Bluecap

Bluecap
Creature
Grouping Mythological creature
Fairy
Data
First reported In folklore
Country United Kingdom
Region England
Habitat Mines

A bluecap or blue cap is a mythical fairy or ghost in English folklore. They inhabit mines and appear as small blue flames. 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] Another being of the same type (though less helpful in nature) was called Cutty Soames[3] or Old Cutty Soames[4] who was known to cut the rope-traces or soams by which the assistant putter was yoked to the tub[3].

References

  1. ^ J. Allen, Fantasy Encyclopedia, p 24 Kingfisher Publications Plc, London, 2005
  2. ^ Katherine Mary Briggs, The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature
  3. ^ a b Labour and the Poor in England and Wales, 1849-1851: Northumberland and Durham, Staffordshire, the Midlands, Jules Ginswick, Routledge, 1983, ISBN 071462960X, 9780714629605, pp. 65-66
  4. ^ Character Sketches Of Romance, Fiction And The Drama, Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Marion Harland, The Minerva Group, Inc., 2004, ISBN 1410213358, 9781410213358, page. 119

See also