A quick reference to that well-known reference work "Brewer's Dictionary
of Phrase and Fable" gives the following brief description of the legend
of St Barbara:
St Barbara: Virgin and martyr, c. 4th century. Her father, a fanatical
heathen, delivered her up to Martian, Governor of Nicomedia for being a
Christian. After she had been subjected to the most cruel tortures, her
unnatural father was about to strike off her head when a lightning flash
laid him dead at her feet. hence she is invoked against lightning and is
the patron saint of arsenals and artillery.
I have a dim memory of hearing more about this legend in a training film
when I was a sapper in the Territorial Army. I seem also to remember an
item about her being successfully invoked during a siege. I wonder whether
she first became associated with mining in later medieval times through
sappers in siegeworks using gunpowder, and with the first use of powder in
mines.
Peter Northover,
Materials Science-Based Archaeology Group,
Department of Materials,
University of Oxford
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