View source for Bluecap

{{Short description|Mythical fairy or ghost}}
{{other uses}}
{{Infobox mythical creature
|name  = Bluecap
|image     = 
|caption  = 
|Grouping       = [[Mythological creature]] <br /> [[Fairy]]

|AKA            = 
|Country        = United Kingdom
|Region         = England
|Details        = Mines
|First_Attested = In folklore
}}

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.{{sfnp|Allen|2005|p=24|ps=}} Like [[Knocker (folklore)|knockers]] or [[kobolds]], bluecaps can also forewarn miners of cave-ins. They are mostly associated with the [[Anglo-Scottish]] [[border country|borders]].<ref>[[Katherine Mary Briggs]], ''The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature''</ref>

Bluecaps were regarded as hard workers and it was said that they were expected to be paid a working man's wages, equal to those of an average putter (a mine worker who pushes the wagons). This 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 talk of having seen a flickering bluecap settle on a full tub of coal, transporting it as though "impelled by the sturdiest sinews".{{sfnp|Briggs|1976|pp=27–28|ps=}}

Another being of the same type (though less helpful in nature) was called "Cutty Soames"<ref name=poorlabour>''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</ref> or ''Old Cutty Soames'',<ref>''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</ref> who was known to cut the rope-traces or soams by which the assistant putter was yoked to the tub.<ref name=poorlabour/>

==See also==
*[[Brownie (folklore)|Brownie]] 
*[[Coblynau]]
*[[Cofgodas|Cofgod]] 
*[[Hob (folklore)|Hob]] 
*[[Muki (mythology)|Muki]]
*[[Redcap]]

==References==
'''Citations'''
{{reflist|30em}}

'''Bibliography'''
{{refbegin}}
*{{citation |last=Allen |first=J. |title=Fantasy Encyclopedia |year=2005 |publisher=Kingfisher Publications}}
*{{citation |last=Briggs |first=Katharine |title=An Encyclopedia of Fairies |year=1976 |publisher=Pantheon Books |isbn=0394409183 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffa00brig }}
{{refend}}

{{Fairies}}

[[Category:Northumbrian folkloric beings]]
[[Category:Northumbrian folklore]]
[[Category:Goblins]]
[[Category:Fairies]]
[[Category:English ghosts]]
[[Category:English legendary creatures]]
[[Category:Supernatural legends]]
[[Category:Mining spirits]]

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