Woodland Adventure - The Ghost of the Dead Miner

Children adventuring, exploring and developing their own mythical Woodland Adventure

Woodland adventures

A fun, exciting, spooky and somewhat mysterious day where our Woodland Adventurers followed the clues that got us closer to the truth behind the myth of The Ghost of the Dead Miner.  Is it really a myth or is it true?  We decided to find out...

Our Woodland Adventure started when we were told a tale by a wise young Woodland Adventurer who explained to us all in a cunning manner, full of mystery, that there was a miner who once quarried the nearby caves until the day he was accidentally locked underground by his work colleagues.  From that time he was trapped in the caves and even after his attempts to escape, after many years, he finally laid to rest, but through his determination, anger and frustration he still remains in the caves to this day as The Ghost of the Dead Miner.

Our Woodland Adventurers decided to follow the clues to find out more.  

On our quest through the deep dark forest and into one of the cave entrances we discovered that the miner was apparently born in 1914 and his rather cool name was Paul K. L. Clutterbug.  He lived for 60 years and based on our assumptions lived in the caves alone for more than half his years, always trying to escape, but never succeeding, presumably eating bugs and rats and drinking water that dripped through the caves forming stalactites before reaching his lips.  Going by cave markings, Paul Clutterbug lived until 1974.

It was deduced by another wise young Woodland Adventurer that 1914 & 1974 could be converted through code to become AIAD & AIGD by transcribing numbers for equivalent order letters of the alphabet.  Putting them together forms AIADAIGD and when scrambled they could become DIAGAIDA.  And since Paul Clutterbug had been trapped in the caves for so long his mind became confused and it is believed that finally, as a ghost he used these important dates to try to send a letter or message to his loved one, his wife who was still sat at home waiting unaware of his fate.  What he meant to say was Dear Gaydor (Gaydor was his wife's name) but instead due to his perhaps, confused mind he wrote Dia Gaida - he was never very good at spelling.  Or was he deliberately sending a code to his wife so that she could understand the dates?  We may never know for sure.  A confusing and somewhat intriguing deduction that added to the story and to the picture that we were building about his life in the caves.

This was as far as the young Woodland Adventurers had got towards deciphering the clues.  Next time they planned to explore new cave openings to connect more dots to piecing together and understanding this fearful tale.

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