Legend of The Knockers

The Knocker, Knacker, Bwca (Welsh), Bucca (Cornish) or Tommyknocker (US) is a mythical creature in Welsh, Cornish and Devon folklore. They are the equivalent of Irish leprechauns and English and Scottish brownies.

According to Cornish folklore the knocker was the helpful spirit of a previous fatality in the tin mines. A knocker is about 2 feet high, has a disproportionately large head, long beard and weathered, wrinkled skin. Their long arms almost touch the ground and they imitate the miner's clothes in dress, and carry such things as pickaxes and lamps. They inhabited the deepest darkest parts of the mine, and could sometimes be heard knocking and working their own lodes in the darkness. No doubt that any distant creak or rock fall would be amplified in the claustrophobic darkness of the mines. It is no wonder spirits were thought to inhabit these dangerous work places, where thoughts of the supernatural could cause an instant shiver down the spine.

 

The Knockers generally kept to their own company and were thought to be benevolent, knocking at the richest of the lodes and showing themselves only to those that they favoured.

In the 1820s, immigrant Welsh miners brought tales of the knockers and their theft of unwatched items and warning knocks to western Pennsylvania, when they gravitated there to work in the mines. Cornish miners, much sought after in the years following the gold and silver rushes, brought them to California and Nevada.

There were a few musings as to the origin of the Knockers, some thought they were the ghosts of Jews who were working the mines in penance. Another theory suggests they were the spirits of souls who could not gain access to heaven or hell, this is also used as an explanation for wider manifestations of fairies. 

 

The fact that Knockers were also thought to haunt other recesses and wells, suggests the name became mixed in some quarters to describe several types of fairy.

Sources:

http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/Knocker

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/cornwall/folklore/the-knockers.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker_%28folklore%29

Pic Source:

http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/Knocker