Stories from the Falu Mine

The Falu Mine is located in the town of Falun in Dalarna, Central Sweden, and is today part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. The locals say that in the past it was just as important; During the Second World War, it was claimed that if Falu fell, all of Sweden would fall. I do not quite understand the mining topic, but apparently copper can be a national treasure. And it’s not just the metal. The mine turned out to be a source of the famous “Falu Red”, which is rather common on traditional houses across the country, for example, in Vesteros:

The Falu Red is a paint that is being extracted from the mining slag. And since the mine is 1000 years old, you can imagine how much slag it had accumulated. At one point (we’re talking about the 1570s) some absolute genius deduced that it could become a wonderful side business and voila! – the rest is a matter of marketing. This is how the famous Falu sausage appeared too, which the local folklore claims to be a by -product of the making of thousands of meters of ropes for the mine, oxen ropes. What can a person do with the remaining ox meat except salami?!

I wouldn’t like you to think that all the side businesses of the Falu Mine are so prosaic. At some point they found a large lump of gold in one of the side galleries. It is long gone now; however, the tradition remains that all royalty would come to sign on the wall at the entrance in a proper gold font, as you can see in the photo above. I suppose that the royalty also begins their visit with a selfie at the Big Pit, after all it is the first thing that gets in your eyes when arriving in Falu.

The Big Pit dates back to 1687, when the thinned “ceiling” of the mine suddenly collapsed and opened up over 100 meters deep of carved galleries. By some coincidence – or not, maybe someone up there was attentive – it happened on the day of Midsomar, or the summer solstice when no one works, and people have fun out in the meadows. No casualties, I mean, but it was one of the rare such cases. Over the centuries, the Falu Mine regularly took its tribute in human lives. There is the well-known case of Fet-Mats, which they will tell you in the Mining Museum.

In 1719, they found the body of an unknown young man in the mine, who died apparently in the collapse of one of the galleries. The puzzling thing was that no one could recognize him, though he was in a very good shape, so to speak. Until an elderly woman appeared, claiming that it was her fiancé Fet-Mats, who had disappeared 42 years earlier. Something in the water or air of the mine helped the body to stay almost intact and spend two more centuries as an attraction in a showcase before they finally showed some mercy to the man and buried him in 1930.

The truth is that, as in every mine, danger was stalking people in Falu at every step of the way. It was difficult in the morning to breathe, because fires were burning all night under the rocks, to soften them, so that people could dig. There was a risk of flooding if the constantly operating pumps were damaged, so they were equipped with bells. If the bell fell silent, everyone had to run to the exits as fast as they could. And that in itself was a risk, because the “elevators” were actually buckets in which 6-7 people could “ride” with one leg inside and the other hanging over the abyss.

I already mentioned the Falu Mining Museum, but it deserves a more thorough look. There you can pick up a mining pick, hammers and other equipment. You can see what power is needed to move a large piece of rock on a “stretcher” up from the galleries or to “pump” the air blower, raising the required temperature of the melting furnaces. To learn what is the preferred deity of the miners (St. George, by the way). And also to check what traveling in the mining bucket – “elevator” felt like.

The weekly shopping-list of the 17th century mining family will be brought to your attention: 15 kg of rye flour, 6 kg of dried yellow peas, 1.5 kg of turnips, 0.5 kg of lard, 0.385 kg of herring to be fried. In order to provide these food supplies, miners were paid monthly in … copper slabs. The largest copper coin in the world – the salary of the Falu miner – weighs 19.7 kg. In order to transfer the salaries of the staff, the managers used horse sleds and carts. How people brought their salaries home, is a mystery to me.

I have to tell you about the Lady of the Mine. The miners believed deeply and sincerely that it was appropriate for someone to protect them as they roamed underground. They decided that they would seek support from the Lady (or the Mistress), inhabiting the dense darkness. They left her small gifts in the corridors and spoke to her with respect. And most of all, they were being careful to warn her, as they went downstairs, not to make a mistake. Everyone knocked three times on the shaft door before descending. One can never be too cautious, that’s what I think.