WEBVTT - It Lurks in the Mine Shaft, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.120 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:16.520 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.680 And I'm Joe McCormick. And hey it's still October, so 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.240 our Halloween season stuff continues. 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:23.040 Today. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.360 We're kicking off an expedition into the mind Shaft to 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:31.800 talk about monsters and spooky legends associated with minds and mining. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:34.680 That's right, this one should be a fun one. We're 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:36.640 going to be especially in this episode, we're kind of 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.800 revisiting some ideas that we've discussed more briefly in the past. 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.120 I did a monster fact that touched on some of this, 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:46.680 and we've also talked a little bit. We've gone a 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.519 little bit into the minds in search of the supernatural 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.920 beings and traditions, but we haven't really melted an expedition 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.800 on this level before. So yeah, this one should be good. So, 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.680 as we've covered on the show before, whenever humans venture 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:07.280 where they don't quite belong, they inevitably encounter monsters of 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:09.720 one form or another. There are monsters of the deep 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.880 forest and the deep ocean, of the desert and the snow, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.600 and there are monsters too that haunt places of human construction, 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:23.119 obviously our tombs, the necropolis, even spaces like empty bathrooms 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.759 at night and lonely expanses of country road. These places 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.840 too may be home to monsters and monstrous spirits and 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.039 other entities, each in their own way. These are all 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.080 places of mystery, and the monster is in some ways 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.520 an answer to that mystery. And in discussing monsters, ghosts, 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.920 and legends associated with mining, we're dealing with a very 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.400 fascinating environment because on one level, the solid earth beneath 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.560 our feet or deep within the heart of a mountain 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.640 is exactly the sort of place where we do not belong. 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.040 It's either we're talking about the grave, or we're just 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.480 talking about solid earth that affords us no place to exist. 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:08.359 Or another level, a cavern or other natural or artificial 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.040 formation in the earth, some sort of hollow in the 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.960 earth that we might venture into. And so, as we've 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:16.760 discussed in the show before, caves have of course long 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:21.000 been a place of fascination for humans, well back through 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:23.919 prehistoric times. From what we can tell, they seem to 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.200 have been places that offered a number of resources and ideas. 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:32.440 They might offer shelter, water, warmth, and even in limited 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.960 ways food. There were also places of strange sights and sounds, 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.080 places to speak to the future or learn from the 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.880 past through art, and of course, to venture farther into 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.400 the caverns was to court additional dangers. Then, as now, 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.800 you could become lost, stuck, or just overcome by deprivation 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.160 of the senses. And humans also learned pretty early on 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:00.639 that these subterranean spaces could also offer substances of additional 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.640 value to them, such as red ochre or flint and 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.320 other hard rocks and ultimately copper and gold. Now, to 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.320 get these resources, humans sometimes had to brave the depths 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.880 of the Earth, not only descending into naturally occurring openings, 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.280 but forging their own tunnels and pits mines for the 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:22.680 harvesting of Earth's riches. Now, we can't summarize the history 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.359 of mining in much detail for these episodes, but suffice 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.359 to say that the enterprise became increasingly complicated and daring. 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:32.400 Humans cut deeper and deeper into the earth, and in 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:37.200 doing so perpetually faced safety challenges. Mining could prove really 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.840 dangerous work, and this was of course coupled with the 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.720 ominous atmosphere of the mind, a world of darkness of 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:48.000 strange sights and strange sounds. Again, sensory deprivation that could 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.880 bring on sights and sounds that are not quite real, 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:57.160 hallucinations both visual and auditory. And on top of this, 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.360 there was this seeming proximity to these very traditions of 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.120 the underworld, traditions regarding some sort of a mythic underground 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.560 world that date back at least to ancient Mesopotamia. 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.600 Yeah, that's right, And in many ancient cosmologies, you know, 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.720 the underworld was. It wasn't a metaphor, it was like 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.479 often literally thought to be beneath your feet in some sense, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:19.840 you would go down to it. 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.400 Yeah, like where we go when we die? Underground? Where 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.880 are we going today to get these precious metals? We're 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:30.560 going underground? Kind of a daring prospect. And I do 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:32.640 want to stress though that if you know, in the 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:37.120 future we may discuss will inevitably discuss mining adjacent topics 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:38.760 at least even if we don't do a deep dive 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.400 in the mining. And obviously you don't always have to 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.039 cut an artificial cave or tunnel into the earth to 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.680 mine things. But of course that's the model that is 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.000 going to factor into many of the examples we're going 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:52.240 to be discussing here today. 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.480 Yeah, and we can talk about some more practical distinctions 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.960 between different types of mining as we go on through 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.120 this series. But it does seem to me, based and 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.920 what I've read so far, that tunnel mining that does 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.840 go down into caverns and tunnels beneath the surface is 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.400 the type of mining that gives the most rise to 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.440 the belief in supernatural entities and beings there is. It 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:20.000 seems to me, there is less less monstrous, less ghostly, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:25.280 less spiritual associated with say open pit mining or placer mining, 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.640 where you know, you're you're sifting a sediment from a 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.320 stream bed or and things like that. Probably just because 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.440 you know there you're open to the sky. It's just 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:37.240 less eerie and it is less likely to conjure you know, 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.560 kind of spooky eerie feelings for a number of reasons 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:40.520 that we can discuss as. 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.520 We go on, right and then and then all sorts 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.640 of additional dangers that don't exist if you're doing an 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.560 open pit mine, or you're you know, if you're standing 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.359 in the stream that sort of thing. Now we've we've 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:55.000 been thrown around a few different terms here spirits and monsters. 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:57.799 Many of the traditions that we're going to be talking 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.880 about concern beings that fall roughly into a category that 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:07.760 may often be described as fairies or fair folk, And 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.880 as Carol Rose the Folklorus writes in her works, you know, 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.440 they might be thought of as beings that exist between 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:20.120 heroes and the gods. Folkloris Charlotte Sophie Byrne described them 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.360 in her nineteen fourteen book The Handbook of Folklore as 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.560 quote various races of beings not human and yet not divine, 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.800 who are supposed to share this lower earth more or 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:37.080 less invisibly with mankind. And I really like that definition 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:41.240 more or less invisibly, because you know, sometimes we talk 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.880 about them being fair or invisible, but other times we 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:47.120 talk about how they are small, you know, they're like 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.640 the leprechaun. And sometimes this ends up just taking on, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.839 you know, the pure idea of them being very small 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.679 in stature or being miniature people. But I was thinking 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.279 about this over the weekend that it is also it's 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.680 like they just have a different spatial reality, like they 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.920 live in different spatial dimensions and they can fold themselves 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:08.240 in and out of those spaces. 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.240 Yeah, they're sometimes conceived as having a subtle form, one 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.440 that is only lightly detectable to our senses. Other times 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.760 they're pictured more as being often hidden but occasionally coming 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.640 out into view. But yeah, it fits well with this 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.040 idea of, you know, like a later science fiction idea 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.600 of extra dimensional beings phasing in and out of our reality. 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.000 Yeah, and I think that also speaks more to the 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.280 power that's often attributed to them, because you know, if 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.680 you're just dealing with very pop cultural leprechaun ideas, like, yeah, 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.960 they have some powers. They may be dangerous to some degree, 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.280 but there's often a fair amount of danger associated with 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:49.520 the fear folk traditions around the world. They have a 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.440 lot of power, and you don't want to fall on 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:53.120 their bad. 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.920 Side, especially not in a mind right. 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.640 Right, which you know, because that's one of the things too. 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:00.800 It's like, once you're in the mind and we've been 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.840 describing this environment to some degree already, like this is 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.119 definitely a place where we don't belong, where we're most 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.520 definitely infringing upon their world and their realm and their rules. 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:14.800 So it's this sort of you know, mysterious or wild 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.040 place they might be found. And their temperament is also 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.200 always key because they might be anywhere from benevolent to malevolent, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.960 though they're often situated somewhere in between. They're not always 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.200 right in the middle, so they might be largely benign. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.080 You know, maybe they can be wooed by humans, you know, 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.400 with offerings and so forth, or they might just be 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.480 very easily offended. And if you offend them, you know, 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.640 they might just have a good laugh at your expense, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.840 or it might be the end of you. They might 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.360 play a joke, but just how severe is that joke 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:48.880 going to be? 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.320 Yeah, because a prank with mining equipment, I mean that 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.440 might be just a frustration and economic loss, but that 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:57.520 might also be death. 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.640 Yeah, and so we'll discuss. They'd be like, you know, 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.199 it would be funny, what if we did all the 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.520 humans work for them today? Yeahs, you just don't know 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.760 exactly which way it's going to fall, right. So, just 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.280 as there's a fair amount of variety and just how 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:13.160 they're going to act towards humans, their exact origins very 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:17.360 wildly as well, you know, including everything from the idea 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:22.120 of them being transformed humans to personifications of natural phenomena 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.800 and in some cases defeated elder races or even cast 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.800 down gods. How whatever their origins are, generally they're cast 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.880 in a place where there's some sort of friction that 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.720 occurs between their world and our world, where these two 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.520 worlds meet. All right, Given what we're going to be 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.520 discussing here in this episode, I think it'd probably be 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:48.120 helpful to start with a sort of predecessor, and that 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.760 is the tradition of the Red Caps and the Blue Caps, 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.280 both supernatural entities from the British Isles and to a 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.920 certain degree elsewhere, you know, given the sort of the 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:00.840 basic nature of these names. 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.760 Now, these are not necessarily always or even often, in 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.079 the case of the Red Cap, I understand, associated with minds, 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.440 but they have important tie INDs, I say, I guess, 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.160 especially the Blue Cap right right, right, And I think 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.000 they're kind of like a nice example of how we 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.640 have like the non mine related entity and then it 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:19.120 can sort. 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.400 Of easily shift towards the mind. You know, these are 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.800 all ultimately I guess, ideas that we ended up taking 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:27.040 with us, and then they changed with us depending on 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:31.040 our work in these dangerous environments. Yeah, so in both 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.320 of these cases we're talking about caps. We're talking about 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.520 either like a literal cap that a creature is wearing 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.760 on its head that is colored to a certain color, or 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.000 it is something like a cap that you might think 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.520 of more as a halo or an aura. But we 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.880 just describe it as a cap because you know, basically 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.760 it's relatable. Everybody has a cap. Everybody wears a cap 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.400 from time to time, you know what we're talking about 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.720 if we describe something in that in those terms. And 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.319 then also they're just a wealth of traditions regarding caps 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.440 that provide various powers or carry with them curses. So 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.000 you know, caps are to a certain degree inherently magical, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.960 at least in you know, our magical thinking. Yeah, so 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.040 let's start with the red cap, also known as bloody 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.600 cap or red comb. This one is one that many 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.720 of you are probably familiar with to some degree. I 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.559 feel like I grew up looking through various folklore books 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.640 that had pictures of or you know, the ideas of 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.959 what this creature looked like. And as Carol Rose describes 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:33.240 it in Spirits, Farries, leprechauns, and Goblins, the red cap 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:38.400 in its English usage is a largely evil spirit, sometimes 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.480 described as a hobgoblin originating in the full traditions of 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:44.520 the English Scottish border country. 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:46.920 I'm mainly familiar with the red cap from a D 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.800 and D context, actually in Balder'sgate three, where they appear 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.000 as like a vicious, disgusting little David the Gnome. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.240 Yeah, that would be. That would be very viciousness. That 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:03.400 seems key to how they depicted. They often appear as 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.160 a hideous little old man in iron boots and a 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.440 red blood soaked cap. So his cap is blood because 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.520 he keeps like using it to soak up blood generally 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.880 I guess, like human blood and then wearing it. It's 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.120 not wearing it on its head, so pretty gross, pretty savage. 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.920 Where do you find this entity? Well, it's said to 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.840 haunt old ruins and sights of historic bloodshed, and if 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:30.080 you venture near such places, it might just kill you, 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.720 maybe all there is to it, and then use its 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:37.640 cap to sop up your blood unless you recite scripture 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.160 at it and drive and drive it away. It's also 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.440 said that if the blood of this creature's cap ever dries, 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.040 then it will shrivel up and die, so almost kind 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.080 of a Kappa sensibility to it. In the sense that 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.560 it has to keep some part of itself damp, but 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.240 this time it has to keep itself damp with human blood. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.360 So that's interesting because here it's like the vampire legend. 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.840 It's like the munster has a need of its own. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.960 It's not just reacting to what you do, like it 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.840 needs blood and so it's eager to get your blood. 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.199 It's not just punishing you for say, crossing the threshold 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:12.160 of a ruined castle. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.120 Right. Yeah, this one is definitely more malicious than a 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.400 lot of the you know, the more sort of neutral 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.440 fear folk entities you'll encounter, Like this one is actively nasty. 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.319 And I mentioned English traditions because there are also things 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.600 called red caps and other traditions, like there's a Dutch 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:29.719 tradition of the red cap, where the red cap is 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:34.120 simply a helpful household spirit, not soopping up blood. And 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.240 I should also point out there are a number of different 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.640 variations of the English red cap tail, some of which 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:44.920 connect the entity with the fourteenth century Scottish border noble 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.440 William the Ti de sulis sometimes embellished as a villain 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.120 who was tutored in the Black Arts with the imp 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.920 robin redcap serving as is familiar, and in some accounts, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.800 this cruel lord is eventually boiled alive by the people 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.760 who suffered under him. And I've also read versions where 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.200 the Red Cap creature is encased in lead and boiled. WHOA. 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:11.120 In reality, I'm to understand, Desiulis died in prison after 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.520 allegedly playing in a part of his part in a 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:26.400 conspiracy against King Robert the Bruce. All right, so that's 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.280 red caps. Let's switch colors and let's go to Blue Caps, 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.600 and this will get as closer to the mines. This 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.680 is another spirit of English folklore, also known as the 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.160 blue Bonnet, and this entity, according to Carol Rose, was 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.280 said to reside deep within the earth, and you would 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:45.400 only encounter it if you happen to venture down into 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.280 the mines, you know, labored in the minds and reach 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.240 some depth that humans would normally encounter. And so this 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:57.200 entity is often invisible, but it also might manifest as 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.840 a light blue flame, you know, this kind of like 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.520 a low effect, thus its name. And this one wasn't 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.600 nefarious at all, like very like polar opposite. Really compared 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.520 to the Red Cap, the blue Cap would mimic human 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.240 miners and sometimes put in a full day's work, so 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.280 moving tubs of coal or around, and then the miners 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.080 would leave out carefully calculated offerings for the blue caps 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.080 in thanks for their practice. You know, So this is 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.080 this one's kind of this one's This one really seems 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.760 almost downright benevolent, and you would tip your blue cap 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.560 and make sure that it kept occasionally doing this. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.680 Yeah, and as we're about to see, the blue cap 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:43.360 legend here has a lot in common with other well 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.720 explored mining spirits, specifically the one that I want to 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:48.880 focus on now for the rest of this episode, which 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.400 is the Tommy Knocker, also known as the Knocker or 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:53.040 the Knacker. 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.040 This one, of course, I think a lot of us 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.200 are familiar with its name because we grew up having 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.160 some degree familiarity with the gigantic Stephen King book of 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:04.240 the same name the top. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.480 Does that book have anything to do with Tommy Knockers. 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:11.640 It's been a very long time since I tried to 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:13.960 read it. This was like the first Stephen King book 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.520 that I read in like junior high that I couldn't 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.400 actually finish. You know, maybe I would have a different 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.680 experience if I tried it now, But I think it 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.520 is not uncommon for people to have difficulty with this one. 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.880 I think King himself has somewhat disparaged it, hasn't he. 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:31.000 I believe so? 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:36.680 Yes, yeah. Anyway, So to examine the Tommy Knocker tradition, 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.880 I want to talk about an academic folklore article that 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:45.000 I found really interesting which traces the historical evolution of 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.680 the knocker or Tommy Knocker story from its origins among 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.200 Cornish miners in the area of Cornwall, which is in 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.120 southwest England's the Peninsula coming down in southwest England out 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.800 into the sea, so in the area of Hornwall, and 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.560 that goes back centuries all the way into twentieth century beliefs, 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.720 nineteenth and twentieth century beliefs of Cornish immigrants and others 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:14.119 working in mines in the American West. This article is 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:19.480 called Knockers, Knackers and Ghosts, Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines, 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.600 published in the journal Western Folklore in nineteen ninety two 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:23.919 by Ronald M. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:24.560 James. 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.080 I looked up the author here, and Ronald M. James 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.359 is a historian in folklore as who's been affiliated with 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:35.320 the University of Nevadorno and Iowa State University. So The 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.679 paper begins with a great little vignette from the later 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.440 evolution of the Tommy Knocker law. It is a passage 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.800 from the work of an author named F. D. Calhoun, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.720 published in nineteen eighty six, drawing on his first hand 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:53.080 experience living in mining communities in Grass Valley, California in 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:57.320 the early twentieth century. So Calhoun is in the middle 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.159 of talking about an illicit practice of some miners at 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.280 the time who I think this was called high grading. 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.760 They would smuggle out high graded or from the mines, 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.480 you know, pack it secretly somewhere on themselves, smuggle it out, 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.600 bring it home, and then mill the ore in their 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.040 cellars at night. And of course, the milling of ore 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.000 is an important stage in the processing of raw minerals. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.639 Usually it involves crushing, smashing, or grinding down large pieces 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.639 of rock into a relatively fine powder. And this increases 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.320 the surface area of the desirable minerals, making them easier 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.520 to separate and extract from the parts of the rock 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:37.720 that you don't care about. And you might do this 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.720 several different ways. You know, it might involve just hammer 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.159 or you know, mortar and pestle of some kind, or 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.640 hammer smashing on a surface, or some kind of stamp mill. 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.320 But as you can imagine, this secret milling operation would 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.320 be noisy. It involved the pounding or stamping of hammers 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.320 or stamps, and this could lead children in the house 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.080 to wonder what their parents were up to. Why did 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.480 they hear repetitive hammer blows coming from the basement when 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.000 they were trying to sleep, And according to Calhoun, these 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.560 parents would often blame the commotion on the tommy knockers. 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:18.240 So to quote from Calhoun here, supposedly the little miners 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.840 gathered under the house where children were especially good. If 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.600 they listened and were real quiet. After they had gone 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:26.919 to bed and were supposed to be going to sleep, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:30.399 they just might hear their little friends hammering away with 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.440 their tiny single jacks. It is surprising how many residents 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:37.080 of the mining town still tell of being lulled to 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:40.480 sleep by the rhythmical pounding from deep below. If the 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.119 rock was especially hard and the pounding unusually loud, the 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.719 children were told that the tommy knockers must have been 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:48.880 using double jacks the evening before. 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.520 Why durable This is adorable and ridiculous at the same time. 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.440 So James says that Calhoun's account, of course, presents some 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.800 difficulty to the folklorist because he doesn't give exact dates here, 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.760 and he doesn't like name specific people or site sources, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.040 but it can be taken as some evidence for the 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.840 late evolution of the Tommy Knocker concept in early twentieth 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:17.399 century California. So by this point, according to Calhoun's telling, 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.439 the Tommy Knocker had come to be used, among other roles, 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:25.960 as what James calls a FicT, citing as FicT citing 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:30.280 the terminology of the folklorist Carl Wilhelm von Sidao actually 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.480 father of the actor Max von. 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:33.800 Sidao, Oh wow, that's amazing. 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.160 A FicT is a legend like narrative that the teller 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.760 does not believe, but which is told as if true. 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.560 In other words, a FicT is intended to be understood 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.440 as true by the audience, but understood as fictional by 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:55.400 the teller. And this is distinguished from legends, which would 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.520 be third person stories that are sincerely believed by the 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.720 teller and expected to be believed by the audience, and 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.000 then fairy tales or folk tales, which are third person 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.480 stories that are understood by both teller and audience as 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:13.479 fictional because of this asymmetry in the relationship here, ficts 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.920 are often told by adults to children, and a great 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:21.480 example would be nursery bogies such as Jenny Green Teeth. Presumably, 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.720 Grandpa does not actually believe that there is a hag 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:26.719 living in the water that will pull you down by 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.800 the ankle, but he knows that the standing water is 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:34.679 actually dangerous for less mentally gripping reasons, so he tells 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:36.919 the story of Jenny Green Teeth in the hopes that 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:39.080 it will stick in the child's head and get them 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:39.720 to stay away. 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:42.600 A FicT, as you might imagine, is a little bit 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.480 like a lie. 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:46.720 Yes, but it's a lie that takes the form of 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.320 a story. Now, of course, the Tommy Knockers and Calhoun's 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.720 example are not exactly bogies. Like Jenny Green Teeth. There 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.919 are no threats in this story, but they are a 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:02.040 supernatural explanation told to believing children dren by unbelieving adults 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.240 to get them to stay away from dangerous knowledge, in 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.120 this case, the knowledge that their parents are doing something illegal. 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:13.639 Hmmm. Interesting, yeah, and kind of rewarding them because the 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.320 terminology or the exact description was something along the lines 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.480 of like this only happens in houses where the children 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.520 are really good. Yeah, you're very fortunate that the Tommy 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:23.520 Knockers are here. 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.800 So James says, by this point the Tommy knocker had 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:31.080 drifted very far from its earliest known form, and studying 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.360 this evolution is actually a pretty fascinating exercise that can 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:39.520 help us understand how folklore is affected by the immigration process, 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.399 the immigration of storytellers to new locales, the diffusion of 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.720