Bluecap

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For other uses, see Bluecap (disambiguation).
Bluecap
GroupingMythological creature
Fairy
CountryUnited Kingdom
RegionEngland

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] They were hard workers and expected to be paid a working man's wages, equal to those of an average putter (a mine worker who pushes the wagons). Their 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 see the 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

  1. ^ Allen (2005), p. 24
  2. ^ Katherine Mary Briggs, The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature
  3. ^ Briggs (1976), pp. 27–28
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ 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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