In a book of her poems published in 1841 Catherine Drew, the Forest poetess, described the tradition as follows:
But I am told that many ages back,
For courage good, the miners did not lack;
A foreign army did our land invade,
And blood and carnage, then was all the trade,
They pitch’d their tents, and then without delay,
They waited anxious for the bloody fray;
But our bold miners underneath did get,
And many a ton of powder did set.
So up they blew the unsuspecting foe –
Their shattered limbs came rattling down below;
Our land thus clear’d, our liberty thus sav’d.
Our noble miners dug the Catrif’s grave.
The king with honour did them so regard,
Made them free miners as a just reward;
The Forest charter to them granted was,
And firm and sure were made the Forest laws.
Boz's Gaff 