Derbyshire, 1880

In another case recorded this week the ending was not so happy, especially to one of the parties concerned, resulting as it did in an appeal to the County Magistrate, and in three months' hard labour to the astrologer involved. The scene is shifted from the Highlands [prev. story] to Derbyshire, and the two chief actors are not crofters but colliers. It would appear that one Levi Cooke eked out his income as a collier by the proceeds of such soothsaying as he could manage to secure. 

A brother collier named PAtrick Smith loses £90, and he, accordingly, knowing Levi's acquaintance with black art, applied to him, asking who had the money. Having heard Patrick's tale of his misfortune, the wise man consulted a book, looked grave, and wrote something mysterious on a slate. He was at last able to inform the anxious inquirer that the money would be returned. The person who had taken it would bring it back. For this satisfactory information Smith paid the astrologer two shillings. Ten days pass away, and yet no money comes back. Another call on the necromancer results in another assurance that the money would certainly be returned. Meantime, as if to make matters doubly sure, the professional man gives the loser of the money a round piece of glass to look through, but nothing came of it - at least no money to Smith.

Somehow or other the police were induced to make a call on the wizard, whose house was found to contain a large number of mystic lore, including "Celestial Philosophy," "Orion's Prophetic Guide and Weather Almanac," and several copybooks filled with discourses on astrology. There was a note which ran thus:- "She can have prescriptions from me, and advice for 14 stamps each time until the evil spirits are expelled from her blood and body." Letters were also discovered showing that this learned collier's patients had as much confidence in him as had ever one in his family physician.

What the collier made off his clientele may be supposed to have been considerably more than collier ever made in the mine even in the palmy days of chicken and champagne. But the efforts of the best and most beneficient of the friends of the people are sometimes very ungraciously received. The great unpaid did not show that sympathy with this philanthropic collier that might have been expected from so enlightened a body, the result being that Cooke, like other benefactors born too soon, has been laid up in prison, not to be restored to his native village till three long moons have rolled away. [...]

Dundee Courier, 16th July 1880.

Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, 1871

 Scotch Superstition.

A distressing accident occurred at the Drumpellier Tunnel Coalpit, Coatbridge, which resulted in the death of a child ten years of age. It seems that there is a notion prevalent among the colliers that the confined air of a coalpit acts as a powerful curative for whooping-cough. Acting upon this idea a collier, named Michael Dollan, had taken his son down to the upper seam of the pit where he was working, in order that the boy might have the advantage of the attribuuted remedial virtues of the vitiated air in curing a severe cought that he had been labouring under.

After being down for some time the child had left his father's side in search of drinking water, and having in the dark proceeded in the direction of the shaft, he walked right into it, falling a distance of 25 fathoms. When his body was brought to the surface it was found that his head had been literally crushed to atoms, and his body otherwise fearfully mangled. - Glasgow Herald.

 Fifeshire Journal, 5th January 1871.

Broughton, Wrexham, 1872

 A Ghost in a Coal Pit.

The present tide of prosperity in the coal trade has been disturbed at the Broughton Colliery, near this town, by the appearance of a ghost in the underground workings, which has had the effect of frightening some of the colliers from the pit. None of the men profess to having had a sight of the spirit who appears to have taken up his abode in this "vasty deep," but they all confess to having heard at times the most unearthly sounds, and when they proceed to search for the cause the same noises are heard in quite an opposite quarter. The fear that has taken hold of the men is such as to interfere considerably with the working of the colliery, and it shows that colliers, like sailors, are excessively superstitious on the ghost question.

Wrexham Advertiser. (In Reynolds's Newspaper, 18th August 1872)

Leicestershire, Northumberland, Manchester (1927)

 Some queer beliefs about birds are given in "Bird Facts and Fallacies," by Lewis R. W. Loyd, which Hutchinson and Co. publish at 10s 6d to-day.

Migrating birds have often conveyed the impression to the poetically minded that they contain the "souls of departed spirits," and, with regard to the lapwing, Mr. Loyd declares that some people believe these birds are metamorphosed old maids, and the green sandpipers metamorphosed old bachelors.

Some interesting stories are told of the plover, and it is stated that "Leicestershire colliers who hear the cry of these birds refuse to go down into the mine until the next day, and that they gave warning of the great colliery explosions at Hartley and Wigan."

Staffordshire Sentinel, 11th February 1927.

Pontypool, Monmouthshire, 1904.

Ghost Scare in a Mine.

The presence of a supposed ghost at Brace's Level, Pontypool, has caused quite a scare amongst the eighty workmen employed at the mine, says a contemporary. The level is owned by Messrs. Baldwin, Limited, and in the course of business some workings about 150 years old have been reopened. The colliers were startled and alarmed to see a figure with a naked light in its forehead walking about the workings, tapping the roof, and examining the sides. The workmen fled in terror from the scene, and one of them says he heard unearthly groans in the old workings. The story of the ghost has affected some of the employees to such an extent that they positively refuse to work alone. The strange part of the business is that the man with the light in his forehead can only be seen from one direction. The women living near the colliery are, of course, in a state of fear over what has become known as "Brace's ghost."

Witney Gazette and West Oxfordshire Advertiser, 17th December 1904.

Newcastle, 1917

 Gossip by Elfin.

The Earth and the "Evil One."

Following upon what I had to say yesterday regarding the long-established custom among miners of laying the pit idle when a fatality occurs in the mine, a correspondent reminds me that to understand the organisation of such a custom we must go back to the ancient beliefs in the oldest traditions; that the earth belongs to the Evil One, and that this spirit of the earth demands a sacrifice before any displacement of the rocks or the crust of the earth demands a sacrifice before any displacement of the rocks or the crust of the earth can take place for a building. 

The Church has perpetuated this belief in two familiar customs, that of consecrating the burial place of the dead, and of placing coins under the foundation of sacred buildings. It was an old belief that the "Evil One" claimed the first corpse that was buried in a new churchyard, and to avoid this calamity a dog was usually taken into the enclosure and then buried alive, thus cheating Satan of his due.

There is, however, historic evidence to verify the custom of burying human remains in the foundations of new buildings, which were the offering to the God of Earth, and which took the form of a favourite dog, slave, or the child of a vassal being built into the foundation walls of the building. The Romans were the first to substitute images and busts for the animal form.

Haunted Mines.

An old miner told my correspondent many years ago that he firmly believed that the mines were haunted by evil and mischievous spirits that dwelt in the old workings, and that he had experienced the result of their strange doings, when all the men's picks were blunted, and frequently the spectre was heard rushing through the mine with a sad, moaning sound, which made all tremble with fear. It is related that miners have turned pale at the recollection of the fright they got, yet the same men when the terrible accident took place at Hartley Colliery, and upwards of 200 men and boys lost their lives, faced death in search for their entombed fellow workmen. 

And this was the locality where "Cutty Soams," the spirit of the mine, was a familiar tradition and belief. A belief in the old superstitions of the past does not necessarily make men cowards; but all evidence goes to prove that the custom has come down from the far-off ages, when miners in all parts of the world believed that the Spirit of Evil claimed a sacrifice for the invasion of the earth under his sway.

"Cutty Soams."

The older generation in Northumberland are, of course, familiar with the legend of "Cutty Soams" to which my correspondent refers, but the younger people may scarcely have heard of it in these days, when the old fashioned superstiitons are seldom talked of. You could not get anybody to believe in these enlightened times that "Cutty" ever existed, but in the long ago he doubtless exercised the imagination of our forebears as something very real, and was regarded as one of the mischievous goblins that haunted the bowels of the earth. Like many another spell of a bygone era, "Cutty" is obsolete, and his antics are but as a tale that is told. 

He's "vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision," / His occupation gone - completed his last mission. / The light of science he disdained to brook / And fled- when other phantoms took their hook.

Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 20th March 1917.

Mixed leads

 Ghosts in Mines.

On referring to one of my scrap-books for 1876, containing my contributions to the Weekly Chronicle in the above year, I find that I wrote at least half a dozen articles on this subject, entitled "Miners' Superstitions and Traditions." Most interesting notes on the same subject, supplementary to mine, were also written by W P S, South Durham; and G. Halliwell, Seaham Harbour. If U V, Houghton, can gain access to the file of the Weekly Chronicle for 1876, the earlier months of the year, he will find ample details about "Ghosts in Mines" in Northumberland, Durham, North-East Lancashire, Devonshire, Cornwall, &c., including the Northern "Cutty Soams," "Blue Cap" (the spectral hewer), the "Seven Whistlers," and other supposed "uncanny" disembodied denizens of mines.

H. Kerr, Bacup, Lancashire.

Newcastle Chronicle, 6th February 1886.