| Grouping |
Mythological creature Fairy |
|---|---|
| First attested | In folklore |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Region | England |
| Details | Mines |
A bluecap is a mythical fairy or ghost in English folklore that inhabits mines and appears as a small blue flame. If miners treat them with respect, the bluecaps lead them to rich deposits of minerals. [1] Like knockers or kobolds, bluecaps can also forewarn miners of cave-ins. They are mostly associated with the Anglo-Scottish borders. [2]
Bluecaps were regarded as hard workers and it was said that they were expected to be paid a working man's wages, equal to those of an average putter (a mine worker who pushes the wagons). This payment was left in a solitary corner of the mine, and they would not accept any more or less than they were owed. The miners would sometimes talk of having seen a flickering bluecap settle on a full tub of coal, transporting it as though "impelled by the sturdiest sinews". [3]
Another being of the same type (though less helpful in nature) was called "Cutty Soames" [4] or Old Cutty Soames, [5] who was known to cut the rope-traces or soams by which the assistant putter was yoked to the tub. [4]
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Allen (2005), p. 24
- ^ Katherine Mary Briggs, The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature
- ^ Briggs (1976), pp. 27–28
- ^ a b Labour and the Poor in England and Wales, 1849-1851: Northumberland and Durham, Staffordshire, the Midlands, Jules Ginswick, Routledge, 1983, ISBN 0-7146-2960-X, 9780714629605, pp. 65-66
- ^ Character Sketches Of Romance, Fiction And The Drama, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Marion Harland, The Minerva Group, Inc., 2004, ISBN 1-4102-1335-8, ISBN 978-1-4102-1335-8, page. 119
Bibliography
- Allen, J. (2005), Fantasy Encyclopedia, Kingfisher Publications
- Briggs, Katharine (1976), An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Pantheon Books, ISBN 0394409183
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