncanny phantasms. Did not Will Gwyn, under such conditions, whilst working a quiet hour's overtime in the Cwm Shon Pit, see his own living wraith carried past his stall on a noiseless tram, and escorted by a ghostlike troupe? And would any of his mates ever forget the look of wild horror on his face when, six months later, they carried him mortally injured past the same stall? But legendary lore is surely out of place in the midst of a diatribe on work and wages.
About four p.m. the miner concludes his day's toil, which is unbroken save for an interval of 10 minutes for dinner, and he re ascends to the surface, glad enough no doubt to see the sky above his head once more. There are occasions, however, when he does not come up the pit shaft the same healthy, animated human being that he went down in the morning. Whilst he and his mates are busily employed hundred of yards beneath the earth's surface, those who live near the colliery are suddenly electrified by a deep, sullen boom, which resounds through the air, and frightened wives and mothers who rush to the open doors of the cottages see an unwonted column of smoke, and steam, and dust rising from the pit-mouth. No need is there to tell them what has happened, for brave men are already preparing to descend into the cavernous depths only to return ere long with a ghastly load of corpses, charred and shattered out of all human semblance.
An explosion is only one out of many risks which the collier runs, but it is usually the most appalling from its magnitude and extent. If he returns to the earth's crust safe and sound, he has five miles to walk homewards (this, of course, being an extreme through plentiful case so far as distance is concerned), and a sorry-looking object he is with his black face and hands and coal dust-laden clothes, a striking antithesis to the occupants of his employer's landau as it dashes past him on the road.
Assuredly this man has done a genuine hard day's work. What is he paid for it? - From 3s 7d to 4s 6d as a general average, so that if he is lucky enough to obtain six shifts in a week he earns between 21s 6d and 27s per week. An employer told me yesterday that the hard-working men in his colliery could make from 30s to 35s per week. This may be so in individual cases, and when full time is worked, but as a matter of fact at the present day, owing to reductions, stoppages, restriction of shifts, and other causes, the number of miners in South Wales who receive less than a guinea per week greatly exceeds those who earn a larger sum. But festina ente - this crucial question of the wage-rate requires some little scrutiny and amplification. In a work entitled "The Colliers' Strike in South Wales," written by Mr Alexander Dalziel, there is a tabulated statement which shows the fluctuations in wages for day labour at the Aberdare pits from 1848 to 1872. The figures are probably reliable, though the general tone of the work is one of ill-concealed hostility to the men and open animosity to the Miners' Union. From this, then, it appears that between 1848 and 1871 the daily wage rate averaged 3s 4d. In February, 1872, it was raised to 3s 7d, and in June of the same year a further advance was effected to 3s 11d.
Then came the halcyon period of 1873-4, when a collier thought he had done a poor day's work if he had not earned more than 12s, and it was no infrequent thing for a man's monthly receipts to be £20, "which I've had paid down solid into my hand," as one informant told me. Unfortunatley the same story of neglected opportunity, of riotous living, and absurdly extravagant expenditure has to be repeated in the case of South Wales as in every other instance where fabulous sums were realised unexpectedly by persons previously unaccustomed to such earnings. During those same years, the Northumbrian pitman used to leave Seghill on a Saturday afternoon, and go into Newcastle in gorgeous array. there he would drink champagne because it was expensive, though he really preferred beer. As a compromise, he would quaff the vintage of the sunny south from a pint pewter pot. He was given to even more laughable heights, or depths, of foolishness, for there is a well-accredited tale of how a couple of miners from Upgang, whilst dining in a restaurant, swallowed the entired contents of a bottle of Chutnee sauce because they had seen a gentleman at another table helping himself to some. So it was in South Wales, though it would appear that here exesses were chiefly directed to matters of personal adornment and bedizening the wife and daughters. However, no tangible good, save a warning for the future, can be achieved by recrimination over past wastefulness.
All too soon came the certain retribution, for in 1875 occurred the great strike and lock-out, which brought thousands to the verge of starvation. But an even worse period was in store for South Wales. the opening days of 1878 were darkened by stories of distress, which was described in the London newspapers in a highly sensational manner. According to a correspondent of the Times - an ill-fated journal which now, as then, seems to be destined to be misinformed as to Welsh matters - people were feeding in some places on potato-peelings, raw cabbage leaves, and brewers' grains; whilst in Merthyr hundreds in a state of semi-starvation could be seen turning over the refuse in the search for food.
Though the statements were highly exaggerated, the distress in South Wales and Monmouthshire was exceptionally severe. Many of the collieries were idle, and at the utmost only two or three days' work per week could be given. Lord Aberdare, with his usual philanthropy, laboured hard at this juncture to relieve the afflicted. He distributed soup in hundreds of quarts per day, and Lady Aberdare started a clothing estaablishment at Duffryn where necessary garments were made for free distribution. Mr Simons, of Merthyr, and also many others, did much in this way. At the same time Lord Aberdare denied in the columns of the Times that the colliers were in the condition of the Madrasees and Mysoreans, with whom they had been compared. The bulk of the colliery population was able to maintain the struggle, although with difficulty and many privations, without receiving aid from the rates or even private charity. There have been periods of distress in the interim, but not of such an exceptional character. Last winter, for instance, steps were taken to form a relief fund at Merthyr, where, in addition to many other districts, privation made itself keenly felt. In fact, let the miner be thrown out of work for a week, and he is immediately on the verge of starvation.
It is possible for a man earning 21s per week to adequately maintain a wife and family and at the same time to save money? Most people would return a negative answer to this question, but the position is rendered worse by the fact that perhaps in one week, owing to a slackness in demand, the collier can only work one or two days. He must live, if only on bread and tea, and to do this he gets into debt which it takes weeks to wipe out. the picture is not a pleasant one.
A sympathetic write-up in the South Wales Echo, 14th October 1887.
Having dealt with the historical aspect of the South Wales coal trade, in a cursory and perfunctory manner it is true, but at least sufficiently to clear the ground for a connected and consecutive inquiry, I will now proceed to deal more intimately with the actual subject under notice, and describe the work the miner performs, and what he is, and has been, paid for it. It is important to give these facts thus early for the vital reason that, after all else has been said, the nature of the miner's toil and the remuneration which he receives therefore are the solid bases upon which every other consideration impinges, whether political or social, individual or organic.
To rise with the miner in the morning one must be stirring early. He goes to his work about 6 a.m., for every man is obliged to be at the bottom of the pit before seven o'clock. Here, at the very outset, it is a remarkable fact that several hundreds, if not thousands, of men in the Rhondda, Aberdare, and Merthyr Valleys do what many London flaneurs would consider a fatiguing day's work before they even handle pick and shovel. Say on such a morning as that of Tuesday last, when the pleasant autumn weather of the past weeks was suddenly replaced by an almost arctic temperature, how would one of our "gilded youth" like to leave his bed at Merthyr and trudge five miles over one of the highest and bleakest mountains in the district to a colliery at Cwmpennar, after being fortified against the wintry blast by a draught of weak coffee, supplemented by a modicum of bread and, perhaps, some fried bacon? Yet there are scores of colliers who do this in all weathers, rain or shine, with wind or blinding snowstorm, and medical evidence is forthcoming that when a man is in a weak state of health the exercise and exposure caused by such long walks, apart altogether from the actual labour performed by the collier, are most injurious to the constitution.
Well, the bottom of the shaft is reached at last, but in many instances further pedestrian exercise awaits the miner, for he often has to walk half a mile or a mile before the locale of his day's work is gained. It is useless to follow his methods of work in detail. Suffice it to say that for the next eight or nine hours he delves and hews and shovels with might and main until he has worn himself out with exertion. There is not a single pleasant or invigorating feature about the occupation. Ploughing is hard work, but the man engaged thereat is inspired by the ever-varying beauties of nature, whilst the song of the thrush or the blackbird is so tuneful to the ear that the plough-boy who does not indulge in an emulative whistle is capable of crimes before which Shakespeare's unmusical man would pale. In most other avocations, no matter how wearisome or engrossing, there is some such relaxing feature, but the only diversion afforded the collier is the arrival of a fresh tram, combined with a possibility of being crushed to death or burnt to an unrecognisable cinder at any moment.
Yet in the dark recesses of the coal mine there lurk superstition and imaginative mystery. What can be more weird and gruesome than a deserted pit, and where else could a living mortal have any realistic conception of the silence of the grave? Not even the ordinary sounds of nature can be heard, whilst the black void may be readily peopled with uncanny phantasms. Did not Will Gwyn, under such conditions, whilst working a quiet hour's overtime in the Cwm Shon Pit, see his own living wraith carried past his stall on a noiseless tram, and escorted by a ghostlike troupe? And would any of his mates ever forget the look of wild horror on his face when, six months later, they carried him mortally injured past the same stall? But legendary lore is surely out of place in the midst of a diatribe on work and wages.
About four p.m. the miner concludes his day's toil, which is unbroken save for an interval of 10 minutes for dinner, and he re ascends to the surface, glad enough no doubt to see the sky above his head once more. There are occasions, however, when he does not come up the pit shaft the same healthy, animated human being that he went down in the morning. Whilst he and his mates are busily employed hundred of yards beneath the earth's surface, those who live near the colliery are suddenly electrified by a deep, sullen boom, which resounds through the air, and frightened wives and mothers who rush to the open doors of the cottages see an unwonted column of smoke, and steam, and dust rising from the pit-mouth. No need is there to tell them what has happened, for brave men are already preparing to descend into the cavernous depths only to return ere long with a ghastly load of corpses, charred and shattered out of all human semblance.
An explosion is only one out of many risks which the collier runs, but it is usually the most appalling from its magnitude and extent. If he returns to the earth's crust safe and sound, he has five miles to walk homewards (this, of course, being an extreme through plentiful case so far as distance is concerned), and a sorry-looking object he is with his black face and hands and coal dust-laden clothes, a striking antithesis to the occupants of his employer's landau as it dashes past him on the road.
Assuredly this man has done a genuine hard day's work. What is he paid for it? - From 3s 7d to 4s 6d as a general average, so that if he is lucky enough to obtain six shifts in a week he earns between 21s 6d and 27s per week. An employer told me yesterday that the hard-working men in his colliery could make from 30s to 35s per week. This may be so in individual cases, and when full time is worked, but as a matter of fact at the present day, owing to reductions, stoppages, restriction of shifts, and other causes, the number of miners in South Wales who receive less than a guinea per week greatly exceeds those who earn a larger sum. But festina ente - this crucial question of the wage-rate requires some little scrutiny and amplification. In a work entitled "The Colliers' Strike in South Wales," written by Mr Alexander Dalziel, there is a tabulated statement which shows the fluctuations in wages for day labour at the Aberdare pits from 1848 to 1872. The figures are probably reliable, though the general tone of the work is one of ill-concealed hostility to the men and open animosity to the Miners' Union. From this, then, it appears that between 1848 and 1871 the daily wage rate averaged 3s 4d. In February, 1872, it was raised to 3s 7d, and in June of the same year a further advance was effected to 3s 11d.
Then came the halcyon period of 1873-4, when a collier thought he had done a poor day's work if he had not earned more than 12s, and it was no infrequent thing for a man's monthly receipts to be £20, "which I've had paid down solid into my hand," as one informant told me. Unfortunatley the same story of neglected opportunity, of riotous living, and absurdly extravagant expenditure has to be repeated in the case of South Wales as in every other instance where fabulous sums were realised unexpectedly by persons previously unaccustomed to such earnings. During those same years, the Northumbrian pitman used to leave Seghill on a Saturday afternoon, and go into Newcastle in gorgeous array. there he would drink champagne because it was expensive, though he really preferred beer. As a compromise, he would quaff the vintage of the sunny south from a pint pewter pot. He was given to even more laughable heights, or depths, of foolishness, for there is a well-accredited tale of how a couple of miners from Upgang, whilst dining in a restaurant, swallowed the entired contents of a bottle of Chutnee sauce because they had seen a gentleman at another table helping himself to some. So it was in South Wales, though it would appear that here exesses were chiefly directed to matters of personal adornment and bedizening the wife and daughters. However, no tangible good, save a warning for the future, can be achieved by recrimination over past wastefulness.
All too soon came the certain retribution, for in 1875 occurred the great strike and lock-out, which brought thousands to the verge of starvation. But an even worse period was in store for South Wales. the opening days of 1878 were darkened by stories of distress, which was described in the London newspapers in a highly sensational manner. According to a correspondent of the Times - an ill-fated journal which now, as then, seems to be destined to be misinformed as to Welsh matters - people were feeding in some places on potato-peelings, raw cabbage leaves, and brewers' grains; whilst in Merthyr hundreds in a state of semi-starvation could be seen turning over the refuse in the search for food.
Though the statements were highly exaggerated, the distress in South Wales and Monmouthshire was exceptionally severe. Many of the collieries were idle, and at the utmost only two or three days' work per week could be given. Lord Aberdare, with his usual philanthropy, laboured hard at this juncture to relieve the afflicted. He distributed soup in hundreds of quarts per day, and Lady Aberdare started a clothing estaablishment at Duffryn where necessary garments were made for free distribution. Mr Simons, of Merthyr, and also many others, did much in this way. At the same time Lord Aberdare denied in the columns of the Times that the colliers were in the condition of the Madrasees and Mysoreans, with whom they had been compared. The bulk of the colliery population was able to maintain the struggle, although with difficulty and many privations, without receiving aid from the rates or even private charity. There have been periods of distress in the interim, but not of such an exceptional character. Last winter, for instance, steps were taken to form a relief fund at Merthyr, where, in addition to many other districts, privation made itself keenly felt. In fact, let the miner be thrown out of work for a week, and he is immediately on the verge of starvation.
It is possible for a man earning 21s per week to adequately maintain a wife and family and at the same time to save money? Most people would return a negative answer to this question, but the position is rendered worse by the fact that perhaps in one week, owing to a slackness in demand, the collier can only work one or two days. He must live, if only on bread and tea, and to do this he gets into debt which it takes weeks to wipe out. the picture is not a pleasant one.
A sympathetic write-up in the South Wales Echo, 14th October 1887.
Saturday, 11 February 2017
Mining superstitions in the making
Among the Welsh Miners.
About Superstitious Beliefs.
(By a Cardiff Welshman.)
During my stay at Treglo a strange and somewhat startling story was going the round of the town. Some two miles from the place is a small mining hamlet, which we shall name Cwmdu, and it was here the strange story originated. From the common talk of the people I gathered that there had been living in the hamlet for a short period an old woman who appeared to be living a solitary life. At least no one seemed inclined to acknowledge any knowledge of her past life, nor her mode of living, further than to state that she earned her living by hawking sundry small goods for domestic use.
The story circulated about the woman was to the effect that she had foretold a couple of fatal accidents which had occurred in the local colliery, and that she had followed up her "bit of prophecy" by predicting two colliery explosions at given dates, one at the Cwmdu mine and the other in one of the collieries of Treglo.
The "Prophecy" was the staple topic of discussion right throughout the district, and the effect on the minds of the people amounted almost to a panic. Every man and woman who came to Tom's shop knew the story, discussed nothing else. What seemed to add to the weirdness of the affair was the rumour circulated that the "strange woman" had suddenly disappeared from the district, no one knew where or when. So real and intense was the popular belief in the woman's prediction that I found it extremely difficult to laugh the matter off my mind, so it was not without peculiar interest that I waited the approach of the day which was to put a portion of the prediction to the test. The colliery were working, but I was informed that there was a good number of absentees. Many had made it convenient to be too indisposed for work, others had managed to arrive at the lamp-room too late to be allowed down. Wives had hid away their husbands' clothes, and daughters had implored upon their brothers to "Joke bad, for fear there is something in it."
This attitude was aptly illustrated by an intelligent old miner, whose acquaintance I had made.
"It's as well, perhaps, to be on the safe side. One never knows," he said; "strange things do happen sometimes. It's better to lose a turn than lose one's life after all, baint it, sir?"
I expressed my entire accord with his sentiments.
"Not that I believe in the old woman's story," he continued. "To tell you the truth, I believe the poor woman has been so frightened herslef by the effect on the popular mind of her attempt at prophyesying that she has cleared. Some say, though, that is only a temporary absence, necessitated by the circumstances, to arrange the details of the affair with the devil or some such power of evil. But to speak common sense, who knows how much this story has grown in the telling? I'll tell you a little experience of my own when I was much younger than I am.
"I was working in a small level in this district before the pit here was sunk, and before we had such a lot of houses. The way to work was very lonely indeed. We had to pass an old stone quarry which was known far and near as being the favourite resort of a spirit popularly known as The White Lady. I was working night at the time I am speaking of. My mother was dead, and the home was looked after for my father by a young girl, married and living close by me now, who had her fair share of belief in the existence of the White Lady. My father, I ought to say, worked the day shifts, and, as I have said, I was working night with another collier as a 'boy'.
Well, Mary forgot to call me in time, and as a result it was quite dark when I was about to start to work. Poor Mary was almost hysterical. She knew my father would be annoyed if I did not go to work, and she felt, on the other hand, that she was driving me into some unknown land, where all trace of my existence would be for ever lost. It was blowing a little, and I could not carry a naked light, such as we worked with in the level, so Mary placed a candle in a tin lantern, and thus equipped I started on my journey. To admit the honest truth, I was very nervous when approaching the famous spot, although I tried to think as hard as I could of the impossibility of such strange things as spirtis retorning.
When opposite the quarry a novel idea took possession of me. I swung the lantern to and fro and challenged the White Lady to make her appearance to an unbeliever. This, perhaps, in the agony of suspense, and with a view of giving some effect to my boyish courage. I don't know what was the cause, but the result was that I found myself in darkness, running over a rough and hilly road with a feeling of some terrible phantom following at my heels. I reached the level, and getting to the spot I worked in, fell breathless into the arms of my 'boss'. There was little done for awhile, the workers were so busy expressing their sympathy with me in being sent to work in the dark by that 'hard-hearted Mary.' However this passed off, when I assured them, in my calmermoments, that it was only a bit of fright at being left in the dark, as the result of my indiscretion in swinging the lantern.
But the best part remains, and this is what I want to tell you, sir. I got home all right in the morning and Mary welcomed me, as if I had returned from the dead. With a view of impressing her with the desirability of calling me in due time in future, I told her if she knew ho I had been frightened at the old quarry, she would never forgive herself, and so forth. I went to bed, and, as was my habit, got up about midday for dinner, when I was surprised to find quite a houseful of womenfolk chatting - a regular Babel of tongues - with Mary. No sooner did I make an appearance than they swarmed around me like so many bees, pestering me for fully an hour with all sorts of strange questions. You know how the lawyers in the police courts cross-examine an unfavourable witness. Well that's how they went for me.
At last I commenced to doubt my own story. It had assumed such a weird character. Well the result of this was that a rumour went throught the village like wildfire that I had been nearly crushed to death by a 'spirit funeral' on my way to work, the story invariably ending with the sympathetic comment, 'What a wonder the young lad wasn't carried to the parish churchyard, and never heard of any more.' About a month or so after a real funeral - not the first - passed the quarry on its way to the churchyard, and by some method peculiar to the people it was demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was the identical one I had seen in its spirit form!
That's how the stories grow, you see," continued my collier friend; "and it is quite possible that this yarn of the prophecy of the old woman is simply the outgrowth of a silly remark which she may have made to some superstious person. A dream as likely as anything, sir, for we are great believers in dreams as warning."
The scare created by the predictions brought forth a good crop of ghost stories of various forms and degrees of credulity, some of which were extremely interesting as showing the lengths to which the people can go at times. Despite the characteristic religious turn of the Welsh mind, there is manifested periodically a peculiar susceptibility to the most extravagant forms of superstitious belief. The science in the religion of Spiritualism as taught in scores of homes, and in public at Cardiff, is practically unknown in the Hills. Although an open belief in Spiritualism as a scientific truth, or form of religion, would result in social ostracism, there is a very widespread belief in the supernatural. During my stay I fraternised with people to whom the gymnastic feats of circus performers are nothing more nor less than the "work of the devil;" but who would assert as probable the tallest ghost story imaginable.
South Wales Echo, 13th February 1896.
About Superstitious Beliefs.
(By a Cardiff Welshman.)
During my stay at Treglo a strange and somewhat startling story was going the round of the town. Some two miles from the place is a small mining hamlet, which we shall name Cwmdu, and it was here the strange story originated. From the common talk of the people I gathered that there had been living in the hamlet for a short period an old woman who appeared to be living a solitary life. At least no one seemed inclined to acknowledge any knowledge of her past life, nor her mode of living, further than to state that she earned her living by hawking sundry small goods for domestic use.
The story circulated about the woman was to the effect that she had foretold a couple of fatal accidents which had occurred in the local colliery, and that she had followed up her "bit of prophecy" by predicting two colliery explosions at given dates, one at the Cwmdu mine and the other in one of the collieries of Treglo.
The "Prophecy" was the staple topic of discussion right throughout the district, and the effect on the minds of the people amounted almost to a panic. Every man and woman who came to Tom's shop knew the story, discussed nothing else. What seemed to add to the weirdness of the affair was the rumour circulated that the "strange woman" had suddenly disappeared from the district, no one knew where or when. So real and intense was the popular belief in the woman's prediction that I found it extremely difficult to laugh the matter off my mind, so it was not without peculiar interest that I waited the approach of the day which was to put a portion of the prediction to the test. The colliery were working, but I was informed that there was a good number of absentees. Many had made it convenient to be too indisposed for work, others had managed to arrive at the lamp-room too late to be allowed down. Wives had hid away their husbands' clothes, and daughters had implored upon their brothers to "Joke bad, for fear there is something in it."
This attitude was aptly illustrated by an intelligent old miner, whose acquaintance I had made.
"It's as well, perhaps, to be on the safe side. One never knows," he said; "strange things do happen sometimes. It's better to lose a turn than lose one's life after all, baint it, sir?"
I expressed my entire accord with his sentiments.
"Not that I believe in the old woman's story," he continued. "To tell you the truth, I believe the poor woman has been so frightened herslef by the effect on the popular mind of her attempt at prophyesying that she has cleared. Some say, though, that is only a temporary absence, necessitated by the circumstances, to arrange the details of the affair with the devil or some such power of evil. But to speak common sense, who knows how much this story has grown in the telling? I'll tell you a little experience of my own when I was much younger than I am.
"I was working in a small level in this district before the pit here was sunk, and before we had such a lot of houses. The way to work was very lonely indeed. We had to pass an old stone quarry which was known far and near as being the favourite resort of a spirit popularly known as The White Lady. I was working night at the time I am speaking of. My mother was dead, and the home was looked after for my father by a young girl, married and living close by me now, who had her fair share of belief in the existence of the White Lady. My father, I ought to say, worked the day shifts, and, as I have said, I was working night with another collier as a 'boy'.
Well, Mary forgot to call me in time, and as a result it was quite dark when I was about to start to work. Poor Mary was almost hysterical. She knew my father would be annoyed if I did not go to work, and she felt, on the other hand, that she was driving me into some unknown land, where all trace of my existence would be for ever lost. It was blowing a little, and I could not carry a naked light, such as we worked with in the level, so Mary placed a candle in a tin lantern, and thus equipped I started on my journey. To admit the honest truth, I was very nervous when approaching the famous spot, although I tried to think as hard as I could of the impossibility of such strange things as spirtis retorning.
When opposite the quarry a novel idea took possession of me. I swung the lantern to and fro and challenged the White Lady to make her appearance to an unbeliever. This, perhaps, in the agony of suspense, and with a view of giving some effect to my boyish courage. I don't know what was the cause, but the result was that I found myself in darkness, running over a rough and hilly road with a feeling of some terrible phantom following at my heels. I reached the level, and getting to the spot I worked in, fell breathless into the arms of my 'boss'. There was little done for awhile, the workers were so busy expressing their sympathy with me in being sent to work in the dark by that 'hard-hearted Mary.' However this passed off, when I assured them, in my calmermoments, that it was only a bit of fright at being left in the dark, as the result of my indiscretion in swinging the lantern.
But the best part remains, and this is what I want to tell you, sir. I got home all right in the morning and Mary welcomed me, as if I had returned from the dead. With a view of impressing her with the desirability of calling me in due time in future, I told her if she knew ho I had been frightened at the old quarry, she would never forgive herself, and so forth. I went to bed, and, as was my habit, got up about midday for dinner, when I was surprised to find quite a houseful of womenfolk chatting - a regular Babel of tongues - with Mary. No sooner did I make an appearance than they swarmed around me like so many bees, pestering me for fully an hour with all sorts of strange questions. You know how the lawyers in the police courts cross-examine an unfavourable witness. Well that's how they went for me.
At last I commenced to doubt my own story. It had assumed such a weird character. Well the result of this was that a rumour went throught the village like wildfire that I had been nearly crushed to death by a 'spirit funeral' on my way to work, the story invariably ending with the sympathetic comment, 'What a wonder the young lad wasn't carried to the parish churchyard, and never heard of any more.' About a month or so after a real funeral - not the first - passed the quarry on its way to the churchyard, and by some method peculiar to the people it was demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was the identical one I had seen in its spirit form!
That's how the stories grow, you see," continued my collier friend; "and it is quite possible that this yarn of the prophecy of the old woman is simply the outgrowth of a silly remark which she may have made to some superstious person. A dream as likely as anything, sir, for we are great believers in dreams as warning."
The scare created by the predictions brought forth a good crop of ghost stories of various forms and degrees of credulity, some of which were extremely interesting as showing the lengths to which the people can go at times. Despite the characteristic religious turn of the Welsh mind, there is manifested periodically a peculiar susceptibility to the most extravagant forms of superstitious belief. The science in the religion of Spiritualism as taught in scores of homes, and in public at Cardiff, is practically unknown in the Hills. Although an open belief in Spiritualism as a scientific truth, or form of religion, would result in social ostracism, there is a very widespread belief in the supernatural. During my stay I fraternised with people to whom the gymnastic feats of circus performers are nothing more nor less than the "work of the devil;" but who would assert as probable the tallest ghost story imaginable.
South Wales Echo, 13th February 1896.
Monday, 23 January 2017
"Warnings" and colliery explosions
For two or three months past we have been told that we might expect to hear of some colliery explosions in the neighbourhood, because "warnings" had been manifested in the pits at Cwmnantddu, near Pontypool. The awful calamities in the Rhondda Valley and Ebbw Vale have too sadly verified these predictions. The "warnings," which are said to be still continued in the Sinking Pits at Cwmnantddu, are attributed by the men to supernatural causes, and have caused such fright that some of the miners declare that they will never enter the workings again on account of "the ghost."
At Tredegar, too, a panic prevails in consequence of an old gipsy woman having said that an explosion was likely to take place there! Now, it is quite time that belief in ghosts and fortune telling had died out. They are inconsistent with common sense and the exercise of reason. But we are not inclined to treat this talk about subterrraneous warnings with contempt. Far from it. We rather think it merits serious consideration and painstaking inquiry.
Let us examine it. One man is said to have seen something covered with a white sheet, and to have hit a hole right through it with his fist! The tom-foolery of this is too obvious, one would think, to need comment, and yet such ridiculous stuff is actually believed! We shall continue to endeavour to put an extinguisher on ghosts. What may have been heard is another matter, and has nothing to do with "spirits." The sounds are said to resemble those caaused by the rattling of chains, the running of trams, and "boring." A man named Coleman appears to have been greatly led away by his imagination, and has caused a great deal of silly fear by asserting his fanciful experiences. We hope, for his own credit, that the tales have been manufactured for him, and are not his own utterances.
Mr. Joseph Green, mineral agent under the Ebbw Vale Company, has made a stand (all honour to him for doing so), against the prevalent superstitious "rot," and has placed sensible men as watchers or rather listeners in the Sinking Pits for some nights past. These men have failed to hear anything extraodinary. But it is not at all unlikely that some have heard sounds that require attention, though they need not excite foolish alarm. Nature has its throes now andt hen. When there is an eruption of Vesuvius (which appears to be agitated just now) the effects are felt far away. When Lisbon was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake in 1755, the waters of the Hot Wells at Clifton, of Loch Lomond in Scotland, and at other places were disturbed.
When large quantities of coal are removed, the strata will naturally settle down, and very likely bad gases will be forced out from one place and driven into another. The whole of the earth's crust has been convulsed, and tossed, and tumbled, in a manner that makes one shudder to think of, but all has been in obedience to natural laws. Change is still going on, and the little local displacements and settlings down of strata are only what may be expected. In these, it seems to us, are to be traced the true cause of the noises that are heard in mines; we believe that in one sense they are "warnings;" warnings of the possible proximity of noxious gases or accumulation of water, forced near by the down-settling or ruptures of the strata, and calling for extra cacre and precautions in working the mines where such noises are heard. But there is certainly nothing supernatural in them.
The Western Mail, 11th March 1871.
At Tredegar, too, a panic prevails in consequence of an old gipsy woman having said that an explosion was likely to take place there! Now, it is quite time that belief in ghosts and fortune telling had died out. They are inconsistent with common sense and the exercise of reason. But we are not inclined to treat this talk about subterrraneous warnings with contempt. Far from it. We rather think it merits serious consideration and painstaking inquiry.
Let us examine it. One man is said to have seen something covered with a white sheet, and to have hit a hole right through it with his fist! The tom-foolery of this is too obvious, one would think, to need comment, and yet such ridiculous stuff is actually believed! We shall continue to endeavour to put an extinguisher on ghosts. What may have been heard is another matter, and has nothing to do with "spirits." The sounds are said to resemble those caaused by the rattling of chains, the running of trams, and "boring." A man named Coleman appears to have been greatly led away by his imagination, and has caused a great deal of silly fear by asserting his fanciful experiences. We hope, for his own credit, that the tales have been manufactured for him, and are not his own utterances.
Mr. Joseph Green, mineral agent under the Ebbw Vale Company, has made a stand (all honour to him for doing so), against the prevalent superstitious "rot," and has placed sensible men as watchers or rather listeners in the Sinking Pits for some nights past. These men have failed to hear anything extraodinary. But it is not at all unlikely that some have heard sounds that require attention, though they need not excite foolish alarm. Nature has its throes now andt hen. When there is an eruption of Vesuvius (which appears to be agitated just now) the effects are felt far away. When Lisbon was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake in 1755, the waters of the Hot Wells at Clifton, of Loch Lomond in Scotland, and at other places were disturbed.
When large quantities of coal are removed, the strata will naturally settle down, and very likely bad gases will be forced out from one place and driven into another. The whole of the earth's crust has been convulsed, and tossed, and tumbled, in a manner that makes one shudder to think of, but all has been in obedience to natural laws. Change is still going on, and the little local displacements and settlings down of strata are only what may be expected. In these, it seems to us, are to be traced the true cause of the noises that are heard in mines; we believe that in one sense they are "warnings;" warnings of the possible proximity of noxious gases or accumulation of water, forced near by the down-settling or ruptures of the strata, and calling for extra cacre and precautions in working the mines where such noises are heard. But there is certainly nothing supernatural in them.
The Western Mail, 11th March 1871.
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