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Superstitions About The Mines

© Mara Lou Hawse

Although women miners are a common sight in mines today, their presence once was considered a curse. Women used to cause as much uneasiness around mines as ghosts did. Probably the most common superstition in the coal fields was that disaster would follow if a woman set foot in a mine.

The origin of the belief that women in mines were unlucky is lost in antiquity. Historian George Korson says that Russian miners believed the fear originated long ago when, in the northern twilight along the Volga River, Russian peasants saw the vampire souls of women leaving their river caves to fly through the night, searching for prey.

Italian miners claimed simply that women delighted in poking their noses into places they had no business being, and that led them into inspecting coal mines. The "fates showed their displeasure" by unloosing such calamities as explosions, fires, or cave-ins.

According to Korson, early Cornish miners in Pennsylvania explained the superstition about women through a fantasy that was passed on from father to son: "Long ago, when the earth was young and coal had not yet formed out of the lush green vegetation there lived a race of beautiful women who lured men into their hideouts and bewitched them so that they forgot homes and loved ones. To punish them the gods blasted their forest homes, changing the stately trees into black rocks which were covered by earth. Into these carbonized rocks the spirits of the sirens were driven for an imprisonment that would last for centuries. After serving their long period of penance, these sirens came out to wreak vengeance on mankind. Thus whenever an explosion occurred in the mines, it was a sign that more of these mythological sirens were escaping from the wall of coal, accompanied by the poisonous gases which carried death to every miner in their path. Thus did they avenge the punishment which the gods had imposed upon them long ago when the earth was young, and coal had not yet been formed out of the lush green vegetation."

Whatever the origin of the belief, early miners everywhere believed that women brought bad luck. They could cite instance after instance of disasters that occurred after women visited mines. Outsiders believed those disasters were purely coincidental. The miners didn't think so.

For example, at Poteau, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1905, some women were picnicking near a mine. The mine was idle because of a strike, and so the women were taken for a tour. Many of the miners believed that was a bad omen and refused to return to work when the strike was settled. A short time later, the mine was wrecked by a major explosion.

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