Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick. And hey it's still October, so
Speaker 2: our Halloween season stuff continues.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: We're kicking off an expedition into the mind Shaft to
Speaker 2: talk about monsters and spooky legends associated with minds and mining.
Speaker 1: That's right, this one should be a fun one. We're
Speaker 1: going to be especially in this episode, we're kind of
Speaker 1: revisiting some ideas that we've discussed more briefly in the past.
Speaker 1: I did a monster fact that touched on some of this,
Speaker 1: and we've also talked a little bit. We've gone a
Speaker 1: little bit into the minds in search of the supernatural
Speaker 1: beings and traditions, but we haven't really melted an expedition
Speaker 1: on this level before. So yeah, this one should be good. So,
Speaker 1: as we've covered on the show before, whenever humans venture
Speaker 1: where they don't quite belong, they inevitably encounter monsters of
Speaker 1: one form or another. There are monsters of the deep
Speaker 1: forest and the deep ocean, of the desert and the snow,
Speaker 1: and there are monsters too that haunt places of human construction,
Speaker 1: obviously our tombs, the necropolis, even spaces like empty bathrooms
Speaker 1: at night and lonely expanses of country road. These places
Speaker 1: too may be home to monsters and monstrous spirits and
Speaker 1: other entities, each in their own way. These are all
Speaker 1: places of mystery, and the monster is in some ways
Speaker 1: an answer to that mystery. And in discussing monsters, ghosts,
Speaker 1: and legends associated with mining, we're dealing with a very
Speaker 1: fascinating environment because on one level, the solid earth beneath
Speaker 1: our feet or deep within the heart of a mountain
Speaker 1: is exactly the sort of place where we do not belong.
Speaker 1: It's either we're talking about the grave, or we're just
Speaker 1: talking about solid earth that affords us no place to exist.
Speaker 1: Or another level, a cavern or other natural or artificial
Speaker 1: formation in the earth, some sort of hollow in the
Speaker 1: earth that we might venture into. And so, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed in the show before, caves have of course long
Speaker 1: been a place of fascination for humans, well back through
Speaker 1: prehistoric times. From what we can tell, they seem to
Speaker 1: have been places that offered a number of resources and ideas.
Speaker 1: They might offer shelter, water, warmth, and even in limited
Speaker 1: ways food. There were also places of strange sights and sounds,
Speaker 1: places to speak to the future or learn from the
Speaker 1: past through art, and of course, to venture farther into
Speaker 1: the caverns was to court additional dangers. Then, as now,
Speaker 1: you could become lost, stuck, or just overcome by deprivation
Speaker 1: of the senses. And humans also learned pretty early on
Speaker 1: that these subterranean spaces could also offer substances of additional
Speaker 1: value to them, such as red ochre or flint and
Speaker 1: other hard rocks and ultimately copper and gold. Now, to
Speaker 1: get these resources, humans sometimes had to brave the depths
Speaker 1: of the Earth, not only descending into naturally occurring openings,
Speaker 1: but forging their own tunnels and pits mines for the
Speaker 1: harvesting of Earth's riches. Now, we can't summarize the history
Speaker 1: of mining in much detail for these episodes, but suffice
Speaker 1: to say that the enterprise became increasingly complicated and daring.
Speaker 1: Humans cut deeper and deeper into the earth, and in
Speaker 1: doing so perpetually faced safety challenges. Mining could prove really
Speaker 1: dangerous work, and this was of course coupled with the
Speaker 1: ominous atmosphere of the mind, a world of darkness of
Speaker 1: strange sights and strange sounds. Again, sensory deprivation that could
Speaker 1: bring on sights and sounds that are not quite real,
Speaker 1: hallucinations both visual and auditory. And on top of this,
Speaker 1: there was this seeming proximity to these very traditions of
Speaker 1: the underworld, traditions regarding some sort of a mythic underground
Speaker 1: world that date back at least to ancient Mesopotamia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, And in many ancient cosmologies, you know,
Speaker 2: the underworld was. It wasn't a metaphor, it was like
Speaker 2: often literally thought to be beneath your feet in some sense,
Speaker 2: you would go down to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like where we go when we die? Underground? Where
Speaker 1: are we going today to get these precious metals? We're
Speaker 1: going underground? Kind of a daring prospect. And I do
Speaker 1: want to stress though that if you know, in the
Speaker 1: future we may discuss will inevitably discuss mining adjacent topics
Speaker 1: at least even if we don't do a deep dive
Speaker 1: in the mining. And obviously you don't always have to
Speaker 1: cut an artificial cave or tunnel into the earth to
Speaker 1: mine things. But of course that's the model that is
Speaker 1: going to factor into many of the examples we're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing here today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we can talk about some more practical distinctions
Speaker 2: between different types of mining as we go on through
Speaker 2: this series. But it does seem to me, based and
Speaker 2: what I've read so far, that tunnel mining that does
Speaker 2: go down into caverns and tunnels beneath the surface is
Speaker 2: the type of mining that gives the most rise to
Speaker 2: the belief in supernatural entities and beings there is. It
Speaker 2: seems to me, there is less less monstrous, less ghostly,
Speaker 2: less spiritual associated with say open pit mining or placer mining,
Speaker 2: where you know, you're you're sifting a sediment from a
Speaker 2: stream bed or and things like that. Probably just because
Speaker 2: you know there you're open to the sky. It's just
Speaker 2: less eerie and it is less likely to conjure you know,
Speaker 2: kind of spooky eerie feelings for a number of reasons
Speaker 2: that we can discuss as.
Speaker 1: We go on, right and then and then all sorts
Speaker 1: of additional dangers that don't exist if you're doing an
Speaker 1: open pit mine, or you're you know, if you're standing
Speaker 1: in the stream that sort of thing. Now we've we've
Speaker 1: been thrown around a few different terms here spirits and monsters.
Speaker 1: Many of the traditions that we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about concern beings that fall roughly into a category that
Speaker 1: may often be described as fairies or fair folk, And
Speaker 1: as Carol Rose the Folklorus writes in her works, you know,
Speaker 1: they might be thought of as beings that exist between
Speaker 1: heroes and the gods. Folkloris Charlotte Sophie Byrne described them
Speaker 1: in her nineteen fourteen book The Handbook of Folklore as
Speaker 1: quote various races of beings not human and yet not divine,
Speaker 1: who are supposed to share this lower earth more or
Speaker 1: less invisibly with mankind. And I really like that definition
Speaker 1: more or less invisibly, because you know, sometimes we talk
Speaker 1: about them being fair or invisible, but other times we
Speaker 1: talk about how they are small, you know, they're like
Speaker 1: the leprechaun. And sometimes this ends up just taking on,
Speaker 1: you know, the pure idea of them being very small
Speaker 1: in stature or being miniature people. But I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this over the weekend that it is also it's
Speaker 1: like they just have a different spatial reality, like they
Speaker 1: live in different spatial dimensions and they can fold themselves
Speaker 1: in and out of those spaces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're sometimes conceived as having a subtle form, one
Speaker 2: that is only lightly detectable to our senses. Other times
Speaker 2: they're pictured more as being often hidden but occasionally coming
Speaker 2: out into view. But yeah, it fits well with this
Speaker 2: idea of, you know, like a later science fiction idea
Speaker 2: of extra dimensional beings phasing in and out of our reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that also speaks more to the
Speaker 1: power that's often attributed to them, because you know, if
Speaker 1: you're just dealing with very pop cultural leprechaun ideas, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they have some powers. They may be dangerous to some degree,
Speaker 1: but there's often a fair amount of danger associated with
Speaker 1: the fear folk traditions around the world. They have a
Speaker 1: lot of power, and you don't want to fall on
Speaker 1: their bad.
Speaker 2: Side, especially not in a mind right.
Speaker 1: Right, which you know, because that's one of the things too.
Speaker 1: It's like, once you're in the mind and we've been
Speaker 1: describing this environment to some degree already, like this is
Speaker 1: definitely a place where we don't belong, where we're most
Speaker 1: definitely infringing upon their world and their realm and their rules.
Speaker 1: So it's this sort of you know, mysterious or wild
Speaker 1: place they might be found. And their temperament is also
Speaker 1: always key because they might be anywhere from benevolent to malevolent,
Speaker 1: though they're often situated somewhere in between. They're not always
Speaker 1: right in the middle, so they might be largely benign.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe they can be wooed by humans, you know,
Speaker 1: with offerings and so forth, or they might just be
Speaker 1: very easily offended. And if you offend them, you know,
Speaker 1: they might just have a good laugh at your expense,
Speaker 1: or it might be the end of you. They might
Speaker 1: play a joke, but just how severe is that joke
Speaker 1: going to be?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because a prank with mining equipment, I mean that
Speaker 2: might be just a frustration and economic loss, but that
Speaker 2: might also be death.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we'll discuss. They'd be like, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be funny, what if we did all the
Speaker 1: humans work for them today? Yeahs, you just don't know
Speaker 1: exactly which way it's going to fall, right. So, just
Speaker 1: as there's a fair amount of variety and just how
Speaker 1: they're going to act towards humans, their exact origins very
Speaker 1: wildly as well, you know, including everything from the idea
Speaker 1: of them being transformed humans to personifications of natural phenomena
Speaker 1: and in some cases defeated elder races or even cast
Speaker 1: down gods. How whatever their origins are, generally they're cast
Speaker 1: in a place where there's some sort of friction that
Speaker 1: occurs between their world and our world, where these two
Speaker 1: worlds meet. All right, Given what we're going to be
Speaker 1: discussing here in this episode, I think it'd probably be
Speaker 1: helpful to start with a sort of predecessor, and that
Speaker 1: is the tradition of the Red Caps and the Blue Caps,
Speaker 1: both supernatural entities from the British Isles and to a
Speaker 1: certain degree elsewhere, you know, given the sort of the
Speaker 1: basic nature of these names.
Speaker 2: Now, these are not necessarily always or even often, in
Speaker 2: the case of the Red Cap, I understand, associated with minds,
Speaker 2: but they have important tie INDs, I say, I guess,
Speaker 2: especially the Blue Cap right right, right, And I think
Speaker 2: they're kind of like a nice example of how we
Speaker 2: have like the non mine related entity and then it
Speaker 2: can sort.
Speaker 1: Of easily shift towards the mind. You know, these are
Speaker 1: all ultimately I guess, ideas that we ended up taking
Speaker 1: with us, and then they changed with us depending on
Speaker 1: our work in these dangerous environments. Yeah, so in both
Speaker 1: of these cases we're talking about caps. We're talking about
Speaker 1: either like a literal cap that a creature is wearing
Speaker 1: on its head that is colored to a certain color, or
Speaker 1: it is something like a cap that you might think
Speaker 1: of more as a halo or an aura. But we
Speaker 1: just describe it as a cap because you know, basically
Speaker 1: it's relatable. Everybody has a cap. Everybody wears a cap
Speaker 1: from time to time, you know what we're talking about
Speaker 1: if we describe something in that in those terms. And
Speaker 1: then also they're just a wealth of traditions regarding caps
Speaker 1: that provide various powers or carry with them curses. So
Speaker 1: you know, caps are to a certain degree inherently magical,
Speaker 1: at least in you know, our magical thinking. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's start with the red cap, also known as bloody
Speaker 1: cap or red comb. This one is one that many
Speaker 1: of you are probably familiar with to some degree. I
Speaker 1: feel like I grew up looking through various folklore books
Speaker 1: that had pictures of or you know, the ideas of
Speaker 1: what this creature looked like. And as Carol Rose describes
Speaker 1: it in Spirits, Farries, leprechauns, and Goblins, the red cap
Speaker 1: in its English usage is a largely evil spirit, sometimes
Speaker 1: described as a hobgoblin originating in the full traditions of
Speaker 1: the English Scottish border country.
Speaker 2: I'm mainly familiar with the red cap from a D
Speaker 2: and D context, actually in Balder'sgate three, where they appear
Speaker 2: as like a vicious, disgusting little David the Gnome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be. That would be very viciousness. That
Speaker 1: seems key to how they depicted. They often appear as
Speaker 1: a hideous little old man in iron boots and a
Speaker 1: red blood soaked cap. So his cap is blood because
Speaker 1: he keeps like using it to soak up blood generally
Speaker 1: I guess, like human blood and then wearing it. It's
Speaker 1: not wearing it on its head, so pretty gross, pretty savage.
Speaker 1: Where do you find this entity? Well, it's said to
Speaker 1: haunt old ruins and sights of historic bloodshed, and if
Speaker 1: you venture near such places, it might just kill you,
Speaker 1: maybe all there is to it, and then use its
Speaker 1: cap to sop up your blood unless you recite scripture
Speaker 1: at it and drive and drive it away. It's also
Speaker 1: said that if the blood of this creature's cap ever dries,
Speaker 1: then it will shrivel up and die, so almost kind
Speaker 1: of a Kappa sensibility to it. In the sense that
Speaker 1: it has to keep some part of itself damp, but
Speaker 1: this time it has to keep itself damp with human blood.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting because here it's like the vampire legend.
Speaker 2: It's like the munster has a need of its own.
Speaker 2: It's not just reacting to what you do, like it
Speaker 2: needs blood and so it's eager to get your blood.
Speaker 2: It's not just punishing you for say, crossing the threshold
Speaker 2: of a ruined castle.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, this one is definitely more malicious than a
Speaker 1: lot of the you know, the more sort of neutral
Speaker 1: fear folk entities you'll encounter, Like this one is actively nasty.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned English traditions because there are also things
Speaker 1: called red caps and other traditions, like there's a Dutch
Speaker 1: tradition of the red cap, where the red cap is
Speaker 1: simply a helpful household spirit, not soopping up blood. And
Speaker 1: I should also point out there are a number of different
Speaker 1: variations of the English red cap tail, some of which
Speaker 1: connect the entity with the fourteenth century Scottish border noble
Speaker 1: William the Ti de sulis sometimes embellished as a villain
Speaker 1: who was tutored in the Black Arts with the imp
Speaker 1: robin redcap serving as is familiar, and in some accounts,
Speaker 1: this cruel lord is eventually boiled alive by the people
Speaker 1: who suffered under him. And I've also read versions where
Speaker 1: the Red Cap creature is encased in lead and boiled. WHOA.
Speaker 1: In reality, I'm to understand, Desiulis died in prison after
Speaker 1: allegedly playing in a part of his part in a
Speaker 1: conspiracy against King Robert the Bruce. All right, so that's
Speaker 1: red caps. Let's switch colors and let's go to Blue Caps,
Speaker 1: and this will get as closer to the mines. This
Speaker 1: is another spirit of English folklore, also known as the
Speaker 1: blue Bonnet, and this entity, according to Carol Rose, was
Speaker 1: said to reside deep within the earth, and you would
Speaker 1: only encounter it if you happen to venture down into
Speaker 1: the mines, you know, labored in the minds and reach
Speaker 1: some depth that humans would normally encounter. And so this
Speaker 1: entity is often invisible, but it also might manifest as
Speaker 1: a light blue flame, you know, this kind of like
Speaker 1: a low effect, thus its name. And this one wasn't
Speaker 1: nefarious at all, like very like polar opposite. Really compared
Speaker 1: to the Red Cap, the blue Cap would mimic human
Speaker 1: miners and sometimes put in a full day's work, so
Speaker 1: moving tubs of coal or around, and then the miners
Speaker 1: would leave out carefully calculated offerings for the blue caps
Speaker 1: in thanks for their practice. You know, So this is
Speaker 1: this one's kind of this one's This one really seems
Speaker 1: almost downright benevolent, and you would tip your blue cap
Speaker 1: and make sure that it kept occasionally doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as we're about to see, the blue cap
Speaker 2: legend here has a lot in common with other well
Speaker 2: explored mining spirits, specifically the one that I want to
Speaker 2: focus on now for the rest of this episode, which
Speaker 2: is the Tommy Knocker, also known as the Knocker or
Speaker 2: the Knacker.
Speaker 1: This one, of course, I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: are familiar with its name because we grew up having
Speaker 1: some degree familiarity with the gigantic Stephen King book of
Speaker 1: the same name the top.
Speaker 2: Does that book have anything to do with Tommy Knockers.
Speaker 1: It's been a very long time since I tried to
Speaker 1: read it. This was like the first Stephen King book
Speaker 1: that I read in like junior high that I couldn't
Speaker 1: actually finish. You know, maybe I would have a different
Speaker 1: experience if I tried it now, But I think it
Speaker 1: is not uncommon for people to have difficulty with this one.
Speaker 2: I think King himself has somewhat disparaged it, hasn't he.
Speaker 1: I believe so?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah. Anyway, So to examine the Tommy Knocker tradition,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about an academic folklore article that
Speaker 2: I found really interesting which traces the historical evolution of
Speaker 2: the knocker or Tommy Knocker story from its origins among
Speaker 2: Cornish miners in the area of Cornwall, which is in
Speaker 2: southwest England's the Peninsula coming down in southwest England out
Speaker 2: into the sea, so in the area of Hornwall, and
Speaker 2: that goes back centuries all the way into twentieth century beliefs,
Speaker 2: nineteenth and twentieth century beliefs of Cornish immigrants and others
Speaker 2: working in mines in the American West. This article is
Speaker 2: called Knockers, Knackers and Ghosts, Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines,
Speaker 2: published in the journal Western Folklore in nineteen ninety two
Speaker 2: by Ronald M.
Speaker 1: James.
Speaker 2: I looked up the author here, and Ronald M. James
Speaker 2: is a historian in folklore as who's been affiliated with
Speaker 2: the University of Nevadorno and Iowa State University. So The
Speaker 2: paper begins with a great little vignette from the later
Speaker 2: evolution of the Tommy Knocker law. It is a passage
Speaker 2: from the work of an author named F. D. Calhoun,
Speaker 2: published in nineteen eighty six, drawing on his first hand
Speaker 2: experience living in mining communities in Grass Valley, California in
Speaker 2: the early twentieth century. So Calhoun is in the middle
Speaker 2: of talking about an illicit practice of some miners at
Speaker 2: the time who I think this was called high grading.
Speaker 2: They would smuggle out high graded or from the mines,
Speaker 2: you know, pack it secretly somewhere on themselves, smuggle it out,
Speaker 2: bring it home, and then mill the ore in their
Speaker 2: cellars at night. And of course, the milling of ore
Speaker 2: is an important stage in the processing of raw minerals.
Speaker 2: Usually it involves crushing, smashing, or grinding down large pieces
Speaker 2: of rock into a relatively fine powder. And this increases
Speaker 2: the surface area of the desirable minerals, making them easier
Speaker 2: to separate and extract from the parts of the rock
Speaker 2: that you don't care about. And you might do this
Speaker 2: several different ways. You know, it might involve just hammer
Speaker 2: or you know, mortar and pestle of some kind, or
Speaker 2: hammer smashing on a surface, or some kind of stamp mill.
Speaker 2: But as you can imagine, this secret milling operation would
Speaker 2: be noisy. It involved the pounding or stamping of hammers
Speaker 2: or stamps, and this could lead children in the house
Speaker 2: to wonder what their parents were up to. Why did
Speaker 2: they hear repetitive hammer blows coming from the basement when
Speaker 2: they were trying to sleep, And according to Calhoun, these
Speaker 2: parents would often blame the commotion on the tommy knockers.
Speaker 2: So to quote from Calhoun here, supposedly the little miners
Speaker 2: gathered under the house where children were especially good. If
Speaker 2: they listened and were real quiet. After they had gone
Speaker 2: to bed and were supposed to be going to sleep,
Speaker 2: they just might hear their little friends hammering away with
Speaker 2: their tiny single jacks. It is surprising how many residents
Speaker 2: of the mining town still tell of being lulled to
Speaker 2: sleep by the rhythmical pounding from deep below. If the
Speaker 2: rock was especially hard and the pounding unusually loud, the
Speaker 2: children were told that the tommy knockers must have been
Speaker 2: using double jacks the evening before.
Speaker 1: Why durable This is adorable and ridiculous at the same time.
Speaker 2: So James says that Calhoun's account, of course, presents some
Speaker 2: difficulty to the folklorist because he doesn't give exact dates here,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't like name specific people or site sources,
Speaker 2: but it can be taken as some evidence for the
Speaker 2: late evolution of the Tommy Knocker concept in early twentieth
Speaker 2: century California. So by this point, according to Calhoun's telling,
Speaker 2: the Tommy Knocker had come to be used, among other roles,
Speaker 2: as what James calls a FicT, citing as FicT citing
Speaker 2: the terminology of the folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sidao actually
Speaker 2: father of the actor Max von.
Speaker 1: Sidao, Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: A FicT is a legend like narrative that the teller
Speaker 2: does not believe, but which is told as if true.
Speaker 2: In other words, a FicT is intended to be understood
Speaker 2: as true by the audience, but understood as fictional by
Speaker 2: the teller. And this is distinguished from legends, which would
Speaker 2: be third person stories that are sincerely believed by the
Speaker 2: teller and expected to be believed by the audience, and
Speaker 2: then fairy tales or folk tales, which are third person
Speaker 2: stories that are understood by both teller and audience as
Speaker 2: fictional because of this asymmetry in the relationship here, ficts
Speaker 2: are often told by adults to children, and a great
Speaker 2: example would be nursery bogies such as Jenny Green Teeth. Presumably,
Speaker 2: Grandpa does not actually believe that there is a hag
Speaker 2: living in the water that will pull you down by
Speaker 2: the ankle, but he knows that the standing water is
Speaker 2: actually dangerous for less mentally gripping reasons, so he tells
Speaker 2: the story of Jenny Green Teeth in the hopes that
Speaker 2: it will stick in the child's head and get them
Speaker 2: to stay away.
Speaker 1: A FicT, as you might imagine, is a little bit
Speaker 1: like a lie.
Speaker 2: Yes, but it's a lie that takes the form of
Speaker 2: a story. Now, of course, the Tommy Knockers and Calhoun's
Speaker 2: example are not exactly bogies. Like Jenny Green Teeth. There
Speaker 2: are no threats in this story, but they are a
Speaker 2: supernatural explanation told to believing children dren by unbelieving adults
Speaker 2: to get them to stay away from dangerous knowledge, in
Speaker 2: this case, the knowledge that their parents are doing something illegal.
Speaker 1: Hmmm. Interesting, yeah, and kind of rewarding them because the
Speaker 1: terminology or the exact description was something along the lines
Speaker 1: of like this only happens in houses where the children
Speaker 1: are really good. Yeah, you're very fortunate that the Tommy
Speaker 1: Knockers are here.
Speaker 2: So James says, by this point the Tommy knocker had
Speaker 2: drifted very far from its earliest known form, and studying
Speaker 2: this evolution is actually a pretty fascinating exercise that can
Speaker 2: help us understand how folklore is affected by the immigration process,
Speaker 2: the immigration of storytellers to new locales, the diffusion of
Speaker 2: folklore between different ethnic groups, and also how folklore is
Speaker 2: affected by cultural and technological changes across time. How for example,
Speaker 2: changes in mining techniques and technology lead to changes in
Speaker 2: what sort of entities haunt the minds. So the belief
Speaker 2: in supernatural beings that live within minds seems to be
Speaker 2: quite widespread, as we were just talking about, and we
Speaker 2: will talk about more examples from different cultures in part
Speaker 2: two of the series. But James says that the form
Speaker 2: this creature most often takes in European traditions is some
Speaker 2: sort of diminutive old man who makes mischief and plays
Speaker 2: tricks and either provides useful information to miners, and this
Speaker 2: could be leading them to riches or warning them of
Speaker 2: imminent danger and death, or the mining spirit punishes transgressions, defilements,
Speaker 2: and evil deeds within the mind.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting to think about the role that trickster
Speaker 1: plays in a dangerous environment that has certain rules about
Speaker 1: safety rules in place, and I wonder how much of
Speaker 1: this is sort of like, Okay, if everything goes according
Speaker 1: to plan, you don't have anything to worry about. But
Speaker 1: the idea that the trickster spirit is there puts enough
Speaker 1: doubt that maybe you double and triple check things as
Speaker 1: they occur.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, it might lead to added scrutiny,
Speaker 2: which is good. In that case. It would almost be
Speaker 2: like the Jenny Green teeth. It's like, there are real
Speaker 2: practical dangers you need to be concerned of, but thinking
Speaker 2: about this entity causes you to behave more cautiously because
Speaker 2: an entity is more mentally gripping than real life accidental danger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more like an active threat as opposed to
Speaker 1: the threat of the just thing you didn't think about, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thing you didn't know to be afraid of. Right.
Speaker 2: So, the sixteenth century German mineralogist and metallurgist Georgius Agricola,
Speaker 2: who lived fourteen ninety four to fifteen fifty five wrote
Speaker 2: extensively on beliefs about entities that lurked in minds in
Speaker 2: a work called De Animantibus subterraneous, or of this underground animals,
Speaker 2: the subterranean Animals. We may come back to this work
Speaker 2: in part two of the series. I'm not sure yet,
Speaker 2: but it's likely. But speaking of a German creature known
Speaker 2: to him as cobalos or, I think this would be
Speaker 2: the equivalent of the cobald, Agricola wrote that the creature
Speaker 2: was jolly and loved to imitate human work, like what
Speaker 2: you were saying with the blue cap. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of similarities in these different European mining creature legends.
Speaker 2: To read from a translation of Agricola quote, they are
Speaker 2: called little miners because of their dwarfish stature, which is
Speaker 2: about two feet. They are venerable looking and are clothed
Speaker 2: like miners in a fillited garment, with leather apron about
Speaker 2: their loins. This kind does not often trouble the miners,
Speaker 2: but they idle about in the shafts and tunnels and
Speaker 2: really do nothing, although they pretend to be busy in
Speaker 2: all kinds of labor, sometimes digging or sometimes putting into
Speaker 2: buckets that which has been dug. Sometimes they throw pebbles
Speaker 2: at workmen, but they rarely injure them unless the workmen
Speaker 2: first ridicule or curse them. The mining nome are especially
Speaker 2: active in the workings where metal has already been found
Speaker 2: or where there are hopes of discovering them and cause
Speaker 2: them cause them to labor more vigorously. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of interesting. They're more concentrated in hot zones, you know,
Speaker 2: in places where there's likely to be a big discovery
Speaker 2: or where a big discovery of war has already been made,
Speaker 2: which is an interesting contrast to other stories that would
Speaker 2: you know, imagine the creature in the mine as the
Speaker 2: one that lurks in the abandoned mine. This is exactly
Speaker 2: the opposite. It's like, you know, the economic hot zone
Speaker 2: of the mine is where these things show up.
Speaker 1: I love this detail that, yeah, they might do humans
Speaker 1: work for them, but they also just might sort of
Speaker 1: pretend to do work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look busy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this paper is focused on a particular version of
Speaker 2: this widespread mining creature tradition that emerged among Cornish miners
Speaker 2: in the southwest of England. As I said earlier, where
Speaker 2: the creatures were known as Tomby knockers, knockers or knackers.
Speaker 2: James says that the name knocker may have originally been
Speaker 2: more widespread, but it really came to be associated with
Speaker 2: Cornish legend, in particular as mining was a common occupation
Speaker 2: for Cornish men and the region of Cornwall itself had
Speaker 2: been a very important mining hub going back to ancient times.
Speaker 2: Actually specifically, Cornwall was known for having deposits of metal
Speaker 2: such as copper and tin, and it was an especially
Speaker 2: crucial source of tin going all the way back to
Speaker 2: the Bronze Age, where ten was in high demand for
Speaker 2: the manufacture of bronze, which you make bronze by combining
Speaker 2: copper and tin. Of these two ingredients, ten was the
Speaker 2: much more difficult to source metal and relied on sophisticated
Speaker 2: trade and distribution networks. So these big civilizations that are
Speaker 2: producing a lot of bronze artifacts during the Bronze Age,
Speaker 2: a lot of times they might be sourcing their tin
Speaker 2: from very far away, and so they were lying on
Speaker 2: a lot of trade to support that bronze industry. So,
Speaker 2: getting into the early records we have about what the
Speaker 2: Cornition ockers were, James compares several sources. Many of these
Speaker 2: authors are what he calls nineteenth century or turn of
Speaker 2: the twentieth century antiquarians, collectors of a piece of antiques
Speaker 2: or of intangible antiques like folklore. So these include a
Speaker 2: folklore collector named William Bottrell who lived eighteen sixteen to
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty one, who wrote a column for the Cornish
Speaker 2: Telegraph in which he documented local folk traditions. James also
Speaker 2: names a nineteenth century writer named Robert Hunt and a
Speaker 2: slightly later writer named Walter Yielding Evans WinCE, and then
Speaker 2: after that. There are also some later likely derivative sources
Speaker 2: and some literary references to Tommy Knockers in fiction, which
Speaker 2: we can mention in a bit. But to generalize from
Speaker 2: what we have, here's what we know the Cornish Tommy Knockers.
Speaker 2: The older version, they were usually described as supernatural, dwarf
Speaker 2: like men with long, gray beards and wrinkled faces. Their name,
Speaker 2: as you might guess, comes from the knocking and tapping
Speaker 2: sounds of uncertain origin that you would often hear propagating
Speaker 2: through mind tunnels. They were widely regarded as mischievous, playing pranks,
Speaker 2: causing trouble and fouling equipment. So that's in line with
Speaker 2: some other things we've talked about. But in some cases,
Speaker 2: especially if you knew how to butter them up and
Speaker 2: get on their good side, they could be quite helpful.
Speaker 2: Now here's a very strange twist on the legend. Basically
Speaker 2: all of the early Cornish sources agree on an origin
Speaker 2: story for the knockers, and it is this. They were
Speaker 2: said to be the ghosts or spirits of Jewish people
Speaker 2: who had been sent to work in the Cornish mines,
Speaker 2: either in the ancient past, during the Roman period, or
Speaker 2: perhaps in the Middle Ages, as some sort of punishment
Speaker 2: for having been responsible, in the minds of their Christian
Speaker 2: persecutors for the death of Christ. Now, according to James,
Speaker 2: there is basically no evidence for this belief that Jews
Speaker 2: were sent to work in the Cornish minds during the
Speaker 2: Roman period or during the during the Middle Ages. No
Speaker 2: evidence this actually happened. Of course, Jews certainly were persecuted
Speaker 2: in various ways by Christians throughout Europe in the medieval period,
Speaker 2: but there's no evidence this ever involved work in Cornish minds.
Speaker 2: So it's not entirely clear where this latter belief about
Speaker 2: the origins of the Knockers came from. Despite the fact
Speaker 2: that this has no basis in history, the origin story
Speaker 2: appears widespread and a very important part of the legend.
Speaker 2: So it's not just like something that one person said
Speaker 2: at one time. This seems to be a common belief
Speaker 2: about the Tommy Knockers.
Speaker 1: And of course it does. You know, we can compare
Speaker 1: this to various other two traditions where some other culture
Speaker 1: or other people is in some way transformed into a
Speaker 1: folklore entity of some sort. And you know, even getting
Speaker 1: back to stuff like the Tuava Didan and you know,
Speaker 1: saying that they are like a you know, connections between
Speaker 1: that belief and some sort of a fair folk and
Speaker 1: some sort of perhaps you know, predecessor culture and so forth.
Speaker 2: Well, this is interesting one of the other, i mean,
Speaker 2: one of the only other explanations of the origin of
Speaker 2: the Tommy Knockers that this is not nearly as widespread,
Speaker 2: but is the claim that they are the spirits of
Speaker 2: people who inhabited the lands of Cornwall before the Celts.
Speaker 1: Yes, then that would definitely tie in with various other
Speaker 1: traditions you find, especially throughout the British Isles.
Speaker 2: One version of this origin story. The Jewish miners origin
Speaker 2: story appears in a novel from eighteen fifty one called
Speaker 2: Yeast a Problem by the by the English priest and
Speaker 2: social reformer Charles Kingsley. In this book, a Cornish character
Speaker 2: explains what the knockers are to another character by saying, quote,
Speaker 2: they are the ghosts the miners hold of the old Jews, Sir,
Speaker 2: that crucified our Lord, and were sent for slaves by
Speaker 2: the Roman emperors to work the mines. And we find
Speaker 2: their old smelting houses, which we call Jews houses, and
Speaker 2: their blocks of tin at the bottom of the great bogs,
Speaker 2: which we call Jews ten. As a point of historical fact,
Speaker 2: by the way, it was, of course the Roman authorities
Speaker 2: under Pontius Pilot who crucified Jesus, not the Jews. However,
Speaker 2: setting aside whatever anti Jewish attitudes may be contained in
Speaker 2: this ideological myth, it's interesting to note the way that
Speaker 2: the physical artifacts of prior industry feed into beliefs about
Speaker 2: supernatural beings that occupy the same space. What is, in fact,
Speaker 2: the remains of mundane mining from decades or centuries ago
Speaker 2: becomes either the physical imprint of work from a mythic past,
Speaker 2: you know, done by people who you imagine were there
Speaker 2: but were not actually there, or from a ghostly present.
Speaker 2: It's like, this is the stuff left behind by the
Speaker 2: supernatural creatures. Now you know. That connection between physical artifacts
Speaker 2: left by real people in the past to supernatural beings
Speaker 2: reminds me of our series on Elfshot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, How do we make sense of these artifacts? Yeah,
Speaker 1: people from the past or something a little bit different,
Speaker 1: People that we just can't see, people that are hidden
Speaker 1: from us.
Speaker 2: James notes several ways in which common beliefs among the
Speaker 2: Cornish miners about the Knockers both do and do not
Speaker 2: match this ahistorical origin story. The Knockers were said to
Speaker 2: not work on Saturdays because it was their sabbath, but
Speaker 2: also it was said that they did not work on Easter,
Speaker 2: All Saints Day, or Christmas. On Christmas it was said
Speaker 2: that they sang carols and held mass deep at the
Speaker 2: bottom of the mine.
Speaker 1: I do love a good Christmas Mass held by non
Speaker 1: human entities.
Speaker 2: Yes, we did episodes on that at one point, didn't we.
Speaker 1: Yeah about the undead, the pious.
Speaker 2: Undead, Yes, having Christmas Mass? Yeah, Oh that was fun.
Speaker 2: I just had to look it up. I was remembering
Speaker 2: the story of Bishop teet Maar.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I do I remember that name now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, tet Maar of Merseyburg, I think, and who talked
Speaker 2: about the the undead, the zombies going to church.
Speaker 1: Uh so.
Speaker 2: Also, the tommy knockers did not like when miners whistled
Speaker 2: and did not like being spied on. Sometimes miners would
Speaker 2: be overcome by curiosity and would want to watch the
Speaker 2: tommy knockers work and spy on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, frequent thing not to do with the fair folk.
Speaker 1: Do not go spying on them. Don't want you to. Right.
Speaker 2: Despite being the ghosts of people, they were described as
Speaker 2: having many things in common with other she figures, such
Speaker 2: as elves and fairies. So this is something I think
Speaker 2: I'll probably mention several times here. There's a fuzziness about
Speaker 2: whether are these ghosts of people or are they like
Speaker 2: another species, these these she beings, these fairy folk. And
Speaker 2: I think that question is just sort of hard to
Speaker 2: answer because I think often there actually was a blurriness
Speaker 2: between these concepts. These fairy folk were often said in
Speaker 2: one way to actually be spirits of people from long ago,
Speaker 2: even though they were treated as basically a magical species
Speaker 2: that wasn't quite human. James explains this fuzziness by saying, quote,
Speaker 2: thus the she the above the above. Ground fairies of
Speaker 2: Ireland are often associated with the ancient tribes displaced by
Speaker 2: the Celts. The Tommy Knockers can be understood as underground
Speaker 2: elves who acted the array of legends and beliefs associated
Speaker 2: with ancient Jewish miners. Like many other European supernatural beings,
Speaker 2: the Tommy Knockers show a muddling of the distinction between ghosts,
Speaker 2: particularly the long dead, and elves. So, yeah, it could
Speaker 2: be a kind of collision of different traditions here. Maybe
Speaker 2: you've got an underground elf like creature or fairy type
Speaker 2: creature who lives in the mines, and then you also
Speaker 2: have this folklore tradition, this story about Jewish miners in
Speaker 2: Cornwall and people long ago, and then people just kind
Speaker 2: of combine these stories. Yeah, So what did the original
Speaker 2: Cornish Knockers do well? It seems a lot of the
Speaker 2: stories about them focused on their reactions to the behavior
Speaker 2: of human miners. Usually, if you were respectful to them
Speaker 2: and you were well behaved, you treated them with courtesy
Speaker 2: and you obeyed the general rules of good behavior, they
Speaker 2: would either leave you alone, or they would even be
Speaker 2: very hell helpful. They might lead you to riches. But
Speaker 2: if you were nasty or neglectful to the spirits, or
Speaker 2: if you were just a bad person in one way
Speaker 2: or another, the knockers would get revenge. There are a
Speaker 2: number of stories featured here. I'm going to mention a
Speaker 2: few that James brings up. There's the story of the
Speaker 2: Cornish miner Tom Trevorro collected by William Battrell in the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century. So in this story, Tom for some reason
Speaker 2: got angry at the knockers in the mine, and he
Speaker 2: ordered them to be quiet. In fact, he spoke harshly
Speaker 2: to them, saying that if they did not shut up,
Speaker 2: he would quote scat their brains out. Also, Tom is
Speaker 2: having some supper in the mine or around the mine,
Speaker 2: and his supper is a kind of Cornish baked good
Speaker 2: called a fuggin fugga n which appears to be some
Speaker 2: kind of heavy cake or pastry, maybe often packed with
Speaker 2: meat inside. They wanted some, He refused to share his
Speaker 2: food with them, and this was also a no no
Speaker 2: because sharing a food offering with hobgoblins, brownies and other
Speaker 2: household spirits was a common practice in the British Isles.
Speaker 2: You might set out a dish of milk by the
Speaker 2: hearth for the hobgoblin or the household spirit. And so
Speaker 2: the knockers they sing in a rhyme to Tom. They say,
Speaker 2: Tom Trevoro, Tom Trevoro, leave some of the fuggin for
Speaker 2: bucca or bad luck to thee tomorrow. I think it's
Speaker 2: kind of rhyming Trevoro with tomorrow. By the way, Bucca
Speaker 2: b u c c A is another type of Cornish spirit,
Speaker 2: which is occasionally associated with minds, but more often with
Speaker 2: the sea. Actually here there seems to be some overlap
Speaker 2: between the Bucka and the knockers, but they're both again
Speaker 2: mythical beings that can kind of blur together. Anyway, The
Speaker 2: knockers or the Bucka, they want some of that cake.
Speaker 2: But Tom is like, no, this is my cake. And
Speaker 2: the knockers said again, Tommy Trevoro, Tommy Trevoro, will send
Speaker 2: thee bad luck tomorrow, old curmudgeon, eat all they fuggin'
Speaker 2: and not leave a digeon for bucca. Digon means a
Speaker 2: little piece, I think, like a crumb. But still he
Speaker 2: refused so the knockers cursed him, and after that he
Speaker 2: had no luck finding riches in the mines, and then
Speaker 2: James says, quote in desperation, he took up farming. A
Speaker 2: despised fate for a Cornish miner.
Speaker 1: Folks, We've said it time and time again, always tip
Speaker 1: your goblin.
Speaker 2: How hungry are you that you can't even spare a
Speaker 2: digeon for bucca?
Speaker 1: Yeah, just a digon, that's all he's asking for.
Speaker 2: So there's another story that's a famous one about a
Speaker 2: guy named Barker who discovers an old mine with an
Speaker 2: opening where he can watch the knockers working below. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's uh oh, that's how you get into trouble. He
Speaker 2: believes that they can't see him, they don't know he's there,
Speaker 2: so he spies on them until the end of work
Speaker 2: one day, at which point the knockers each start calling
Speaker 2: out that they're going to leave a tool. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna leave my hammer on the on the chair,
Speaker 2: you know, saying where they're gonna leave a tool, And
Speaker 2: then finally the last one says, I'll put my hammer
Speaker 2: on Barker's knee, And suddenly Barker felt a great pain
Speaker 2: in the knee, and he was never able to walk
Speaker 2: on that leg again.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So the knockers knew he had been spying, and they
Speaker 2: punished his curiosity. And so among the Cornish miners, if
Speaker 2: you had arthritis, you could say, I'm as stiff as
Speaker 2: Barker's knee. That was the kind of saying. Another legend,
Speaker 2: recorded by Robert Hunt, has elements of both reward and punishment.
Speaker 2: This time the punishment is for greed. So the story
Speaker 2: goes like this, An old Cornish miner and his son
Speaker 2: named Trendw witnessed knockers hauling very good ore up to
Speaker 2: the surface of a mine that they haunted, and the
Speaker 2: miners made a deal with the knockers. If the miners
Speaker 2: could be allowed to work the knocker's mind, they would
Speaker 2: give the knockers ten percent of their profits. The knockers agreed,
Speaker 2: and things went well until there died and left Trendw
Speaker 2: in charge. His son, Trenwith, is described in the story
Speaker 2: as selfish and avaricious, and he decides he's going to
Speaker 2: cheat the knockers and keep all the profit for himself.
Speaker 2: That's such a bad idea. The knockers, of course, they
Speaker 2: know that he did that. They curse him, and he
Speaker 2: loses all his luck, and then quote he took to drink,
Speaker 2: squandered all the money his father had made, and died
Speaker 2: a beggar. Interesting thing. In several of the stories here,
Speaker 2: the Knocker's magical attack against offenders and enemies is not
Speaker 2: a direct attack but an attack on luck. You cross
Speaker 2: them and you will henceforth have bad luck in the mine,
Speaker 2: or just bad luck in general. So now that you've
Speaker 2: crossed the Knockers, you are just rolling natural ones on
Speaker 2: all your attempts to find valuable caches and veins, and
Speaker 2: usually this ends up with you having to leave mining
Speaker 2: as a profession and end up in some other revolting fate,
Speaker 2: apparently including farming. But this brings us to the second
Speaker 2: part of the story, which is the question of how
Speaker 2: the characteristics of the Tommy Knocker legend change when it
Speaker 2: is carried over into new locales and new cultures. So,
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, lots of Cornish people immigrated to
Speaker 2: the United States, where they became very important in the
Speaker 2: fledgling Western mining industry, despite their relatively small proportion to
Speaker 2: the overall workforce. This immigration was in part driven by
Speaker 2: economic changes, apparently at the end of the Napoleonic Wars
Speaker 2: in eighteen fifteen, there was a substantial decline in the
Speaker 2: price of copper and ten, the two metals that formed
Speaker 2: the backbone of the Cornish mining industry, and also after
Speaker 2: thousands of years of mining, at this point many of
Speaker 2: the most exploitable known deposits had already been heavily extracted,
Speaker 2: so you know, you've got your depleting caches and the
Speaker 2: price is going down. On top of that, Beginning in
Speaker 2: the eighteen twenties, there was a general economic depression in
Speaker 2: Southwest England that affected basically everyone, whatever their trade. So
Speaker 2: metal mining in Cornwall appeared to be a declining prospect,
Speaker 2: but experienced mine workers could take their skills to new opportunities,
Speaker 2: such as digging tin and copper in Michigan in the
Speaker 2: United States, or digging for gold or other medals in California, Colorado, Utah, Montana,
Speaker 2: and so Cornish immigrant miners in the Western United States
Speaker 2: were often called cousin Jack's. I think the origin story
Speaker 2: of this is that, you know, the boss at the
Speaker 2: mine would say we need more workers, you know, can
Speaker 2: you bring some more people like you? And they would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got a cousin jack back in Cornwall we could
Speaker 2: bring over. Now, note that there were different extraction methods
Speaker 2: used at the time for various metals. There was placer mining,
Speaker 2: which is where you're searching for ore and maybe loose
Speaker 2: gravel or soil in a stream bed, open pit mining,
Speaker 2: and then also underground hard rock mining tunneling mining, and
Speaker 2: the latter was the method with which the Cornish had
Speaker 2: the most valuable experience. Other forms of mining could better
Speaker 2: make use of inexperienced labor in say an open pit mine.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting I think that the type of mining
Speaker 2: with which the Cornish had relevant experience, deep hard rock
Speaker 2: tunneling is the kind that is facially at least most
Speaker 2: likely to give rise to legends and supernatural beings for
Speaker 2: the obvious environmental reasons. You've got dark, creepy tunnels, echoes
Speaker 2: and bizarre sound phenomena, and also lethal dangers due to
Speaker 2: cave ins, gas and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like the full array of sensory experiences
Speaker 1: and yet dangers that are going to really sort of
Speaker 1: pressure cook any kind of belief.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so as a result of the way they
Speaker 2: fit into the need for the mining labor force. The
Speaker 2: Cornish culture actually contributed greatly to the emerging mine labor
Speaker 2: culture of the American West, and James mentions a bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff here, such as cuisine. Apparently there was in
Speaker 2: the mining West there was a big popularity of Cornish pasties,
Speaker 2: which is a type of savory turnover, often filled with
Speaker 2: meat and vegetables. And this wasn't just with the Cornish,
Speaker 2: and it's became popular with miners of all ethnic backgrounds.
Speaker 2: There was a techno culture that was imported where mines
Speaker 2: in the American West used a particular kind of water
Speaker 2: pump that was common in Cornish mines. There's something called
Speaker 2: Cornish wrestling popular among Western miners. I didn't have time
Speaker 2: to look that up, so I don't know how that's
Speaker 2: different from other wrestling.
Speaker 1: I mean, just about every culture has some variation of
Speaker 1: a wrestling tradition, and yeah, it makes sense that the
Speaker 1: Cornish would have one as well.
Speaker 2: But then, of course the belief in the Tommy knockers,
Speaker 2: and so after this in the paper, James goes into
Speaker 2: this extensive review of like what other scholars have written
Speaker 2: about the belief in mine inhabiting spirits in the American West,
Speaker 2: including California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and Montana, and the extent
Speaker 2: to which those spirits are related to the imported Tommy
Speaker 2: Knocker lore, also to the extent that the legends are related,
Speaker 2: how the Tommy Knocker lore seems to have evolved in
Speaker 2: its new context. So I'm not going to mention everything
Speaker 2: that James covers in this regard, but I want to
Speaker 2: discuss some highlights that struck me. First of all, in
Speaker 2: the American West, there was some diversity of forms. Sometimes
Speaker 2: American Tommy knockers were thought to be benign, even helpful,
Speaker 2: leading miners to valuable bodies of ore, like you would
Speaker 2: follow the tapping sound and that would lead you to
Speaker 2: claim great riches. Other times, the Tommy knockers represented a
Speaker 2: sinister threat within the mine, and the tapping sound that
Speaker 2: they made actually spelled doom, indicating that a cave in
Speaker 2: was imminent. So you've got exactly opposite things indicated by
Speaker 2: hearing the tapping.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is it a blessing or a curse? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Maybe the sound makes you rich, Maybe it's telling you
Speaker 2: you are about to die.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it was even said that the time. This seems
Speaker 2: from what I can tell to be less common, but
Speaker 2: sometimes it was said that the Tommy Knockers, or a
Speaker 2: malicious sub type of knocker called Devil Tommy Knockers, caused death,
Speaker 2: caused cave ins, falling rocks, and timbers, tunnel collapses, things
Speaker 2: like that. So not just foretelling your doom, but making
Speaker 2: it happen. And this malicious quality survived in some miner's
Speaker 2: lore even after the Tommy Knocker legend itself died. The
Speaker 2: folklorist Carolyn Bancroft recorded a saying in the Minds of
Speaker 2: Colorado that dangerous falling rocks were caused by an entity
Speaker 2: called not a Tommy Knocker, but the guy in the
Speaker 2: red shirto. I thought that was a little spooky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of calls back, at least vaguely to
Speaker 1: the idea of a red cap, because how that shirt
Speaker 1: gets so red?
Speaker 3: I have suspicions.
Speaker 2: So Confusingly, In some communities, miners use the term Tommy
Speaker 2: knocker to refer to not a being, but to tapping
Speaker 2: signals that miners would use to intentionally communicate with each other,
Speaker 2: like I'm Tommy knocking to, you know, send a signal.
Speaker 2: Other times, the mischief of Tommy knockers was used to
Speaker 2: explain any weird occurrence within the mine, a missing tool,
Speaker 2: a malfunctioning piece of equipment. This they're kind of like
Speaker 2: grimlins in this regard. They could be represented by little
Speaker 2: clay effigies that miners may or had made for them
Speaker 2: and would leave near the entrance of a mine, and
Speaker 2: the tradition of giving little food offerings to the knockers
Speaker 2: sometimes did continue in the American context, though not everywhere.
Speaker 2: So you might leave a pastry or a bit of
Speaker 2: tallow in front of one of these clay effigies near
Speaker 2: the entrance to a mine, that's giving it to the
Speaker 2: knockers as a you know, hey, I'm doing my part.
Speaker 2: I'm giving you a tip. Please treat me well. And
Speaker 2: what seems like a big difference between the American version
Speaker 2: and the Cornish version is the origin story. This idea
Speaker 2: about ancient Jewish miners sent in the Middle Ages or
Speaker 2: sent by the Romans, that's gone in the American context.
Speaker 2: In the American West, the knockers were usually just said
Speaker 2: to be the ghosts of dead miners. References to Tommy
Speaker 2: Knockers appear in newspapers throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Speaker 2: and I want to read one funny example from eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty four in the Evening Chronicle of Virginia City, Nevada,
Speaker 2: that James includes. So here's the article.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Last night, two men who were prowling around in the
Speaker 2: Baltimore mine at American Flat got scared nearly out of
Speaker 2: the township by the queer sights in an old drift.
Speaker 2: They went into the mine for the purpose of seeing
Speaker 2: whether there was or enough in sight to profitably extract
Speaker 2: on tribute. Climbing into a stope, they heard the click
Speaker 2: of hammers and were much surprised, as they supposed no
Speaker 2: one had been there in years. Following up the sound,
Speaker 2: they were astonished to see two striking hammers work on
Speaker 2: the head of a rusty drill, which was deftly turned
Speaker 2: by unseen hands. And though not a soul was in
Speaker 2: sight except themselves, they heard a lively conversation but could
Speaker 2: make out no words. They looked and listened for some minutes,
Speaker 2: when fear took hold of them and they ran out
Speaker 2: of the mine quickly. At the toolhouse, they related their
Speaker 2: experience and were laughed at, But to prove that their
Speaker 2: heads were clear, they conducted a couple of skeptics to
Speaker 2: the spot and found the hammer still at work. The
Speaker 2: men insisted that they did not deceive themselves, and those
Speaker 2: who went with them say that the above statements are facts.
Speaker 2: I love how no names are given. There is also
Speaker 2: a newspaper story from Virginia City, Nevada of miners who
Speaker 2: see a floating lantern going up and down a mine
Speaker 2: shaft and they think, oh, it's being carried by an
Speaker 2: invisible spirit. That must be a Tommy knocker. But they
Speaker 2: later discover there's a practical explanation here. The superintendent of
Speaker 2: the mine was plumbing the shaft with a lantern dangling
Speaker 2: from a wire, and the slow is going up and
Speaker 2: down and they're like, that's a ghost. James also talks
Speaker 2: about fiction of the time, which you can find a
Speaker 2: bunch of examples of fiction incorporating these types of folk beliefs.
Speaker 2: So they're nineteenth century stories and novels that mention the
Speaker 2: Tommy knockers and the mines. But a main change to
Speaker 2: Hammer Home, apart from the origin story change is also
Speaker 2: the distinction of the subtle shift, and it is somewhat
Speaker 2: subtle from elf like beings to ghosts. This again is
Speaker 2: confusing because in the Cornish context, these elf like beings
Speaker 2: are said to be the spirits of humans from long ago,
Speaker 2: but are treated less like human souls and more like
Speaker 2: an elf for kind of otherworldly being a different species.
Speaker 2: I think again, there's just some fuzziness here that goes
Speaker 2: back a long long time in what exactly elves are,
Speaker 2: and some elf like qualities remained in these later American tellings,
Speaker 2: for example the clay effigies that seems to be more
Speaker 2: like the elves or the gnomes than human ghosts, and
Speaker 2: of course the tradition of food offerings is more like
Speaker 2: the Cornish form. Another major change in the tradition is
Speaker 2: what the spirits did for the miners. The Cornish knocker
Speaker 2: legends are much more moralistic. The Tommy Knockers reward good
Speaker 2: moral qualities in miners and they punish wickedness. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 2: the American context, there is essentially no moralism. There's no
Speaker 2: rewarding good and punishing evil. There's a little bit of
Speaker 2: you know, appeasement, rewarding if you give them the food
Speaker 2: offerings with the effigies, but there's no real moral quality
Speaker 2: consideration in how they behave towards you instead, the relationship
Speaker 2: is just transactional and practical. What the Tommy Knocker primarily
Speaker 2: does in America is in either a helpful or sinister way,
Speaker 2: it warns miners of imminent danger. And James explains this
Speaker 2: in part by appealing to the idea of different moral
Speaker 2: cultural environments where these legends propagate. He says, in traditional
Speaker 2: Cornish culture, excessive greed, ambition, and curiosity are policed and punished.
Speaker 2: The moral of these stories is do not be too greedy,
Speaker 2: take your fair share, don't be too curious or inquisitive,
Speaker 2: mind your own business. And in talking about this, James
Speaker 2: draws on a framework I'm an author named George Foster
Speaker 2: to describe this as a morality based on the concept
Speaker 2: of limited good and this is a common way of
Speaker 2: thinking in many cultures, where it essentially views the world
Speaker 2: as a kind of closed, zero sum system, where being
Speaker 2: a good person is equated with a kind of egalitarian humility,
Speaker 2: where you know, one of the main things that's discouraged
Speaker 2: is when people attempt to quote major change in their
Speaker 2: economic or other statuses, and the underlying assumption behind that
Speaker 2: discouragement is my gain would be everyone else's loss. So
Speaker 2: you know, there's a limited good. American culture was very different,
Speaker 2: almost the opposite. There was a culture of admiring acquisitiveness
Speaker 2: and ambition and curiosity, a worldview that is not zero sum,
Speaker 2: limited good, but a positive sum world where it's good
Speaker 2: for people to achieve, to go out and achieve all
Speaker 2: the success they can and it it doesn't necessarily hurt
Speaker 2: anyone else for them to do. So, you know, I
Speaker 2: was thinking about this. I think obviously there can in
Speaker 2: reality be some insight in both world views. Of course,
Speaker 2: it is true that there can be positive some interactions,
Speaker 2: and one person's success doesn't have to come at somebody
Speaker 2: else's suffering. You can like create wealth, you can add
Speaker 2: new value to the world. Then again, sometimes success does
Speaker 2: come at somebody else's suffering. And when we are racing
Speaker 2: towards success, mad with ambition, it's easy to be blind
Speaker 2: to the ways that our gain actually is somebody else's loss.
Speaker 2: And so like having stories in place to make you
Speaker 2: think about that is actually valuable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I can't help but think about all this
Speaker 1: within the context of like a strict mining culture too.
Speaker 1: Like it, I wonder if it makes sense that the
Speaker 1: Cornish traditionally, you know, had this emphasis because you're a
Speaker 1: tight knit crew, you depend on each other in a
Speaker 1: dangerous environment, and maybe there is more of a sense
Speaker 1: of like, you know, nobody's stand out, nobody go for
Speaker 1: personal glory because we all have to depend on each other.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot to that, absolutely, So
Speaker 2: the American forms of the Tommy Knocker legend lose the
Speaker 2: moralistic message. The moralistic message discouraging greed and curiosity. In
Speaker 2: the American context, greed and curiosity are just fine, but
Speaker 2: you need to take practical steps to protect yourself from
Speaker 2: economic loss and mortal danger. So the knocker becomes a
Speaker 2: source of practical problems in the form of sabotage and pranks,
Speaker 2: or of information of omens about practical problems such as
Speaker 2: deadly accidents. To quote James here quote, the Tommy Knockers
Speaker 2: were omens of danger, giving the miners something on which
Speaker 2: to focus their interpretations of subtle signs of cave ins.
Speaker 2: The miners could not necessarily distinguish between the diverse subtle
Speaker 2: sounds in the mind, and failed to realize consciously that
Speaker 2: when the timbers of the mine moaned one way, it
Speaker 2: was safe but when the mines echoed with another sound,
Speaker 2: it meant danger. Much of nineteenth century mining expertise was
Speaker 2: based on experience, not science. As late as the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: George Orwell was able to observe English miners relying on
Speaker 2: the quote feel of the mine. And then here it
Speaker 2: quotes Orwell. I love this passage. An experienced miner claims
Speaker 2: to know by a sort of instinct when the roof
Speaker 2: is unsafe. The way he puts it is that he
Speaker 2: can feel the weight upon him. He can, for instance,
Speaker 2: hear the faint creaking of the props. The reason why
Speaker 2: wooden props are still generally preferred to iron girders is
Speaker 2: that a wooden prop which is about to collapse gives
Speaker 2: a warning by creaking, whereas a girder flies out unexpectedly.
Speaker 2: The devastating noise of the machines makes it impossible to
Speaker 2: hear anything else. Thus the danger is increasing. So I
Speaker 2: love this. This is something we've talked about before. Supernatural
Speaker 2: beings in imagined as the physical embodiment of sensory intuitions.
Speaker 2: So I have some experience in an environment, and thus
Speaker 2: I can associate subtle sensory cues with coming effects. But
Speaker 2: this association is a little bit below my ability to
Speaker 2: consciously put it into words. So instead, there's some kind
Speaker 2: of being that is here giving me a warning.
Speaker 1: Right, right, So reframe this insight is information coming from
Speaker 1: some external source.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in the American context, the Tommy Knocker legend
Speaker 2: is about practical warnings, which is something that it has
Speaker 2: in part in common with the Cornish version. But this
Speaker 2: is the only emphasis now, no longer the moralistic enforcement,
Speaker 2: it's the practical warnings. And I think this type of
Speaker 2: subconscious awareness of sensory cues in the mind that makes
Speaker 2: a lot of sense as to like what where those
Speaker 2: practical signals are actually coming from. I mean, other times
Speaker 2: it might just be your imagine, but in some cases
Speaker 2: it could seem to be actually quite prescient because you're
Speaker 2: relying on like little sounds you're hearing, feeling the weight
Speaker 2: upon you. Also interesting how technological changes over the history
Speaker 2: of mining could have contributed to changes in the Tommy
Speaker 2: Knocker lore or the decline of lore altogether. There are
Speaker 2: a number of things to mention here. I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: how Orwell calls out the sound of the heavy machinery
Speaker 2: making you no longer sensitive to those little creeks that
Speaker 2: give you the four warnings. So the sound of the
Speaker 2: machines may have changed the environment of the minds in
Speaker 2: other ways to become less conducive. To Tommy knocker lore,
Speaker 2: I bet a quieter mine is eerier if you don't
Speaker 2: have stuff like, you know, loudly thrumbing in your ear.
Speaker 2: If you've got a somewhat quieter mind, where small sounds
Speaker 2: can echo and propagate more easily and don't get drowned out,
Speaker 2: I would just suspect that makes you think that there
Speaker 2: are creatures about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean one of the the things we're
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before is the sensory deprivation
Speaker 1: in these environments, and that includes sound, and yeah, you're
Speaker 1: hearing less, you're hearing strange echoes, and it can take
Speaker 1: on all sorts of strange life in your head. But
Speaker 1: as we're discussing here, it could also give you the
Speaker 1: ability to pick up on these little changes that can
Speaker 1: be detected via human hearing.
Speaker 2: Another thing that James calls out is this might seem
Speaker 2: very simple, but I think there's a lot to it.
Speaker 2: The replacement of lanterns with electric lighting, making minds less gloomy,
Speaker 2: you know, the electric lights in the mind. That's a
Speaker 2: different environment.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean you can just think of movies for this,
Speaker 1: Like what cave set looks better the gloomy caves set,
Speaker 1: the gloomy tunnel set, not the fully illuminated one. If
Speaker 1: you can just completely flood the chamber with light, that
Speaker 1: takes away a little bit of its mystery. Right.
Speaker 2: One more thing I thought was interesting is that James
Speaker 2: introduces a framework for thinking about how these stories change
Speaker 2: when they come across the Atlantic by citing a skull
Speaker 2: named Stephen Stern who talks about common patterns in how
Speaker 2: legends and oral traditions change when the tellers immigrate to
Speaker 2: new lands. According to Stern, there are there are very
Speaker 2: common patterns. So when somebody moves from one place to
Speaker 2: another and takes oral traditions with them, and this is
Speaker 2: how the traditions tend to change. Quote from longer to shorter,
Speaker 2: from complex to simple, from sacred to secular, from supernatural
Speaker 2: to realistic, from communal to individualistic. I think you can
Speaker 2: see a lot of those, maybe not all of them,
Speaker 2: but a lot of those elements and the changes that
Speaker 2: occur with the Tommy Knocker legend.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they seem to be this shift from presence
Speaker 1: the communal to the individualistic. Yeah, going from this is
Speaker 1: this thing that we all know about and we all
Speaker 1: believe too. This is that thing that you know, old
Speaker 1: Tom told me about. He keeps talking about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also that on that count, the individualistic versus communal,
Speaker 2: the shift away from the limited good more that says like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just going to stay at as a
Speaker 2: peer with my coworkers here. I'm not going to try
Speaker 2: to strike out and do a lot better than them.
Speaker 2: To this American context where it's like, you know, if
Speaker 2: you can, if you can find a vein and get
Speaker 2: the richest, that's great, but you better watch out for
Speaker 2: the cave in. So that's all I've got on the
Speaker 2: Tommy Knocker legend. But I think we will have a
Speaker 2: lot more to talk about with mining spirits and entities
Speaker 2: in the tunnels for the next episode.
Speaker 1: That's right, we'll come back with some more European examples,
Speaker 1: but also some non European examples of entities associated with
Speaker 1: the minds. All right. As always, will remind you that
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and
Speaker 1: culture podcast. With core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short
Speaker 1: form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside
Speaker 1: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode any other, to suggest a
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