Vote on Mythical creatures: Bluecap vs Gargoyle

Bluecap

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, t...

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. Like knockers or kobolds, bluecaps can also forewarn miners of cave-ins. They are mostly associated with the Anglo-Scottish borders. They were hard workers and expected to be paid a working man's wages, equal to those of an average putter (a mine worker who pushes the wagons). Their 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 see the flickering bluecap settle on a full tub of coal, transporting it as though "impelled by the sturdiest sinews". Another being of the same type (though less helpful in nature) was called Cutty Soames or Old Cutty Soames who was known to cut the rope-traces or soams by which the assistant putter was yoked to the tub.

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Gargoyle

In architecture, and specifically in Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a r...

In architecture, and specifically in Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between. Architects often used multiple gargoyles on a building to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize the potential damage from a rainstorm. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth. Gargoyles are usually an elongated fantastical animal because the length of the gargoyle determines how far water is directed from the wall. When Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were sometimes cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls.

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