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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick. And hey it's still October, so

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Speaker 2: our Halloween season stuff continues.

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Speaker 1: Today.

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Speaker 2: We're kicking off an expedition into the mind Shaft to

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Speaker 2: talk about monsters and spooky legends associated with minds and mining.

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Speaker 1: That's right, this one should be a fun one. We're

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Speaker 1: going to be especially in this episode, we're kind of

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Speaker 1: revisiting some ideas that we've discussed more briefly in the past.

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Speaker 1: I did a monster fact that touched on some of this,

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Speaker 1: and we've also talked a little bit. We've gone a

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Speaker 1: little bit into the minds in search of the supernatural

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Speaker 1: beings and traditions, but we haven't really melted an expedition

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Speaker 1: on this level before. So yeah, this one should be good. So,

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Speaker 1: as we've covered on the show before, whenever humans venture

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Speaker 1: where they don't quite belong, they inevitably encounter monsters of

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Speaker 1: one form or another. There are monsters of the deep

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Speaker 1: forest and the deep ocean, of the desert and the snow,

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Speaker 1: and there are monsters too that haunt places of human construction,

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Speaker 1: obviously our tombs, the necropolis, even spaces like empty bathrooms

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Speaker 1: at night and lonely expanses of country road. These places

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Speaker 1: too may be home to monsters and monstrous spirits and

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Speaker 1: other entities, each in their own way. These are all

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Speaker 1: places of mystery, and the monster is in some ways

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Speaker 1: an answer to that mystery. And in discussing monsters, ghosts,

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Speaker 1: and legends associated with mining, we're dealing with a very

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Speaker 1: fascinating environment because on one level, the solid earth beneath

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Speaker 1: our feet or deep within the heart of a mountain

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Speaker 1: is exactly the sort of place where we do not belong.

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Speaker 1: It's either we're talking about the grave, or we're just

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Speaker 1: talking about solid earth that affords us no place to exist.

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Speaker 1: Or another level, a cavern or other natural or artificial

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Speaker 1: formation in the earth, some sort of hollow in the

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Speaker 1: earth that we might venture into. And so, as we've

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Speaker 1: discussed in the show before, caves have of course long

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Speaker 1: been a place of fascination for humans, well back through

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Speaker 1: prehistoric times. From what we can tell, they seem to

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Speaker 1: have been places that offered a number of resources and ideas.

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Speaker 1: They might offer shelter, water, warmth, and even in limited

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Speaker 1: ways food. There were also places of strange sights and sounds,

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Speaker 1: places to speak to the future or learn from the

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Speaker 1: past through art, and of course, to venture farther into

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Speaker 1: the caverns was to court additional dangers. Then, as now,

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Speaker 1: you could become lost, stuck, or just overcome by deprivation

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Speaker 1: of the senses. And humans also learned pretty early on

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Speaker 1: that these subterranean spaces could also offer substances of additional

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Speaker 1: value to them, such as red ochre or flint and

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Speaker 1: other hard rocks and ultimately copper and gold. Now, to

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Speaker 1: get these resources, humans sometimes had to brave the depths

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Speaker 1: of the Earth, not only descending into naturally occurring openings,

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Speaker 1: but forging their own tunnels and pits mines for the

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Speaker 1: harvesting of Earth's riches. Now, we can't summarize the history

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Speaker 1: of mining in much detail for these episodes, but suffice

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Speaker 1: to say that the enterprise became increasingly complicated and daring.

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Speaker 1: Humans cut deeper and deeper into the earth, and in

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Speaker 1: doing so perpetually faced safety challenges. Mining could prove really

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Speaker 1: dangerous work, and this was of course coupled with the

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Speaker 1: ominous atmosphere of the mind, a world of darkness of

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Speaker 1: strange sights and strange sounds. Again, sensory deprivation that could

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Speaker 1: bring on sights and sounds that are not quite real,

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Speaker 1: hallucinations both visual and auditory. And on top of this,

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Speaker 1: there was this seeming proximity to these very traditions of

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Speaker 1: the underworld, traditions regarding some sort of a mythic underground

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Speaker 1: world that date back at least to ancient Mesopotamia.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, And in many ancient cosmologies, you know,

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Speaker 2: the underworld was. It wasn't a metaphor, it was like

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Speaker 2: often literally thought to be beneath your feet in some sense,

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Speaker 2: you would go down to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like where we go when we die? Underground? Where

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Speaker 1: are we going today to get these precious metals? We're

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Speaker 1: going underground? Kind of a daring prospect. And I do

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Speaker 1: want to stress though that if you know, in the

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Speaker 1: future we may discuss will inevitably discuss mining adjacent topics

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Speaker 1: at least even if we don't do a deep dive

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Speaker 1: in the mining. And obviously you don't always have to

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Speaker 1: cut an artificial cave or tunnel into the earth to

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Speaker 1: mine things. But of course that's the model that is

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Speaker 1: going to factor into many of the examples we're going

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Speaker 1: to be discussing here today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we can talk about some more practical distinctions

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Speaker 2: between different types of mining as we go on through

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Speaker 2: this series. But it does seem to me, based and

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Speaker 2: what I've read so far, that tunnel mining that does

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Speaker 2: go down into caverns and tunnels beneath the surface is

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Speaker 2: the type of mining that gives the most rise to

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Speaker 2: the belief in supernatural entities and beings there is. It

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Speaker 2: seems to me, there is less less monstrous, less ghostly,

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Speaker 2: less spiritual associated with say open pit mining or placer mining,

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Speaker 2: where you know, you're you're sifting a sediment from a

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Speaker 2: stream bed or and things like that. Probably just because

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Speaker 2: you know there you're open to the sky. It's just

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Speaker 2: less eerie and it is less likely to conjure you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of spooky eerie feelings for a number of reasons

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Speaker 2: that we can discuss as.

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Speaker 1: We go on, right and then and then all sorts

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Speaker 1: of additional dangers that don't exist if you're doing an

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Speaker 1: open pit mine, or you're you know, if you're standing

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Speaker 1: in the stream that sort of thing. Now we've we've

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Speaker 1: been thrown around a few different terms here spirits and monsters.

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Speaker 1: Many of the traditions that we're going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about concern beings that fall roughly into a category that

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Speaker 1: may often be described as fairies or fair folk, And

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Speaker 1: as Carol Rose the Folklorus writes in her works, you know,

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Speaker 1: they might be thought of as beings that exist between

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Speaker 1: heroes and the gods. Folkloris Charlotte Sophie Byrne described them

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Speaker 1: in her nineteen fourteen book The Handbook of Folklore as

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Speaker 1: quote various races of beings not human and yet not divine,

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Speaker 1: who are supposed to share this lower earth more or

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Speaker 1: less invisibly with mankind. And I really like that definition

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Speaker 1: more or less invisibly, because you know, sometimes we talk

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Speaker 1: about them being fair or invisible, but other times we

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Speaker 1: talk about how they are small, you know, they're like

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Speaker 1: the leprechaun. And sometimes this ends up just taking on,

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Speaker 1: you know, the pure idea of them being very small

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Speaker 1: in stature or being miniature people. But I was thinking

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Speaker 1: about this over the weekend that it is also it's

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Speaker 1: like they just have a different spatial reality, like they

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Speaker 1: live in different spatial dimensions and they can fold themselves

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Speaker 1: in and out of those spaces.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're sometimes conceived as having a subtle form, one

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Speaker 2: that is only lightly detectable to our senses. Other times

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Speaker 2: they're pictured more as being often hidden but occasionally coming

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Speaker 2: out into view. But yeah, it fits well with this

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Speaker 2: idea of, you know, like a later science fiction idea

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Speaker 2: of extra dimensional beings phasing in and out of our reality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that also speaks more to the

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Speaker 1: power that's often attributed to them, because you know, if

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Speaker 1: you're just dealing with very pop cultural leprechaun ideas, like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they have some powers. They may be dangerous to some degree,

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Speaker 1: but there's often a fair amount of danger associated with

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Speaker 1: the fear folk traditions around the world. They have a

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Speaker 1: lot of power, and you don't want to fall on

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Speaker 1: their bad.

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Speaker 2: Side, especially not in a mind right.

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Speaker 1: Right, which you know, because that's one of the things too.

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Speaker 1: It's like, once you're in the mind and we've been

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Speaker 1: describing this environment to some degree already, like this is

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Speaker 1: definitely a place where we don't belong, where we're most

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Speaker 1: definitely infringing upon their world and their realm and their rules.

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Speaker 1: So it's this sort of you know, mysterious or wild

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Speaker 1: place they might be found. And their temperament is also

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Speaker 1: always key because they might be anywhere from benevolent to malevolent,

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Speaker 1: though they're often situated somewhere in between. They're not always

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Speaker 1: right in the middle, so they might be largely benign.

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Speaker 1: You know, maybe they can be wooed by humans, you know,

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Speaker 1: with offerings and so forth, or they might just be

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Speaker 1: very easily offended. And if you offend them, you know,

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Speaker 1: they might just have a good laugh at your expense,

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Speaker 1: or it might be the end of you. They might

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Speaker 1: play a joke, but just how severe is that joke

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Speaker 1: going to be?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because a prank with mining equipment, I mean that

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Speaker 2: might be just a frustration and economic loss, but that

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Speaker 2: might also be death.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we'll discuss. They'd be like, you know,

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Speaker 1: it would be funny, what if we did all the

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Speaker 1: humans work for them today? Yeahs, you just don't know

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Speaker 1: exactly which way it's going to fall, right. So, just

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Speaker 1: as there's a fair amount of variety and just how

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Speaker 1: they're going to act towards humans, their exact origins very

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Speaker 1: wildly as well, you know, including everything from the idea

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Speaker 1: of them being transformed humans to personifications of natural phenomena

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Speaker 1: and in some cases defeated elder races or even cast

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Speaker 1: down gods. How whatever their origins are, generally they're cast

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Speaker 1: in a place where there's some sort of friction that

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Speaker 1: occurs between their world and our world, where these two

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Speaker 1: worlds meet. All right, Given what we're going to be

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Speaker 1: discussing here in this episode, I think it'd probably be

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Speaker 1: helpful to start with a sort of predecessor, and that

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Speaker 1: is the tradition of the Red Caps and the Blue Caps,

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Speaker 1: both supernatural entities from the British Isles and to a

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Speaker 1: certain degree elsewhere, you know, given the sort of the

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Speaker 1: basic nature of these names.

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Speaker 2: Now, these are not necessarily always or even often, in

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Speaker 2: the case of the Red Cap, I understand, associated with minds,

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Speaker 2: but they have important tie INDs, I say, I guess,

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Speaker 2: especially the Blue Cap right right, right, And I think

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Speaker 2: they're kind of like a nice example of how we

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Speaker 2: have like the non mine related entity and then it

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Speaker 2: can sort.

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Speaker 1: Of easily shift towards the mind. You know, these are

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Speaker 1: all ultimately I guess, ideas that we ended up taking

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Speaker 1: with us, and then they changed with us depending on

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Speaker 1: our work in these dangerous environments. Yeah, so in both

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Speaker 1: of these cases we're talking about caps. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: either like a literal cap that a creature is wearing

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Speaker 1: on its head that is colored to a certain color, or

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Speaker 1: it is something like a cap that you might think

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Speaker 1: of more as a halo or an aura. But we

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Speaker 1: just describe it as a cap because you know, basically

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Speaker 1: it's relatable. Everybody has a cap. Everybody wears a cap

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Speaker 1: from time to time, you know what we're talking about

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Speaker 1: if we describe something in that in those terms. And

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Speaker 1: then also they're just a wealth of traditions regarding caps

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Speaker 1: that provide various powers or carry with them curses. So

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Speaker 1: you know, caps are to a certain degree inherently magical,

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Speaker 1: at least in you know, our magical thinking. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: let's start with the red cap, also known as bloody

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Speaker 1: cap or red comb. This one is one that many

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Speaker 1: of you are probably familiar with to some degree. I

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Speaker 1: feel like I grew up looking through various folklore books

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Speaker 1: that had pictures of or you know, the ideas of

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Speaker 1: what this creature looked like. And as Carol Rose describes

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Speaker 1: it in Spirits, Farries, leprechauns, and Goblins, the red cap

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Speaker 1: in its English usage is a largely evil spirit, sometimes

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Speaker 1: described as a hobgoblin originating in the full traditions of

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Speaker 1: the English Scottish border country.

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Speaker 2: I'm mainly familiar with the red cap from a D

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Speaker 2: and D context, actually in Balder'sgate three, where they appear

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Speaker 2: as like a vicious, disgusting little David the Gnome.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be. That would be very viciousness. That

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Speaker 1: seems key to how they depicted. They often appear as

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Speaker 1: a hideous little old man in iron boots and a

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Speaker 1: red blood soaked cap. So his cap is blood because

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Speaker 1: he keeps like using it to soak up blood generally

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Speaker 1: I guess, like human blood and then wearing it. It's

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Speaker 1: not wearing it on its head, so pretty gross, pretty savage.

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Speaker 1: Where do you find this entity? Well, it's said to

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Speaker 1: haunt old ruins and sights of historic bloodshed, and if

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Speaker 1: you venture near such places, it might just kill you,

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Speaker 1: maybe all there is to it, and then use its

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Speaker 1: cap to sop up your blood unless you recite scripture

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Speaker 1: at it and drive and drive it away. It's also

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Speaker 1: said that if the blood of this creature's cap ever dries,

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Speaker 1: then it will shrivel up and die, so almost kind

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Speaker 1: of a Kappa sensibility to it. In the sense that

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Speaker 1: it has to keep some part of itself damp, but

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Speaker 1: this time it has to keep itself damp with human blood.

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Speaker 2: So that's interesting because here it's like the vampire legend.

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Speaker 2: It's like the munster has a need of its own.

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Speaker 2: It's not just reacting to what you do, like it

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Speaker 2: needs blood and so it's eager to get your blood.

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Speaker 2: It's not just punishing you for say, crossing the threshold

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Speaker 2: of a ruined castle.

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Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, this one is definitely more malicious than a

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Speaker 1: lot of the you know, the more sort of neutral

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Speaker 1: fear folk entities you'll encounter, Like this one is actively nasty.

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Speaker 1: And I mentioned English traditions because there are also things

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Speaker 1: called red caps and other traditions, like there's a Dutch

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Speaker 1: tradition of the red cap, where the red cap is

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Speaker 1: simply a helpful household spirit, not soopping up blood. And

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Speaker 1: I should also point out there are a number of different

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Speaker 1: variations of the English red cap tail, some of which

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Speaker 1: connect the entity with the fourteenth century Scottish border noble

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Speaker 1: William the Ti de sulis sometimes embellished as a villain

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Speaker 1: who was tutored in the Black Arts with the imp

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Speaker 1: robin redcap serving as is familiar, and in some accounts,

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Speaker 1: this cruel lord is eventually boiled alive by the people

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Speaker 1: who suffered under him. And I've also read versions where

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Speaker 1: the Red Cap creature is encased in lead and boiled. WHOA.

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Speaker 1: In reality, I'm to understand, Desiulis died in prison after

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Speaker 1: allegedly playing in a part of his part in a

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Speaker 1: conspiracy against King Robert the Bruce. All right, so that's

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Speaker 1: red caps. Let's switch colors and let's go to Blue Caps,

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Speaker 1: and this will get as closer to the mines. This

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Speaker 1: is another spirit of English folklore, also known as the

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Speaker 1: blue Bonnet, and this entity, according to Carol Rose, was

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Speaker 1: said to reside deep within the earth, and you would

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Speaker 1: only encounter it if you happen to venture down into

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Speaker 1: the mines, you know, labored in the minds and reach

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Speaker 1: some depth that humans would normally encounter. And so this

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Speaker 1: entity is often invisible, but it also might manifest as

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Speaker 1: a light blue flame, you know, this kind of like

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Speaker 1: a low effect, thus its name. And this one wasn't

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Speaker 1: nefarious at all, like very like polar opposite. Really compared

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Speaker 1: to the Red Cap, the blue Cap would mimic human

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Speaker 1: miners and sometimes put in a full day's work, so

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Speaker 1: moving tubs of coal or around, and then the miners

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Speaker 1: would leave out carefully calculated offerings for the blue caps

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Speaker 1: in thanks for their practice. You know, So this is

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Speaker 1: this one's kind of this one's This one really seems

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Speaker 1: almost downright benevolent, and you would tip your blue cap

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Speaker 1: and make sure that it kept occasionally doing this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and as we're about to see, the blue cap

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Speaker 2: legend here has a lot in common with other well

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Speaker 2: explored mining spirits, specifically the one that I want to

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Speaker 2: focus on now for the rest of this episode, which

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Speaker 2: is the Tommy Knocker, also known as the Knocker or

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Speaker 2: the Knacker.

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Speaker 1: This one, of course, I think a lot of us

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Speaker 1: are familiar with its name because we grew up having

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Speaker 1: some degree familiarity with the gigantic Stephen King book of

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Speaker 1: the same name the top.

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Speaker 2: Does that book have anything to do with Tommy Knockers.

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Speaker 1: It's been a very long time since I tried to

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Speaker 1: read it. This was like the first Stephen King book

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Speaker 1: that I read in like junior high that I couldn't

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Speaker 1: actually finish. You know, maybe I would have a different

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Speaker 1: experience if I tried it now, But I think it

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Speaker 1: is not uncommon for people to have difficulty with this one.

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Speaker 2: I think King himself has somewhat disparaged it, hasn't he.

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Speaker 1: I believe so?

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. Anyway, So to examine the Tommy Knocker tradition,

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Speaker 2: I want to talk about an academic folklore article that

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Speaker 2: I found really interesting which traces the historical evolution of

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Speaker 2: the knocker or Tommy Knocker story from its origins among

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Speaker 2: Cornish miners in the area of Cornwall, which is in

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Speaker 2: southwest England's the Peninsula coming down in southwest England out

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Speaker 2: into the sea, so in the area of Hornwall, and

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Speaker 2: that goes back centuries all the way into twentieth century beliefs,

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Speaker 2: nineteenth and twentieth century beliefs of Cornish immigrants and others

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Speaker 2: working in mines in the American West. This article is

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Speaker 2: called Knockers, Knackers and Ghosts, Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines,

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Speaker 2: published in the journal Western Folklore in nineteen ninety two

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Speaker 2: by Ronald M.

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Speaker 1: James.

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Speaker 2: I looked up the author here, and Ronald M. James

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Speaker 2: is a historian in folklore as who's been affiliated with

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Speaker 2: the University of Nevadorno and Iowa State University. So The

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Speaker 2: paper begins with a great little vignette from the later

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Speaker 2: evolution of the Tommy Knocker law. It is a passage

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Speaker 2: from the work of an author named F. D. Calhoun,

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Speaker 2: published in nineteen eighty six, drawing on his first hand

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Speaker 2: experience living in mining communities in Grass Valley, California in

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Speaker 2: the early twentieth century. So Calhoun is in the middle

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Speaker 2: of talking about an illicit practice of some miners at

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Speaker 2: the time who I think this was called high grading.

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Speaker 2: They would smuggle out high graded or from the mines,

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Speaker 2: you know, pack it secretly somewhere on themselves, smuggle it out,

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Speaker 2: bring it home, and then mill the ore in their

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Speaker 2: cellars at night. And of course, the milling of ore

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Speaker 2: is an important stage in the processing of raw minerals.

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Speaker 2: Usually it involves crushing, smashing, or grinding down large pieces

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Speaker 2: of rock into a relatively fine powder. And this increases

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Speaker 2: the surface area of the desirable minerals, making them easier

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Speaker 2: to separate and extract from the parts of the rock

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Speaker 2: that you don't care about. And you might do this

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Speaker 2: several different ways. You know, it might involve just hammer

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Speaker 2: or you know, mortar and pestle of some kind, or

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Speaker 2: hammer smashing on a surface, or some kind of stamp mill.

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Speaker 2: But as you can imagine, this secret milling operation would

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Speaker 2: be noisy. It involved the pounding or stamping of hammers

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Speaker 2: or stamps, and this could lead children in the house

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Speaker 2: to wonder what their parents were up to. Why did

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Speaker 2: they hear repetitive hammer blows coming from the basement when

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Speaker 2: they were trying to sleep, And according to Calhoun, these

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Speaker 2: parents would often blame the commotion on the tommy knockers.

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Speaker 2: So to quote from Calhoun here, supposedly the little miners

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Speaker 2: gathered under the house where children were especially good. If

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Speaker 2: they listened and were real quiet. After they had gone

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Speaker 2: to bed and were supposed to be going to sleep,

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Speaker 2: they just might hear their little friends hammering away with

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Speaker 2: their tiny single jacks. It is surprising how many residents

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Speaker 2: of the mining town still tell of being lulled to

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Speaker 2: sleep by the rhythmical pounding from deep below. If the

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Speaker 2: rock was especially hard and the pounding unusually loud, the

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Speaker 2: children were told that the tommy knockers must have been

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Speaker 2: using double jacks the evening before.

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Speaker 1: Why durable This is adorable and ridiculous at the same time.

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Speaker 2: So James says that Calhoun's account, of course, presents some

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Speaker 2: difficulty to the folklorist because he doesn't give exact dates here,

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Speaker 2: and he doesn't like name specific people or site sources,

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Speaker 2: but it can be taken as some evidence for the

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Speaker 2: late evolution of the Tommy Knocker concept in early twentieth

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Speaker 2: century California. So by this point, according to Calhoun's telling,

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Speaker 2: the Tommy Knocker had come to be used, among other roles,

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Speaker 2: as what James calls a FicT, citing as FicT citing

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Speaker 2: the terminology of the folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sidao actually

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Speaker 2: father of the actor Max von.

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Speaker 1: Sidao, Oh wow, that's amazing.

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Speaker 2: A FicT is a legend like narrative that the teller

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Speaker 2: does not believe, but which is told as if true.

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Speaker 2: In other words, a FicT is intended to be understood

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Speaker 2: as true by the audience, but understood as fictional by

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Speaker 2: the teller. And this is distinguished from legends, which would

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Speaker 2: be third person stories that are sincerely believed by the

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Speaker 2: teller and expected to be believed by the audience, and

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Speaker 2: then fairy tales or folk tales, which are third person

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Speaker 2: stories that are understood by both teller and audience as

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Speaker 2: fictional because of this asymmetry in the relationship here, ficts

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Speaker 2: are often told by adults to children, and a great

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Speaker 2: example would be nursery bogies such as Jenny Green Teeth. Presumably,

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Speaker 2: Grandpa does not actually believe that there is a hag

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Speaker 2: living in the water that will pull you down by

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Speaker 2: the ankle, but he knows that the standing water is

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Speaker 2: actually dangerous for less mentally gripping reasons, so he tells

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Speaker 2: the story of Jenny Green Teeth in the hopes that

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Speaker 2: it will stick in the child's head and get them

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Speaker 2: to stay away.

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Speaker 1: A FicT, as you might imagine, is a little bit

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Speaker 1: like a lie.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but it's a lie that takes the form of

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Speaker 2: a story. Now, of course, the Tommy Knockers and Calhoun's

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Speaker 2: example are not exactly bogies. Like Jenny Green Teeth. There

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Speaker 2: are no threats in this story, but they are a

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Speaker 2: supernatural explanation told to believing children dren by unbelieving adults

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Speaker 2: to get them to stay away from dangerous knowledge, in

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Speaker 2: this case, the knowledge that their parents are doing something illegal.

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Speaker 1: Hmmm. Interesting, yeah, and kind of rewarding them because the

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Speaker 1: terminology or the exact description was something along the lines

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Speaker 1: of like this only happens in houses where the children

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Speaker 1: are really good. Yeah, you're very fortunate that the Tommy

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Speaker 1: Knockers are here.

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Speaker 2: So James says, by this point the Tommy knocker had

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Speaker 2: drifted very far from its earliest known form, and studying

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Speaker 2: this evolution is actually a pretty fascinating exercise that can

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Speaker 2: help us understand how folklore is affected by the immigration process,

400
00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 2: the immigration of storytellers to new locales, the diffusion of

401
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 2: folklore between different ethnic groups, and also how folklore is

402
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,680
Speaker 2: affected by cultural and technological changes across time. How for example,

403
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 2: changes in mining techniques and technology lead to changes in

404
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 2: what sort of entities haunt the minds. So the belief

405
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Speaker 2: in supernatural beings that live within minds seems to be

406
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 2: quite widespread, as we were just talking about, and we

407
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Speaker 2: will talk about more examples from different cultures in part

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Speaker 2: two of the series. But James says that the form

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Speaker 2: this creature most often takes in European traditions is some

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Speaker 2: sort of diminutive old man who makes mischief and plays

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Speaker 2: tricks and either provides useful information to miners, and this

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00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 2: could be leading them to riches or warning them of

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Speaker 2: imminent danger and death, or the mining spirit punishes transgressions, defilements,

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Speaker 2: and evil deeds within the mind.

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Speaker 1: It's really interesting to think about the role that trickster

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Speaker 1: plays in a dangerous environment that has certain rules about

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00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 1: safety rules in place, and I wonder how much of

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00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:57,160
Speaker 1: this is sort of like, Okay, if everything goes according

419
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: to plan, you don't have anything to worry about. But

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Speaker 1: the idea that the trickster spirit is there puts enough

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00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: doubt that maybe you double and triple check things as

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00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: they occur.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, it might lead to added scrutiny,

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00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:11,439
Speaker 2: which is good. In that case. It would almost be

425
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 2: like the Jenny Green teeth. It's like, there are real

426
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,359
Speaker 2: practical dangers you need to be concerned of, but thinking

427
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 2: about this entity causes you to behave more cautiously because

428
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 2: an entity is more mentally gripping than real life accidental danger.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more like an active threat as opposed to

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Speaker 1: the threat of the just thing you didn't think about, Yeah,

431
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Speaker 1: thing you didn't know to be afraid of. Right.

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Speaker 2: So, the sixteenth century German mineralogist and metallurgist Georgius Agricola,

433
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 2: who lived fourteen ninety four to fifteen fifty five wrote

434
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,679
Speaker 2: extensively on beliefs about entities that lurked in minds in

435
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 2: a work called De Animantibus subterraneous, or of this underground animals,

436
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 2: the subterranean Animals. We may come back to this work

437
00:24:57,800 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 2: in part two of the series. I'm not sure yet,

438
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 2: but it's likely. But speaking of a German creature known

439
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 2: to him as cobalos or, I think this would be

440
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 2: the equivalent of the cobald, Agricola wrote that the creature

441
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 2: was jolly and loved to imitate human work, like what

442
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 2: you were saying with the blue cap. So there's a

443
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 2: lot of similarities in these different European mining creature legends.

444
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 2: To read from a translation of Agricola quote, they are

445
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 2: called little miners because of their dwarfish stature, which is

446
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 2: about two feet. They are venerable looking and are clothed

447
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 2: like miners in a fillited garment, with leather apron about

448
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 2: their loins. This kind does not often trouble the miners,

449
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 2: but they idle about in the shafts and tunnels and

450
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 2: really do nothing, although they pretend to be busy in

451
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 2: all kinds of labor, sometimes digging or sometimes putting into

452
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:53,000
Speaker 2: buckets that which has been dug. Sometimes they throw pebbles

453
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 2: at workmen, but they rarely injure them unless the workmen

454
00:25:56,600 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 2: first ridicule or curse them. The mining nome are especially

455
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 2: active in the workings where metal has already been found

456
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 2: or where there are hopes of discovering them and cause

457
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,679
Speaker 2: them cause them to labor more vigorously. So that's kind

458
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 2: of interesting. They're more concentrated in hot zones, you know,

459
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 2: in places where there's likely to be a big discovery

460
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 2: or where a big discovery of war has already been made,

461
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 2: which is an interesting contrast to other stories that would

462
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 2: you know, imagine the creature in the mine as the

463
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 2: one that lurks in the abandoned mine. This is exactly

464
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 2: the opposite. It's like, you know, the economic hot zone

465
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 2: of the mine is where these things show up.

466
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: I love this detail that, yeah, they might do humans

467
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,439
Speaker 1: work for them, but they also just might sort of

468
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: pretend to do work.

469
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, look busy.

470
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 1: Yeah.

471
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 2: So this paper is focused on a particular version of

472
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 2: this widespread mining creature tradition that emerged among Cornish miners

473
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,560
Speaker 2: in the southwest of England. As I said earlier, where

474
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 2: the creatures were known as Tomby knockers, knockers or knackers.

475
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 2: James says that the name knocker may have originally been

476
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 2: more widespread, but it really came to be associated with

477
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 2: Cornish legend, in particular as mining was a common occupation

478
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 2: for Cornish men and the region of Cornwall itself had

479
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 2: been a very important mining hub going back to ancient times.

480
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 2: Actually specifically, Cornwall was known for having deposits of metal

481
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 2: such as copper and tin, and it was an especially

482
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 2: crucial source of tin going all the way back to

483
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 2: the Bronze Age, where ten was in high demand for

484
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 2: the manufacture of bronze, which you make bronze by combining

485
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 2: copper and tin. Of these two ingredients, ten was the

486
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:47,359
Speaker 2: much more difficult to source metal and relied on sophisticated

487
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 2: trade and distribution networks. So these big civilizations that are

488
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 2: producing a lot of bronze artifacts during the Bronze Age,

489
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 2: a lot of times they might be sourcing their tin

490
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 2: from very far away, and so they were lying on

491
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 2: a lot of trade to support that bronze industry. So,

492
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: getting into the early records we have about what the

493
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:14,120
Speaker 2: Cornition ockers were, James compares several sources. Many of these

494
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 2: authors are what he calls nineteenth century or turn of

495
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: the twentieth century antiquarians, collectors of a piece of antiques

496
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 2: or of intangible antiques like folklore. So these include a

497
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 2: folklore collector named William Bottrell who lived eighteen sixteen to

498
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:35,120
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty one, who wrote a column for the Cornish

499
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 2: Telegraph in which he documented local folk traditions. James also

500
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 2: names a nineteenth century writer named Robert Hunt and a

501
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: slightly later writer named Walter Yielding Evans WinCE, and then

502
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 2: after that. There are also some later likely derivative sources

503
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 2: and some literary references to Tommy Knockers in fiction, which

504
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 2: we can mention in a bit. But to generalize from

505
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 2: what we have, here's what we know the Cornish Tommy Knockers.

506
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 2: The older version, they were usually described as supernatural, dwarf

507
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 2: like men with long, gray beards and wrinkled faces. Their name,

508
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 2: as you might guess, comes from the knocking and tapping

509
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 2: sounds of uncertain origin that you would often hear propagating

510
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: through mind tunnels. They were widely regarded as mischievous, playing pranks,

511
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 2: causing trouble and fouling equipment. So that's in line with

512
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 2: some other things we've talked about. But in some cases,

513
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: especially if you knew how to butter them up and

514
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 2: get on their good side, they could be quite helpful.

515
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: Now here's a very strange twist on the legend. Basically

516
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 2: all of the early Cornish sources agree on an origin

517
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 2: story for the knockers, and it is this. They were

518
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 2: said to be the ghosts or spirits of Jewish people

519
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 2: who had been sent to work in the Cornish mines,

520
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 2: either in the ancient past, during the Roman period, or

521
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 2: perhaps in the Middle Ages, as some sort of punishment

522
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: for having been responsible, in the minds of their Christian

523
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 2: persecutors for the death of Christ. Now, according to James,

524
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 2: there is basically no evidence for this belief that Jews

525
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 2: were sent to work in the Cornish minds during the

526
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 2: Roman period or during the during the Middle Ages. No

527
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 2: evidence this actually happened. Of course, Jews certainly were persecuted

528
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 2: in various ways by Christians throughout Europe in the medieval period,

529
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 2: but there's no evidence this ever involved work in Cornish minds.

530
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 2: So it's not entirely clear where this latter belief about

531
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 2: the origins of the Knockers came from. Despite the fact

532
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 2: that this has no basis in history, the origin story

533
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 2: appears widespread and a very important part of the legend.

534
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 2: So it's not just like something that one person said

535
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 2: at one time. This seems to be a common belief

536
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:56,680
Speaker 2: about the Tommy Knockers.

537
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: And of course it does. You know, we can compare

538
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: this to various other two traditions where some other culture

539
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: or other people is in some way transformed into a

540
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 1: folklore entity of some sort. And you know, even getting

541
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,800
Speaker 1: back to stuff like the Tuava Didan and you know,

542
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: saying that they are like a you know, connections between

543
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: that belief and some sort of a fair folk and

544
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: some sort of perhaps you know, predecessor culture and so forth.

545
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 2: Well, this is interesting one of the other, i mean,

546
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 2: one of the only other explanations of the origin of

547
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 2: the Tommy Knockers that this is not nearly as widespread,

548
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 2: but is the claim that they are the spirits of

549
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 2: people who inhabited the lands of Cornwall before the Celts.

550
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: Yes, then that would definitely tie in with various other

551
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: traditions you find, especially throughout the British Isles.

552
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 2: One version of this origin story. The Jewish miners origin

553
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,240
Speaker 2: story appears in a novel from eighteen fifty one called

554
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 2: Yeast a Problem by the by the English priest and

555
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 2: social reformer Charles Kingsley. In this book, a Cornish character

556
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 2: explains what the knockers are to another character by saying, quote,

557
00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 2: they are the ghosts the miners hold of the old Jews, Sir,

558
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 2: that crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves by

559
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 2: the Roman emperors to work the mines. And we find

560
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 2: their old smelting houses, which we call Jews houses, and

561
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 2: their blocks of tin at the bottom of the great bogs,

562
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 2: which we call Jews ten. As a point of historical fact,

563
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 2: by the way, it was, of course the Roman authorities

564
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 2: under Pontius Pilot who crucified Jesus, not the Jews. However,

565
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 2: setting aside whatever anti Jewish attitudes may be contained in

566
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: this ideological myth, it's interesting to note the way that

567
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 2: the physical artifacts of prior industry feed into beliefs about

568
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 2: supernatural beings that occupy the same space. What is, in fact,

569
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 2: the remains of mundane mining from decades or centuries ago

570
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 2: becomes either the physical imprint of work from a mythic past,

571
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 2: you know, done by people who you imagine were there

572
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 2: but were not actually there, or from a ghostly present.

573
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 2: It's like, this is the stuff left behind by the

574
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 2: supernatural creatures. Now you know. That connection between physical artifacts

575
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,479
Speaker 2: left by real people in the past to supernatural beings

576
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 2: reminds me of our series on Elfshot.

577
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, How do we make sense of these artifacts? Yeah,

578
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: people from the past or something a little bit different,

579
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: People that we just can't see, people that are hidden

580
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: from us.

581
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 2: James notes several ways in which common beliefs among the

582
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 2: Cornish miners about the Knockers both do and do not

583
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 2: match this ahistorical origin story. The Knockers were said to

584
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 2: not work on Saturdays because it was their sabbath, but

585
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 2: also it was said that they did not work on Easter,

586
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 2: All Saints Day, or Christmas. On Christmas it was said

587
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 2: that they sang carols and held mass deep at the

588
00:33:58,480 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 2: bottom of the mine.

589
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: I do love a good Christmas Mass held by non

590
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: human entities.

591
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 2: Yes, we did episodes on that at one point, didn't we.

592
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: Yeah about the undead, the pious.

593
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,919
Speaker 2: Undead, Yes, having Christmas Mass? Yeah, Oh that was fun.

594
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:16,240
Speaker 2: I just had to look it up. I was remembering

595
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 2: the story of Bishop teet Maar.

596
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I do I remember that name now?

597
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, tet Maar of Merseyburg, I think, and who talked

598
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 2: about the the undead, the zombies going to church.

599
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: Uh so.

600
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 2: Also, the tommy knockers did not like when miners whistled

601
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 2: and did not like being spied on. Sometimes miners would

602
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 2: be overcome by curiosity and would want to watch the

603
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 2: tommy knockers work and spy on them.

604
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, frequent thing not to do with the fair folk.

605
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: Do not go spying on them. Don't want you to. Right.

606
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 2: Despite being the ghosts of people, they were described as

607
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 2: having many things in common with other she figures, such

608
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 2: as elves and fairies. So this is something I think

609
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:16,399
Speaker 2: I'll probably mention several times here. There's a fuzziness about

610
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 2: whether are these ghosts of people or are they like

611
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 2: another species, these these she beings, these fairy folk. And

612
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 2: I think that question is just sort of hard to

613
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 2: answer because I think often there actually was a blurriness

614
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 2: between these concepts. These fairy folk were often said in

615
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 2: one way to actually be spirits of people from long ago,

616
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: even though they were treated as basically a magical species

617
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 2: that wasn't quite human. James explains this fuzziness by saying, quote,

618
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 2: thus the she the above the above. Ground fairies of

619
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 2: Ireland are often associated with the ancient tribes displaced by

620
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 2: the Celts. The Tommy Knockers can be understood as underground

621
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 2: elves who acted the array of legends and beliefs associated

622
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 2: with ancient Jewish miners. Like many other European supernatural beings,

623
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 2: the Tommy Knockers show a muddling of the distinction between ghosts,

624
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 2: particularly the long dead, and elves. So, yeah, it could

625
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 2: be a kind of collision of different traditions here. Maybe

626
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 2: you've got an underground elf like creature or fairy type

627
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 2: creature who lives in the mines, and then you also

628
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 2: have this folklore tradition, this story about Jewish miners in

629
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:33,799
Speaker 2: Cornwall and people long ago, and then people just kind

630
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:38,760
Speaker 2: of combine these stories. Yeah, So what did the original

631
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 2: Cornish Knockers do well? It seems a lot of the

632
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:45,279
Speaker 2: stories about them focused on their reactions to the behavior

633
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 2: of human miners. Usually, if you were respectful to them

634
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 2: and you were well behaved, you treated them with courtesy

635
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 2: and you obeyed the general rules of good behavior, they

636
00:36:57,520 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 2: would either leave you alone, or they would even be

637
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 2: very hell helpful. They might lead you to riches. But

638
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 2: if you were nasty or neglectful to the spirits, or

639
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 2: if you were just a bad person in one way

640
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 2: or another, the knockers would get revenge. There are a

641
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 2: number of stories featured here. I'm going to mention a

642
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 2: few that James brings up. There's the story of the

643
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 2: Cornish miner Tom Trevorro collected by William Battrell in the

644
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. So in this story, Tom for some reason

645
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 2: got angry at the knockers in the mine, and he

646
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 2: ordered them to be quiet. In fact, he spoke harshly

647
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 2: to them, saying that if they did not shut up,

648
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 2: he would quote scat their brains out. Also, Tom is

649
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 2: having some supper in the mine or around the mine,

650
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 2: and his supper is a kind of Cornish baked good

651
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 2: called a fuggin fugga n which appears to be some

652
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 2: kind of heavy cake or pastry, maybe often packed with

653
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 2: meat inside. They wanted some, He refused to share his

654
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 2: food with them, and this was also a no no

655
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 2: because sharing a food offering with hobgoblins, brownies and other

656
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,800
Speaker 2: household spirits was a common practice in the British Isles.

657
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 2: You might set out a dish of milk by the

658
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 2: hearth for the hobgoblin or the household spirit. And so

659
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 2: the knockers they sing in a rhyme to Tom. They say,

660
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: Tom Trevoro, Tom Trevoro, leave some of the fuggin for

661
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 2: bucca or bad luck to thee tomorrow. I think it's

662
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 2: kind of rhyming Trevoro with tomorrow. By the way, Bucca

663
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 2: b u c c A is another type of Cornish spirit,

664
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 2: which is occasionally associated with minds, but more often with

665
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 2: the sea. Actually here there seems to be some overlap

666
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 2: between the Bucka and the knockers, but they're both again

667
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:47,800
Speaker 2: mythical beings that can kind of blur together. Anyway, The

668
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 2: knockers or the Bucka, they want some of that cake.

669
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,839
Speaker 2: But Tom is like, no, this is my cake. And

670
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 2: the knockers said again, Tommy Trevoro, Tommy Trevoro, will send

671
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 2: thee bad luck tomorrow, old curmudgeon, eat all they fuggin'

672
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 2: and not leave a digeon for bucca. Digon means a

673
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 2: little piece, I think, like a crumb. But still he

674
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 2: refused so the knockers cursed him, and after that he

675
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 2: had no luck finding riches in the mines, and then

676
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 2: James says, quote in desperation, he took up farming. A

677
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 2: despised fate for a Cornish miner.

678
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: Folks, We've said it time and time again, always tip

679
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 1: your goblin.

680
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 2: How hungry are you that you can't even spare a

681
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 2: digeon for bucca?

682
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:34,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a digon, that's all he's asking for.

683
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 2: So there's another story that's a famous one about a

684
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 2: guy named Barker who discovers an old mine with an

685
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 2: opening where he can watch the knockers working below. Yeah,

686
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 2: that's uh oh, that's how you get into trouble. He

687
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 2: believes that they can't see him, they don't know he's there,

688
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 2: so he spies on them until the end of work

689
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 2: one day, at which point the knockers each start calling

690
00:39:57,440 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 2: out that they're going to leave a tool. You know,

691
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave my hammer on the on the chair,

692
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 2: you know, saying where they're gonna leave a tool, And

693
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,720
Speaker 2: then finally the last one says, I'll put my hammer

694
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 2: on Barker's knee, And suddenly Barker felt a great pain

695
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 2: in the knee, and he was never able to walk

696
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:14,760
Speaker 2: on that leg again.

697
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:15,720
Speaker 1: Wow.

698
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 2: So the knockers knew he had been spying, and they

699
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 2: punished his curiosity. And so among the Cornish miners, if

700
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 2: you had arthritis, you could say, I'm as stiff as

701
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 2: Barker's knee. That was the kind of saying. Another legend,

702
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 2: recorded by Robert Hunt, has elements of both reward and punishment.

703
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 2: This time the punishment is for greed. So the story

704
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 2: goes like this, An old Cornish miner and his son

705
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 2: named Trendw witnessed knockers hauling very good ore up to

706
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 2: the surface of a mine that they haunted, and the

707
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 2: miners made a deal with the knockers. If the miners

708
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:53,839
Speaker 2: could be allowed to work the knocker's mind, they would

709
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 2: give the knockers ten percent of their profits. The knockers agreed,

710
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 2: and things went well until there died and left Trendw

711
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 2: in charge. His son, Trenwith, is described in the story

712
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 2: as selfish and avaricious, and he decides he's going to

713
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 2: cheat the knockers and keep all the profit for himself.

714
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 2: That's such a bad idea. The knockers, of course, they

715
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 2: know that he did that. They curse him, and he

716
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 2: loses all his luck, and then quote he took to drink,

717
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 2: squandered all the money his father had made, and died

718
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 2: a beggar. Interesting thing. In several of the stories here,

719
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 2: the Knocker's magical attack against offenders and enemies is not

720
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 2: a direct attack but an attack on luck. You cross

721
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 2: them and you will henceforth have bad luck in the mine,

722
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 2: or just bad luck in general. So now that you've

723
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 2: crossed the Knockers, you are just rolling natural ones on

724
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 2: all your attempts to find valuable caches and veins, and

725
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 2: usually this ends up with you having to leave mining

726
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 2: as a profession and end up in some other revolting fate,

727
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,760
Speaker 2: apparently including farming. But this brings us to the second

728
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 2: part of the story, which is the question of how

729
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 2: the characteristics of the Tommy Knocker legend change when it

730
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 2: is carried over into new locales and new cultures. So,

731
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, lots of Cornish people immigrated to

732
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 2: the United States, where they became very important in the

733
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 2: fledgling Western mining industry, despite their relatively small proportion to

734
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 2: the overall workforce. This immigration was in part driven by

735
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 2: economic changes, apparently at the end of the Napoleonic Wars

736
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 2: in eighteen fifteen, there was a substantial decline in the

737
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 2: price of copper and ten, the two metals that formed

738
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 2: the backbone of the Cornish mining industry, and also after

739
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 2: thousands of years of mining, at this point many of

740
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 2: the most exploitable known deposits had already been heavily extracted,

741
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 2: so you know, you've got your depleting caches and the

742
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 2: price is going down. On top of that, Beginning in

743
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 2: the eighteen twenties, there was a general economic depression in

744
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 2: Southwest England that affected basically everyone, whatever their trade. So

745
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:09,839
Speaker 2: metal mining in Cornwall appeared to be a declining prospect,

746
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 2: but experienced mine workers could take their skills to new opportunities,

747
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 2: such as digging tin and copper in Michigan in the

748
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 2: United States, or digging for gold or other medals in California, Colorado, Utah, Montana,

749
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,760
Speaker 2: and so Cornish immigrant miners in the Western United States

750
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 2: were often called cousin Jack's. I think the origin story

751
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 2: of this is that, you know, the boss at the

752
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 2: mine would say we need more workers, you know, can

753
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 2: you bring some more people like you? And they would say, yeah,

754
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: I've got a cousin jack back in Cornwall we could

755
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 2: bring over. Now, note that there were different extraction methods

756
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:50,160
Speaker 2: used at the time for various metals. There was placer mining,

757
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 2: which is where you're searching for ore and maybe loose

758
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 2: gravel or soil in a stream bed, open pit mining,

759
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 2: and then also underground hard rock mining tunneling mining, and

760
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 2: the latter was the method with which the Cornish had

761
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:09,320
Speaker 2: the most valuable experience. Other forms of mining could better

762
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,720
Speaker 2: make use of inexperienced labor in say an open pit mine.

763
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 2: And it's interesting I think that the type of mining

764
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: with which the Cornish had relevant experience, deep hard rock

765
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:25,360
Speaker 2: tunneling is the kind that is facially at least most

766
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 2: likely to give rise to legends and supernatural beings for

767
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 2: the obvious environmental reasons. You've got dark, creepy tunnels, echoes

768
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 2: and bizarre sound phenomena, and also lethal dangers due to

769
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 2: cave ins, gas and all kinds of stuff.

770
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like the full array of sensory experiences

771
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: and yet dangers that are going to really sort of

772
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:52,760
Speaker 1: pressure cook any kind of belief.

773
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so as a result of the way they

774
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 2: fit into the need for the mining labor force. The

775
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 2: Cornish culture actually contributed greatly to the emerging mine labor

776
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 2: culture of the American West, and James mentions a bunch

777
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 2: of stuff here, such as cuisine. Apparently there was in

778
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 2: the mining West there was a big popularity of Cornish pasties,

779
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:17,440
Speaker 2: which is a type of savory turnover, often filled with

780
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 2: meat and vegetables. And this wasn't just with the Cornish,

781
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 2: and it's became popular with miners of all ethnic backgrounds.

782
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 2: There was a techno culture that was imported where mines

783
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 2: in the American West used a particular kind of water

784
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 2: pump that was common in Cornish mines. There's something called

785
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 2: Cornish wrestling popular among Western miners. I didn't have time

786
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 2: to look that up, so I don't know how that's

787
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 2: different from other wrestling.

788
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: I mean, just about every culture has some variation of

789
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: a wrestling tradition, and yeah, it makes sense that the

790
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:50,239
Speaker 1: Cornish would have one as well.

791
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 2: But then, of course the belief in the Tommy knockers,

792
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 2: and so after this in the paper, James goes into

793
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 2: this extensive review of like what other scholars have written

794
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 2: about the belief in mine inhabiting spirits in the American West,

795
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:10,240
Speaker 2: including California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and Montana, and the extent

796
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 2: to which those spirits are related to the imported Tommy

797
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 2: Knocker lore, also to the extent that the legends are related,

798
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 2: how the Tommy Knocker lore seems to have evolved in

799
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 2: its new context. So I'm not going to mention everything

800
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:26,920
Speaker 2: that James covers in this regard, but I want to

801
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 2: discuss some highlights that struck me. First of all, in

802
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 2: the American West, there was some diversity of forms. Sometimes

803
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:38,320
Speaker 2: American Tommy knockers were thought to be benign, even helpful,

804
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 2: leading miners to valuable bodies of ore, like you would

805
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 2: follow the tapping sound and that would lead you to

806
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,879
Speaker 2: claim great riches. Other times, the Tommy knockers represented a

807
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 2: sinister threat within the mine, and the tapping sound that

808
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 2: they made actually spelled doom, indicating that a cave in

809
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:01,319
Speaker 2: was imminent. So you've got exactly opposite things indicated by

810
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 2: hearing the tapping.

811
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is it a blessing or a curse? Yeah?

812
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 2: Maybe the sound makes you rich, Maybe it's telling you

813
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 2: you are about to die.

814
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

815
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 2: Sometimes it was even said that the time. This seems

816
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:13,759
Speaker 2: from what I can tell to be less common, but

817
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 2: sometimes it was said that the Tommy Knockers, or a

818
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 2: malicious sub type of knocker called Devil Tommy Knockers, caused death,

819
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:27,359
Speaker 2: caused cave ins, falling rocks, and timbers, tunnel collapses, things

820
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,320
Speaker 2: like that. So not just foretelling your doom, but making

821
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 2: it happen. And this malicious quality survived in some miner's

822
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 2: lore even after the Tommy Knocker legend itself died. The

823
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 2: folklorist Carolyn Bancroft recorded a saying in the Minds of

824
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 2: Colorado that dangerous falling rocks were caused by an entity

825
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: called not a Tommy Knocker, but the guy in the

826
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 2: red shirto. I thought that was a little spooky.

827
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of calls back, at least vaguely to

828
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:57,879
Speaker 1: the idea of a red cap, because how that shirt

829
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 1: gets so red?

830
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 3: I have suspicions.

831
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:29,840
Speaker 2: So Confusingly, In some communities, miners use the term Tommy

832
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:34,160
Speaker 2: knocker to refer to not a being, but to tapping

833
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:38,279
Speaker 2: signals that miners would use to intentionally communicate with each other,

834
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:41,320
Speaker 2: like I'm Tommy knocking to, you know, send a signal.

835
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 2: Other times, the mischief of Tommy knockers was used to

836
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 2: explain any weird occurrence within the mine, a missing tool,

837
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 2: a malfunctioning piece of equipment. This they're kind of like

838
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 2: grimlins in this regard. They could be represented by little

839
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 2: clay effigies that miners may or had made for them

840
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 2: and would leave near the entrance of a mine, and

841
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 2: the tradition of giving little food offerings to the knockers

842
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 2: sometimes did continue in the American context, though not everywhere.

843
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:14,799
Speaker 2: So you might leave a pastry or a bit of

844
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 2: tallow in front of one of these clay effigies near

845
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 2: the entrance to a mine, that's giving it to the

846
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 2: knockers as a you know, hey, I'm doing my part.

847
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 2: I'm giving you a tip. Please treat me well. And

848
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 2: what seems like a big difference between the American version

849
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 2: and the Cornish version is the origin story. This idea

850
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 2: about ancient Jewish miners sent in the Middle Ages or

851
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 2: sent by the Romans, that's gone in the American context.

852
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:43,719
Speaker 2: In the American West, the knockers were usually just said

853
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 2: to be the ghosts of dead miners. References to Tommy

854
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 2: Knockers appear in newspapers throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

855
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 2: and I want to read one funny example from eighteen

856
00:49:56,200 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 2: eighty four in the Evening Chronicle of Virginia City, Nevada,

857
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:02,760
Speaker 2: that James includes. So here's the article.

858
00:50:02,840 --> 00:50:03,240
Speaker 3: Quote.

859
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:06,279
Speaker 2: Last night, two men who were prowling around in the

860
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 2: Baltimore mine at American Flat got scared nearly out of

861
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 2: the township by the queer sights in an old drift.

862
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 2: They went into the mine for the purpose of seeing

863
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 2: whether there was or enough in sight to profitably extract

864
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 2: on tribute. Climbing into a stope, they heard the click

865
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 2: of hammers and were much surprised, as they supposed no

866
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,720
Speaker 2: one had been there in years. Following up the sound,

867
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 2: they were astonished to see two striking hammers work on

868
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,800
Speaker 2: the head of a rusty drill, which was deftly turned

869
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:39,319
Speaker 2: by unseen hands. And though not a soul was in

870
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 2: sight except themselves, they heard a lively conversation but could

871
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 2: make out no words. They looked and listened for some minutes,

872
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 2: when fear took hold of them and they ran out

873
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 2: of the mine quickly. At the toolhouse, they related their

874
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 2: experience and were laughed at, But to prove that their

875
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 2: heads were clear, they conducted a couple of skeptics to

876
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 2: the spot and found the hammer still at work. The

877
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 2: men insisted that they did not deceive themselves, and those

878
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 2: who went with them say that the above statements are facts.

879
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 2: I love how no names are given. There is also

880
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 2: a newspaper story from Virginia City, Nevada of miners who

881
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 2: see a floating lantern going up and down a mine

882
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 2: shaft and they think, oh, it's being carried by an

883
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 2: invisible spirit. That must be a Tommy knocker. But they

884
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 2: later discover there's a practical explanation here. The superintendent of

885
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:32,880
Speaker 2: the mine was plumbing the shaft with a lantern dangling

886
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 2: from a wire, and the slow is going up and

887
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 2: down and they're like, that's a ghost. James also talks

888
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 2: about fiction of the time, which you can find a

889
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 2: bunch of examples of fiction incorporating these types of folk beliefs.

890
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 2: So they're nineteenth century stories and novels that mention the

891
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 2: Tommy knockers and the mines. But a main change to

892
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,360
Speaker 2: Hammer Home, apart from the origin story change is also

893
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 2: the distinction of the subtle shift, and it is somewhat

894
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 2: subtle from elf like beings to ghosts. This again is

895
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 2: confusing because in the Cornish context, these elf like beings

896
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,439
Speaker 2: are said to be the spirits of humans from long ago,

897
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 2: but are treated less like human souls and more like

898
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:18,400
Speaker 2: an elf for kind of otherworldly being a different species.

899
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 2: I think again, there's just some fuzziness here that goes

900
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 2: back a long long time in what exactly elves are,

901
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 2: and some elf like qualities remained in these later American tellings,

902
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:33,359
Speaker 2: for example the clay effigies that seems to be more

903
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 2: like the elves or the gnomes than human ghosts, and

904
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 2: of course the tradition of food offerings is more like

905
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 2: the Cornish form. Another major change in the tradition is

906
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 2: what the spirits did for the miners. The Cornish knocker

907
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:52,760
Speaker 2: legends are much more moralistic. The Tommy Knockers reward good

908
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:57,400
Speaker 2: moral qualities in miners and they punish wickedness. Meanwhile, in

909
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:01,239
Speaker 2: the American context, there is essentially no moralism. There's no

910
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:04,799
Speaker 2: rewarding good and punishing evil. There's a little bit of

911
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:08,360
Speaker 2: you know, appeasement, rewarding if you give them the food

912
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 2: offerings with the effigies, but there's no real moral quality

913
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 2: consideration in how they behave towards you instead, the relationship

914
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 2: is just transactional and practical. What the Tommy Knocker primarily

915
00:53:21,239 --> 00:53:24,959
Speaker 2: does in America is in either a helpful or sinister way,

916
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:30,560
Speaker 2: it warns miners of imminent danger. And James explains this

917
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 2: in part by appealing to the idea of different moral

918
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 2: cultural environments where these legends propagate. He says, in traditional

919
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 2: Cornish culture, excessive greed, ambition, and curiosity are policed and punished.

920
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 2: The moral of these stories is do not be too greedy,

921
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 2: take your fair share, don't be too curious or inquisitive,

922
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:58,600
Speaker 2: mind your own business. And in talking about this, James

923
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 2: draws on a framework I'm an author named George Foster

924
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 2: to describe this as a morality based on the concept

925
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 2: of limited good and this is a common way of

926
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 2: thinking in many cultures, where it essentially views the world

927
00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 2: as a kind of closed, zero sum system, where being

928
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:20,799
Speaker 2: a good person is equated with a kind of egalitarian humility,

929
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:24,480
Speaker 2: where you know, one of the main things that's discouraged

930
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 2: is when people attempt to quote major change in their

931
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: economic or other statuses, and the underlying assumption behind that

932
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:36,680
Speaker 2: discouragement is my gain would be everyone else's loss. So

933
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:41,240
Speaker 2: you know, there's a limited good. American culture was very different,

934
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:46,280
Speaker 2: almost the opposite. There was a culture of admiring acquisitiveness

935
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:51,359
Speaker 2: and ambition and curiosity, a worldview that is not zero sum,

936
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:54,799
Speaker 2: limited good, but a positive sum world where it's good

937
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:57,879
Speaker 2: for people to achieve, to go out and achieve all

938
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 2: the success they can and it it doesn't necessarily hurt

939
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 2: anyone else for them to do. So, you know, I

940
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 2: was thinking about this. I think obviously there can in

941
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 2: reality be some insight in both world views. Of course,

942
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 2: it is true that there can be positive some interactions,

943
00:55:14,320 --> 00:55:17,360
Speaker 2: and one person's success doesn't have to come at somebody

944
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:20,439
Speaker 2: else's suffering. You can like create wealth, you can add

945
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:23,919
Speaker 2: new value to the world. Then again, sometimes success does

946
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 2: come at somebody else's suffering. And when we are racing

947
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:30,760
Speaker 2: towards success, mad with ambition, it's easy to be blind

948
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:34,280
Speaker 2: to the ways that our gain actually is somebody else's loss.

949
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:37,279
Speaker 2: And so like having stories in place to make you

950
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 2: think about that is actually valuable.

951
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I can't help but think about all this

952
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,919
Speaker 1: within the context of like a strict mining culture too.

953
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,799
Speaker 1: Like it, I wonder if it makes sense that the

954
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: Cornish traditionally, you know, had this emphasis because you're a

955
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: tight knit crew, you depend on each other in a

956
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 1: dangerous environment, and maybe there is more of a sense

957
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: of like, you know, nobody's stand out, nobody go for

958
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: personal glory because we all have to depend on each other.

959
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:04,279
Speaker 3: Here.

960
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot to that, absolutely, So

961
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:12,279
Speaker 2: the American forms of the Tommy Knocker legend lose the

962
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 2: moralistic message. The moralistic message discouraging greed and curiosity. In

963
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:21,560
Speaker 2: the American context, greed and curiosity are just fine, but

964
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,879
Speaker 2: you need to take practical steps to protect yourself from

965
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 2: economic loss and mortal danger. So the knocker becomes a

966
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 2: source of practical problems in the form of sabotage and pranks,

967
00:56:34,719 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 2: or of information of omens about practical problems such as

968
00:56:38,560 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 2: deadly accidents. To quote James here quote, the Tommy Knockers

969
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:45,719
Speaker 2: were omens of danger, giving the miners something on which

970
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:50,280
Speaker 2: to focus their interpretations of subtle signs of cave ins.

971
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:54,760
Speaker 2: The miners could not necessarily distinguish between the diverse subtle

972
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 2: sounds in the mind, and failed to realize consciously that

973
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 2: when the timbers of the mine moaned one way, it

974
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,760
Speaker 2: was safe but when the mines echoed with another sound,

975
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:09,040
Speaker 2: it meant danger. Much of nineteenth century mining expertise was

976
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 2: based on experience, not science. As late as the nineteen thirties,

977
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 2: George Orwell was able to observe English miners relying on

978
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 2: the quote feel of the mine. And then here it

979
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 2: quotes Orwell. I love this passage. An experienced miner claims

980
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 2: to know by a sort of instinct when the roof

981
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 2: is unsafe. The way he puts it is that he

982
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 2: can feel the weight upon him. He can, for instance,

983
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 2: hear the faint creaking of the props. The reason why

984
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 2: wooden props are still generally preferred to iron girders is

985
00:57:40,680 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 2: that a wooden prop which is about to collapse gives

986
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 2: a warning by creaking, whereas a girder flies out unexpectedly.

987
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:51,120
Speaker 2: The devastating noise of the machines makes it impossible to

988
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:55,680
Speaker 2: hear anything else. Thus the danger is increasing. So I

989
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 2: love this. This is something we've talked about before. Supernatural

990
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:04,040
Speaker 2: beings in imagined as the physical embodiment of sensory intuitions.

991
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 2: So I have some experience in an environment, and thus

992
00:58:08,560 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 2: I can associate subtle sensory cues with coming effects. But

993
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 2: this association is a little bit below my ability to

994
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 2: consciously put it into words. So instead, there's some kind

995
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 2: of being that is here giving me a warning.

996
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:29,200
Speaker 1: Right, right, So reframe this insight is information coming from

997
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: some external source.

998
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:34,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in the American context, the Tommy Knocker legend

999
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 2: is about practical warnings, which is something that it has

1000
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 2: in part in common with the Cornish version. But this

1001
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:45,320
Speaker 2: is the only emphasis now, no longer the moralistic enforcement,

1002
00:58:45,680 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 2: it's the practical warnings. And I think this type of

1003
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:53,919
Speaker 2: subconscious awareness of sensory cues in the mind that makes

1004
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 2: a lot of sense as to like what where those

1005
00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 2: practical signals are actually coming from. I mean, other times

1006
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 2: it might just be your imagine, but in some cases

1007
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 2: it could seem to be actually quite prescient because you're

1008
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 2: relying on like little sounds you're hearing, feeling the weight

1009
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 2: upon you. Also interesting how technological changes over the history

1010
00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 2: of mining could have contributed to changes in the Tommy

1011
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 2: Knocker lore or the decline of lore altogether. There are

1012
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 2: a number of things to mention here. I'm thinking about

1013
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 2: how Orwell calls out the sound of the heavy machinery

1014
00:59:27,040 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 2: making you no longer sensitive to those little creeks that

1015
00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 2: give you the four warnings. So the sound of the

1016
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 2: machines may have changed the environment of the minds in

1017
00:59:36,040 --> 00:59:39,479
Speaker 2: other ways to become less conducive. To Tommy knocker lore,

1018
00:59:39,680 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 2: I bet a quieter mine is eerier if you don't

1019
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 2: have stuff like, you know, loudly thrumbing in your ear.

1020
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 2: If you've got a somewhat quieter mind, where small sounds

1021
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:53,439
Speaker 2: can echo and propagate more easily and don't get drowned out,

1022
00:59:54,080 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 2: I would just suspect that makes you think that there

1023
00:59:56,520 --> 00:59:58,400
Speaker 2: are creatures about.

1024
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:00,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean one of the the things we're

1025
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:03,560
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before is the sensory deprivation

1026
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 1: in these environments, and that includes sound, and yeah, you're

1027
01:00:06,760 --> 01:00:09,960
Speaker 1: hearing less, you're hearing strange echoes, and it can take

1028
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:13,000
Speaker 1: on all sorts of strange life in your head. But

1029
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 1: as we're discussing here, it could also give you the

1030
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: ability to pick up on these little changes that can

1031
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: be detected via human hearing.

1032
01:00:21,320 --> 01:00:24,280
Speaker 2: Another thing that James calls out is this might seem

1033
01:00:24,360 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 2: very simple, but I think there's a lot to it.

1034
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 2: The replacement of lanterns with electric lighting, making minds less gloomy,

1035
01:00:31,240 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 2: you know, the electric lights in the mind. That's a

1036
01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 2: different environment.

1037
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean you can just think of movies for this,

1038
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:40,560
Speaker 1: Like what cave set looks better the gloomy caves set,

1039
01:00:40,560 --> 01:00:44,520
Speaker 1: the gloomy tunnel set, not the fully illuminated one. If

1040
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:46,880
Speaker 1: you can just completely flood the chamber with light, that

1041
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 1: takes away a little bit of its mystery. Right.

1042
01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 2: One more thing I thought was interesting is that James

1043
01:00:53,520 --> 01:00:57,880
Speaker 2: introduces a framework for thinking about how these stories change

1044
01:00:57,920 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 2: when they come across the Atlantic by citing a skull

1045
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 2: named Stephen Stern who talks about common patterns in how

1046
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:08,280
Speaker 2: legends and oral traditions change when the tellers immigrate to

1047
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:11,919
Speaker 2: new lands. According to Stern, there are there are very

1048
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 2: common patterns. So when somebody moves from one place to

1049
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:18,600
Speaker 2: another and takes oral traditions with them, and this is

1050
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 2: how the traditions tend to change. Quote from longer to shorter,

1051
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 2: from complex to simple, from sacred to secular, from supernatural

1052
01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:34,280
Speaker 2: to realistic, from communal to individualistic. I think you can

1053
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:36,240
Speaker 2: see a lot of those, maybe not all of them,

1054
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 2: but a lot of those elements and the changes that

1055
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:40,080
Speaker 2: occur with the Tommy Knocker legend.

1056
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they seem to be this shift from presence

1057
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:46,680
Speaker 1: the communal to the individualistic. Yeah, going from this is

1058
01:01:46,720 --> 01:01:48,440
Speaker 1: this thing that we all know about and we all

1059
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 1: believe too. This is that thing that you know, old

1060
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:53,320
Speaker 1: Tom told me about. He keeps talking about this.

1061
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:57,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also that on that count, the individualistic versus communal,

1062
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 2: the shift away from the limited good more that says like,

1063
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:03,560
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just going to stay at as a

1064
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:07,000
Speaker 2: peer with my coworkers here. I'm not going to try

1065
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 2: to strike out and do a lot better than them.

1066
01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:12,400
Speaker 2: To this American context where it's like, you know, if

1067
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:14,360
Speaker 2: you can, if you can find a vein and get

1068
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:17,320
Speaker 2: the richest, that's great, but you better watch out for

1069
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 2: the cave in. So that's all I've got on the

1070
01:02:20,200 --> 01:02:23,120
Speaker 2: Tommy Knocker legend. But I think we will have a

1071
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 2: lot more to talk about with mining spirits and entities

1072
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 2: in the tunnels for the next episode.

1073
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:33,440
Speaker 1: That's right, we'll come back with some more European examples,

1074
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:37,440
Speaker 1: but also some non European examples of entities associated with

1075
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Speaker 1: the minds. All right. As always, will remind you that

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and

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Speaker 1: culture podcast. With core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short

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Speaker 1: form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside

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Speaker 1: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film

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Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

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Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

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Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode any other, to suggest a

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Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

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Speaker 2: can email us at contact stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 2: dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.