![]() ![]() In the masque The fairies’ farewell, presented at Coleorton on Candlemas Day 1618, we hear a further description of the fairies’ labours: The mine sprites have diminutive tools and equipment matching that of the human miners and labour tirelessly- digging, transporting and winding their coal and ore to the surface. She describes him as naked and fat, with large ears and a long bushy tail ( Peeps at Pixies, p.10). The other exception is the mine pixy ‘gathon’ (if Mrs Bray is to be believed, at any rate). They disappeared almost as soon as they were spotted, but sound more like pixies than knockers (Marjorie Johnson, Seeing fairies, p.93)īlue Cap apparently has no physical form, but his presence is indicated by a light blue flame which settles on the wagons he moves. Occasionally they may be spotted working or lounging near the entrances to mines, and those who have seen them describe beings the size of a one or two-year-old child (about eighteen inches high), with large heads and ugly old men’s faces they are dressed just like human miners.Įarly in the last century, a girl called Carol George was on the beach at Porthtowan, on the north coast of Cornwall, when she saw in the mine adit that opened onto the beach a group of small people, only six inches high and dressed in white. The knockers and coblynau are very hard working sprites who are frequently heard but very seldom seen the sounds of their picks, their wheelbarrows and the falls of stone they cause is heard deep in mines. Appearanceĭespite the differing regional names, it seems safe to treat most of these beings as one underground species. Other named mine spirits are the Blue-Cap of the Northumberland coalmines, a very strong being who moved the wheeled coal tubs on the underground railways, and the Cutty Soams of County Durham, who were mine bogles, known for their vengeful mischief- which included such pranks as cutting the traces (or ‘soams’) on the underground coal wagons. In the coal and metal ore mines of Wales, we find the coblynau (i.e. There are two principal types of mine fairy- the knockers of the South West of England (also called ‘nuggies,’ ‘bockles,’ ‘gathons’ or ‘buccas’) are very well known. The fays mine for both coal and ores and they have been associated with the tin mines of the South West of England, the lead mines of the Long Mynd in Shropshire and with the copper mines of Cumberland and North Yorkshire. There are two principal industrial activities in which fairies are involved. Fairies can seem just as interested as humans in money and treasure, so it’s worth considering where these riches might come from. This may jar somewhat with the notion of winged flower fairies, but that convention forgets the fact that gnomes, as first imagined by Paracelsus, are very intimately connected to the mineral riches of the earth. There’s lots of evidence for fairies being just as active as humans in extracting the earth’s resources and in manufacturing. ![]()
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