Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

Death Flowers of the Mines

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The following is an extract taken from a book which I remember from my childhood. The book, ‘Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain’ is owned by my Nan and it was whilst seeing her yesterday that I saw the book again. Flicking through and looking for myths associated with Wales I found the following:

“Underground coal-mining began in Wales over 400 years ago and, since then, generations of miners have faced a daily struggle against darkness and danger. Belief in the Supernatural came easily to those who were constantly threatened by sudden disaster and superstition was rife among coal-mining communities. It was unlucky to be late for work, or to forget something and return home for it. If, on his way to work, the miner met someone with a squint, or a rabbit or bird crossed his path, he would go home for the day. Whenever anyone in his family dreamt of death, an accident or broken shoes, a mire was often forced to stay at home by his frightened relatives on the day after the dream.
Ever since Christ was crucified on a Friday, the day has been associated with bad luck. in South Wales, many colliers refused to start new work on any Friday, referred to as ‘Black Friday’, but especially on one preceding a holiday when miners in Monmouthshire would complain of having ‘the old black dog’ on their backs, an evil spirit which caused illness and accidents. Throughout Wales, pitworkers stayed away from the mines on Good Friday, but there were other days when they missed work for reasons unconnected with foreboding… 

The sight of a robin, pigeon or dove flying above the pithead was thought to foretell disaster, and many miners refused to work if such birds were seen near the mines. They were also called ‘corpse birds’ and are said to have been seen before the explosion at the Senghennydd Colliery in Mid Glamorgan in 1913, when over 400 pitworkers died in the worst mining disaster in Welsh history. In the mines themselves, whistling and the word ‘cat’ were strictly taboo. 

In 1890, miners at the Morfa Colliery near Port Talbot reported many eerie manifestations which occurred in the neighbourhood and in the mine itself. Fierce hounds, known locally as ‘the Red Dogs of Morfa’ were seen running through the district at night. The colliery was filled with a sweet rose-like perfume emanating from invisible ‘death flowers’. Cries for help and sounds of falling earth were heard and flickering lights, called ‘corpse candles’, appeared in the tunnels. The ghosts of dead miners and coal trams drawn by phantom white horses were seen, and rats swarmed out of the mine. On March 10, nearly half the workers on the morning shift stayed at home. Later that day there was an explosion at the colliery and 87 miners were buried alive and died in the disaster.”

Oxford and Wales

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Given my Welsh ancestry and my recent visit to Wales I’ve been looking for something which might give me another way into the subject, a link perhaps between me here in Oxford and my ancestors there is Wales. I decided to look at some Welsh myths, being as I am interested in old stories, and so I bought a book; ‘The Mabinogi and Other Welsh Tales.’ I won’t discuss at any length the book (translated and edited by Patrick K. Ford) or explain what the Mabinogi is, but will simply present a piece of text from one of the tales; ‘Lludd and Lleuelys’. In that story one finds the following:

“Some time after that, Lludd had the island measured in length and breadth; the middle point was found to be in Oxford. There he had the earth dug up, and in that hole he put a vat full of the best mead that could be made, with a silk veil over the surface. He himself stood watch that night. As he was thus, he could see the dragons fighting. When they grew weary and exhausted, they fell onto the screen and dragged it down with them to the bottom of the vat. After they drank the mead they slept; as they slept, Lludd wrapped the veil about them. In the safest place he could find in Eryri, he secluded them in a stone chest. After that the place was called Dinas Emrys; before that it was known as Dinas Ffaraon Dandde, He was one of three stewards whose hearts broke from sorrow.”

The reason why this piece of text interested me in particular is probably obvious; the fact that in a book of Welsh Mediaeval myths, Oxford is mentioned. There’s also some thing in the text which gives me a way in to the subject, into possible ideas.

Dark Tourism Conference III

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At college yesterday, I noticed how the text I’d written on the windows (see Dark Tourism Conference II) had faded. There was something very poetic about it, the fact the text (the wire) had in the course of time faded, although there were still parts of it remaining. It served to remind me how the past eventually dissolves altogether, how the pain of tragedies in the course of time fades into forgetfulness.

Dark Tourism

Something else which struck a chord with me regarding this link between text and forgetting, was a quote from Frances Yates’ book, ‘The Art of Memory,’ in which she writes:

“In the Phaedrus; Socrates tells the story of the God Theuth who invented numbers and arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, draughts and dice, and most importantly of all, letters. The king of all Egypt was the God Thamus who told Theuth that the invention of writing was not, as suggested, an elixir of memory and wisdom, but of reminding; the invention will produce forgetfulness.”

It would be interesting to create this project in a place where the text could remain, to slowly fade away in time. One could imagine going over the text as it fades, creating on the glass a kind of palimpsest…

Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.

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Thinking about the Three Fates project, I was considering how the individual fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, might somehow reflect the work I’ve been doing over the past year. As I thought about their roles, I realised that there were some interesting connections. Clotho for example, through her spinning yarn and creating life, reflects much of the work I’ve been doing regarding pathways and the coming-into-being (the unliklely, almost impossible coming-into-being) of the individual human. It is interesting that in much of my work and thoughts this year, I have been considering the pathways of our ancestors and visualising those pathways with, amongst other things, string (a tangle of string might represent the impossible pathways of ancestors). Lachesis of course represents the lifespan of the individual, and in the case of my work, the lives of individuals is a recurrent theme, particularly as regards my work on the Holocaust and World War One. Everything to do with life, our physical acts (such as walking) and the everyday, mundane objects which we encounter and which shape it, are represented by her. Atropos, who cuts the thread, is of course death, and I needn’t say how she fits in.

Of course, much of my work deals with memory and Bill Viola’s quote regarding how we have been “living this same moment ever since we were conceived,” and how “it is memory, and to some extent sleep, that gives the impression of a life of discrete parts, periods or sections, of certain times or ‘highlights'”, fits in with the ‘action’ of the three fates, who could be said to be dividing a single life into its component memories as well as Life with a capital ‘L’ into its separate lives.

Atropos’ Shears

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Today I began to cut up a few balls of string, cutting the strand into various lengths so as to indicate the different lengths of lives. It was interesting how as the pile grew, it had a completely different consistency to a ball of string that had become tangled, having been unravelled, dyed and left in a pile. It seems an obvious point to make but an observation that is nonetheless worth mentioning. It was on the second ball of string that I began to focus on the sound of the scissors and as I cut, I realised what the sound reminded me of – it was the sound of hair being cut. Of course the cutting of hair and the Holocaust have particular and distrurbing overtones, and on the third ball of string, I made a loop several strands thick and cut the lengths that way. In this respect, the thickness of the strings and the action of the scissors trying to cut through the threads became interesting to me.

I thought again of the ideas I have had recently where, three ‘Fates’ would pull tape through a reel to reel recorder. The action of the pulling – a violent action – when applied to the idea of Atropos cutting hair was particularly chilling.

Looking at the ‘string’ work I’ve been doing recently, the work with lines in the camp (railways lines, telegraph wires, barbed wire), threads, tape, Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos and scissors, it’s interesting how the action (potential performance) of the Three Fates can be used in so many different ways when the fabric is changed. Certainly, this whole performance/action is something I want to explore thoroughly over the next few months.

© Nicholas Hedges 2024