TOMMYKNOCKERS

Here's a Creature Feature for all the miners out there. Hello? Nobody? Okay, whatever, I'm still writing it.

Generally, the people who've heard of these creatures are either pre-war English miners or Stephen King fans. The Venn diagram of those two camps doesn't really overlap otherwise. In Wales, they might be called coblynau; in Ireland, the leprechaun; in Kent the kloker; and in England and Scotland another name is the brownie—though they are much uglier than your run-of-the-mill (or mine?) girl scout. 

Stories of the tommyknocker were taken to the United States by migrant miners and this might be where their fondness for gold comes from, thereby bringing us full circle back to leprechauns. Generally, they were said to be about two feet tall and wear traditional mining clothes, with white beards or whiskers. Most reports suggest that they are mischievous. They would hide tools, take a bite out of someone’s snap and extinguish lights. Some believed they would lead to gold-rich seams in the mine.

Others thought these little guys were spirits of former miners watching over and protecting those who still worked in the mines. So, in most stories it is a bad omen to laugh at or ignore the tommyknocker. Kind of like scary canaries in a coal mine. (But please don't discriminate against tommyknockers who dwell in other mines besides coal.)

In Stephen King's undoubtedly coke-fueld novel, The Tommyknockers, Haven, Maine, residents are transformed by a mysterious, buried alien spaceship, gaining extraordinary powers but becoming a collective, homicidal entity. In it, he quotes this old American rhyme:

Late last night and the night before,

Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at the door.

I want to go out, don’t know if I can,

‘Cause I’m so afraid of the Tommyknocker man.

In America, you'll find nods to the tommyknockers outside Maine, too. Particularly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where immigrants came to work in coal and copper mines, and anywhere else Cornish lore found its way across the pond. They've even spun into our own mythos. Take a look at Snow White's pals, the Seven Dwarves. Little bearded guys who work in mines? To quote Jeff Foxworthy: If you're two feet tall, love coal mining and sing songs about working, you just might be... a tommyknocker. Weirdly, this is still the least offensive Disney adaptation of a culture's folklore.

But the point is well-taken because even the kindling of a legend from far off lands can eventually ingrain itself in American lore and become something entirely new.

See you out there.