What on (in, under or over) earth is the hummadruz? Orthodox theories cite Low Frequency Noise sensitivity, electro-magnetic pollution or tinnitus, but these conditions do not always seem applicable to a scatter of reports that have occurred over the years, in which people have heard a hum or buzz with no apparent source.
Not much has appeared in earth mysteries publications about this phenomenon; I could only track down a flurry of references in The Ley Hunter in the late 1970s. A letter from the late Sid Birchby in TLH 81 introduced the topic with examples and suggested a working party to investigate it further; he followed this up with additional notes culled from 19th-century newspapers in the Manchester area.
The term hummadruz seems to have been coined in the last century. In 1878 R.E.Bibby, a local musician and composer, recalled from his 1820s childhood a low drone or humming noise heard in suburbs to the south and east of Manchester, especially Gorton, Rusholme and Longsight. It was heard on calm, clear days, usually in the early morning or at dusk.
Even Gilbert White, the naturalist author of The Natural History of Selborne, reported on such a noise in 1769, and gives the impression that it was a common occurrence:
"Humming in the air. There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our downs in hot summer days... a loud humming as of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen. The sound is distinctly to be heard the whole common through. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion and playing about his head". This description very closely matches my own experience of the hummadruz.
Personal Experiences
In August 1978, I was working with a council conservation team on restoring the footpaths that were to make up the Calderdale Way, near Halifax, West Yorkshire. One hot and sunny afternoon, after a bit of rain in the previous days, we had to clear a mass of holly trees from a trackway, and some of us also set about clearing wood, leaves and silt from a well-trough situated at a bend on the track on the wooded hillside.
While this was going on, I became aware of a buzzing sound, which I first thought to be the hum of woodland flies. Steadily, however, the noise became more intense; I looked around to try and locate the swarm of bees, as I had by then assumed it to be, but could find no centre or direction to the sound. The other two people working on the well were also aware of the sound, but did not find it as loud or bothersome as I did; for me, the sound at its most intense seemed not only to be all around, but inside my head as well. In the end, I went off outside the woodland to trim some holly instead; the sound was still there when we clocked off, but not on subsequent days. The location of this phenomenon was north of Halifax, near Catharine Slack at OS Grid Ref. SE 0910 2831; quite near a road, though not a very busy one, it was not a place one would expect silence nor any quietness beyond our contemporary normal background noise.
Pete Hannah and his wife seem to have had a similar experience in 1972, at Holy Island off the eastern shore of Arran. It was at the site of an old monastery there on a warm and still sunny day that the couple were startled by the sudden onset of a loud buzzing, like a swarm of bees, seeming to come from the ground beneath their feet. They took to their heels and ran, though no insects were to be seen. Years later, reflecting on this experience, he felt that the weather, location and their state of mind - they had just spent a couple of hours musing by the sea and were feeling stilled - had been influential on their perception of the noise, and also that it had seemed to increase in relation to their degree of fear about the proximity of angry bees.
Artist Mazda Munn's experience is of an "intermittently audible" low frequency hum, "similar to the sound one gets when blowing into the neck of a bottle", occurring at irregular intervals, varying from 1-40 seconds in duration. She notices it at night or at quiet times during the day in all kinds of weather except windy, at home in rural Ayrshire and on Mull, which suggests it is not an industrially derived sound source. She can find no direction or source, but describes it as more like an electrical than an insect sound.
Mazda Munn has drawn my attention to the Largs Hum, which made the news frequently around 1995; a theory on this noise was low frequency sound emitted by submarines moving in the Clyde Estuary.
Another report comes from Northern UFO News, and brings us more up to date. One summer afternoon in June 1992, Maurice Giffin, an electrical engineer from Barmouth, Gwynedd, was strolling along Llawlech Ridge when he heard a curious buzzing noise. At first, he thought the sound was a swarm of bees, but was unable to find any insects; he did however establish that the sound seemed to come from the earth itself, and could be heard up to 30 m. away. As evening approached, the sound faded away to nothing. A few days later Mr Giffin returned with a low noise amplifier and was able to record the sound.
Later, in 1994, Mr Giffin discovered another two hummadruz zones in the Welsh hills at Cors y Gedol and Cell Fawr. From his studies at all three sites, he has been able to establish that the noise is only audible from mid-May to mid-September on stable, sunny days with a light on-shore breeze. He also notes that all three sites lie close to the 270m. contour and an area of geological faulting. During 1995, Mr Giffin learned of new sites from other witnesses, all in similar locations; the most northerly was at Portmeirion. It is worth noting that at the foot of the Llawlech Ridge is the village of Egryn, famous in the early years of this century for the Egryn Earthlights (see K & S McClure's Stars & Rumours of Stars).
Reasons & Rumours of Reasons
The tendency would obviously be to ascribe such a sound to insects, but one would expect Gilbert White, at least, to know the difference. Today, we might seek another explanation, like the buzzing one hears in the vicinity of telegraph wires. One 19th-century man thought it might be the sound of the world spinning - in this case, is the hummadruz the true 'music of the spheres'? Other modernist interpretations might collate the hummadruz with the hum of UFOs. Birchby was inclined to link it with 'ley energy', but this implies more about the preconceptions of earth mysteries in the late 1970s (and to some extent still today in non-specialist circles) than anything else.
Canadian research has established recently that sand can 'sing', although the precise mechanism is still unknown. Marco Polo, for instance, experienced 'spirits talking' in the desert of Lop Nor, and the scientists think that this was probably the effect of sand sheared by the wind. Only certain sand types can do this, and then can have a range of noises from booming to squeaking. Such sands, whatever their base material, have a silica gel layer on the surface of the grain, which causes particles to adhere weakly together, and in that state, movement induces sound. The scientists shook such sands in a bottle to produce a humming noise in their experiments. However, the usual conditions for the hummadruz are still, and as it is wind which creates the sand effect, this would seem not to offer any definite lead.
A seismic origin has been suspected for some noises; Comrie in Perthshire experienced 430 earth tremors over 38 years in the 19th century, many accompanied by sounds like 'rumbling in the earth' or 'a moaning sound in the air'.
There are without doubt aspects of the hummadruz which place it in the broad area of earth mysteries interest. Some reports come from the vicinity of ancient sites or trackways. I heard it at a well on an old packhorse track, for instance, and the Hannahs on a holy island, while Maurice Hewlett in 1913 heard "the expectancy of an air" near Chesilbury Camp near Salisbury - "a very shrill, piercing, continuous music" yet without melody; he followed this up with a vision of 'oreads' (hill-spirits) dancing at the same place the next year. Humming and other odd noises are sometimes associated with fairy rings, a wordless humming coming from inside the ring (see Katherine Briggs, The Vanishing People). Mazda Munn is aware of it in a haunted house on an alignment; Kilwinning Abbey is on the same line. She has also heard it in Mull across from Iona Abbey.
In addition to a scatter of 19th-century notes, Birchby found a dozen or so reports from the 1950s through the 1970s. He suggested the following common factors were implied in the reports and needed chasing up:
1. Often heard on hills in summer, but not in cold weather
2. Apparently not insects, aircraft, ear defects, or wind in vegetation
3. Hearers are often musically-gifted with a sensitive ear or otherwise artistic or literary
4. Some reports occur near prehistoric sites or green roads
Notes (pts 1 & 2): S.L.Birchby, letter, The Ley Hunter 81, p.18 (1978); S.L.Birchby, 'The Hummadruz', TLH 84 (1979); Frank Earp, letter, TLH 86, p.12 (1979); Peter Hannah, letter, TLH 88, p.34 (1980). News of the World, 25-2-1979, p.7; Northern UFO News 173, March 1996; Hull Tinnitus Group, Yorks Post 28-12-96; Bob Pegg, Rites & Riots, Blandford 1981 p.73; The Guardian, 8-3-97, p.10; Mazda Munn, letter, Fortean Times 95, p.52 & pers. comm.; Julia Smith, pers. comm.; Stuart Gray-Thompson, pers. comm. The Low Frequency Noise Sufferers Assoc. can be contacted through Ms Rosemary Mann, 33 St James Pk, Ampfield, SO52 9BJ.