The perils of Whistling

underground

Active member
It's a popular superstition amongst some of us that we should not whistle inside old mines. I know that this is due to something t'owd man believed, but does anyone know the full background to it :?:
 

bubba

Administrator
There's an interesting page on such things here

It seems that it was as much to do with the fear of the sound setting off a rock-fall as much as anything.
 

underground

Active member
Here's an interesting verse from MINING-HISTORY. Thanks to Daz Beattie.

Tommy Knockers

Hades a forefather of spirits deep
A keeper of miners in long-term sleep.
With worlds of miners since earliest days
Knowing of Goblin and Knocker's ways.
A respectful awareness of this fairy life
Retold in stories from Cornwall to Fife.

Bluecaps in Yorkshire and other Dales
Coblyns in Wales amidst the mining vales.
All are Witchlein or of fairy stock
Warning of danger with a signalling knock.
The Basilsks pre-empting situations dire
Appearing only before explosions or fire.

These beings long blamed for a host of tricks
From throwing stones to the theft of picks.
Woe betide the whistler or singer too loud
In earshot of Knockers this isn't allowed
But recompense in token could be made
With gifts of food left in the mine fairy's glade
 
E

eyecave

Guest
it is not an atypical thing for a tale of legend and yore based on historical event(s) to birth a belief that appears purely superstitious at first glance!!........we've all found ourselves in a cave or mine beneath loose rock that looks held in place by imagination and the holding power of mere friction!!............vibrations caused by loud singing or whistling underground would definitely cause a sympathetic much lower vibration in the rock surrounding the source of those sounds!........is it possible that the frequency of the sounds of whistling effects rock more than lower sounds?........wheres a darn geological-engineer type when you need one?.....could any of us think of an experiment for the proof for this? OR, to take a different viewpoint with a different explaination........................ don't ever whisltle underground...never blow that shrill sound.......beings happy and rested where they dwell, non-physical energies that have filtered into where darkness has eternally fell..........they love the sounds of those hi reach.... the underground crevices through which they can creep are enlarged by the energies the rock can trap..and with it vibrate and quiver it's boundries breach and their worlds increase......the unknowing caver when first their lips purse unknowingly unleash their own ancient curse...rock falls and their unexpected shifts, a blessing to the energies that inhabits the underground's rifts................ javascript:emoticon(':shock:')
Shocked
 
Top