THE MORFA COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2051, 27 May 1890, Page 4

THE MORFA COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

A remarkable story is told in connection with the frightful explosion iat Morfa Colliery. ** I find ” says the narrator of the story, “ by conversation with persons whom no one would lightly acctse of superstition, that various circumstances are stated to have occured which will merit examination by the Psychical Society, | a qualified member of which should ;be early on the, spot. v It is stated that recently the firemen of the pit—men who are always selected for gravity and responsibility—have heard inexplicibie noises, “shoutings” as they are described, in the workings, and these have . not been heard by one person alone, but by several, when in company examining the pit. Further, a miner, returning to the surface, felt himself to be accompanied by some invisible presence* which, although hot seen by him, was perceived by the banksman to land on the bank, and hastily make its way to the shed where the injured and dead are now carried. It is alleged that these strange phenomena were spoken jof and described previously to the explosion, and caused several colliers .to refuse to descend, in spite of their thus becoming liable to prosecution. Other curious instances of warnings are freely spoken of which would yield matter of interest to the student of folk or spirit lore.”. Such stories used to be common in the mining districts ot Wales in connection with every disaster of this kind, and although the spread of popular education has done much to deaden the popular fancy and : to kill off the old superstitions, it is quite clear that the land of the corpse candle, the phantom funeral, the coalfinding gnome, the spirit of elf and fairy, is not yet denuded of all jits poetical traditions.