Bluecap

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For other uses, see Bluecap (disambiguation).
Bluecap
Grouping Mythological creature
Fairy
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] 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 what 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]

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. ↑ Briggs, Katharine (1976). An Encyclopedia of Fairies. Pantheon Books. pp. 27-28. ISBN 0394409183.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 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

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See also


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