What an interesting story. They could have thought of a better headline than ‘Tribe of Liliputians Living in Colliery’ though, couldn’t they?
Some miners exploring a disused workings in Poolway, Gloucestershire, came across a mysterious creature with a striking resemblance to a human being, but only 14in high. The creature snarled like a monkey when it was trapped, and was so frightened by its encounter with the men that it died soon after.
Barrier Miner 4 Feb 1926 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45925526
The miners noted the strangeness of the situation (the description of the creature is amazingly detailed, isn’t it?) but didn’t think to bring any evidence back with them. They left the tiny body on a pile of coal only for it to have disappeared when they thought to go back for it the next day. They attributed this to the creatures tribe taking it away.
Unsurprisingly, it was suggested that a touch of drink might have contributed to this sighting.
Soon after though, a woman saw a similar creature sitting on a lump of coal in her scuttle when she was preparing dinner one night. The children of the house were so scared of this terrifying beast that the man of the house threw the scuttle, coal and creature out of the front door.
I wonder if the poor thing picked itself up from under the pile of coal and stomped off to tell its other family members not to bother trying to make friends with those stupid new neighbours?
I wonder how surprised the little creature was at this mistreatment. After all, the description of it included a smiling face. It sounds like they had a small and cheerful visitor sitting safely out of harms way and not showing any signs of being a problem. They saw it, panicked, and chucked it out of the door.
Typical….. Nobody ever claps a big bowl or a sack over the top of these strange creatures, do they? A story like this never ends with photos or any type of artifact does it? It always ends with a variation of ‘and we never saw it again’.
It is almost like it wasn’t even real…
Buried words and Bushwa. 
How ’bout that, Bigfoot immigrated. Or maybe Bigfoot’s English cousin.
🙂 It is a pity it wasn’t a gold mine. We could have immediately jumped to the assumption it was a Leprechaun doing a bit of work on the contents of his pot ‘o gold.
Be fair, how often do you have a big bowl or a sack handy just when you need one. I’m glad I don’t have coal fires since I live in an area of once heavy coal mining. Must be why we Welsh learned to sing though so the diddy men could get out of the way.
I know that people are usually surprised by these kind of sightings but if there was ever a person in a great position to capture one of them it was the mother serving dinner. I doubt any mum back then was ever too far from a wooden spoon. Instead of chucking it out the door she should have given it a smack in the head with the spoon and hung on to the evidence!
Almost like it wasn’t real – but real nonetheless, or it wouldn’t have ended up in print, right?
Wow, one wonders what passed for journalism ethics back then:
“So you say you saw this creature, unlike anything ever seen or heard of before, but you have no hard evidence of any kind to back up your claim?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Good enough for me, Let’s put it on Page 1!”
I love that the first story was ‘suddenly confirmed’ by the second story even though there was an equal amount of evidence for both. None.
Thank goodness for low standards of proof! 😉
Yes, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Just as well for me that they reported anything that caught their eye, otherwise my blog would be called ‘Buried Words and Slightly Interesting Stuff’…. 😉
Not exactly very catchy, is it? It would be kind of like a television talk show host advertising his program with something along the lines of: “Tonight, we have a rather mediocre program in store, with a couple of half-hearted skits and a tepidly amusing comedian.”
We would all be diving for the remote then, wouldn’t we!
“Tonight, we have a rather mediocre program in store, with a couple of half-hearted skits and a tepidly amusing comedian.”
I think that’s the official tagline for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
😀
I thought it sounded familiar. And all too accurate.
LOL… a good approach to life and to blogging!
Those reports are like the internet hoaxes of their day, aren’t they 🙂
-laughs- I love your ending Metan! Very nice.
🙂
Just love the idea of a “Little Foot” out there in the big foot universe.
There have always been versions of the stories of ‘Little people’ I think that the thought of them appeals to all humans! 🙂