Tommyknockers: Mining Folklore & Legends

Tommyknockers are among the most enduring figures in mining folklore, mischievous underground spirits said to guide, warn, or even endanger miners at work.

“Occupational folklore” is defined as a set of traditions, shared knowledge, unique customs and stories regarding specific professions that are passed down over generations. Underground mining, with its long history, hazardous nature and difficult working conditions, has accumulated a folklore that is unusually rich and colorful, and sometimes even macabre.

The darkness inherent to underground mining has steered its folklore toward the realms of myth, mystery, superstition and the supernatural. And because mines are never quiet, sound also contributes to the eeriness of the underground: The rock is always “talking,” making stress-related popping, grating and even groaning sounds, while unseen water drips rhythmically and air currents move in haunting whispers. Considering this underground environment, it is not surprising that mining folklore focuses on gnomes, spirits and ghosts. Even the miners’ patron saint is a tragic figure who was beheaded by her own father.

Early Mining Folklore in Europe: Kobolds and Wichtleiner

Mining folklore originated in central Europe during the late Middle Ages when miners had no knowledge of science, engineering or geology. To cope with conditions in the dark, mysterious underground, they turned to magical beings to keep them safe, quell their fears and, hopefully, lead them to rich ore.

These miners believed that the underground was inhabited by malicious, territorial gnomes called kobolds who resented human intrusion into their world. Strange knocking sounds (likely caused by rock and timber stress) were interpreted as warnings not to proceed farther lest the kobolds create a cave-in. Kobolds were thought to have “poisoned” copper and silver ores with arsenical minerals of a then-unknown metal that was later named for them—cobalt.

Even more troublesome were the Wichtleiner, gnomes who announced their presence by three distinct taps that were thought to be a death knell for miners who had only enough time to make peace with their God before the mine collapsed.

In De Re Metallica, the classic 1556 mining work that is considered the first modern technological treatise, Agricola (Georg Bauer) generally discredited the supernatural, except for the gnomes. He writes of “good” gnomes who help miners and “bad” gnomes who cause injury and even death and advises “fasting and praying” to thwart the latter.

Cornish Knockers in Mining Folklore

By the 1700s, belief in gnomes had migrated to the mines of Cornwall, England, where they were known as buccas, sprigans, and, most commonly, knockers, the latter name for their habit of knocking on mine walls and timbers. Only two or three feet tall and frighteningly deformed, knockers sometimes helped miners by directing them to unseen ore veins. But if miners offended them, or failed to leave them tidbits of food, they could cause deadly rockfalls. Cornish miners believed that knockers were the ghosts of the Jews who had participated in the crucifixion of Christ and whom God had banished to the mines.

Cornish miners also swore to the existence of the “fiery drake” or “fiery dragon,” an eerie, dancing blue orb of light that led them to the richest ores. Nonminers readily accepted the miners’ accounts of knockers and strange lights. Because mining was a highly secretive profession, the public had no firsthand knowledge with which to challenge the tales.

Tommyknockers in American Mines

When Cornish miners emigrated to the United States in the late 1800s, knockers became known as “tommyknockers.” Like their Old World counterparts, Tommyknockers were a raucous group who often drank to excess. They did not want to be seen by humans, and the unfortunate miners who stumbled upon them could receive a severe thrashing. Miners placed ceramic figures of Tommyknockers at mine portals to warn visitors to tread cautiously and not inadvertently surprise these troublesome gnomes.

In one tale, an old coal miner befriended the Tommyknockers. Working alone for years, he had always filled the most trams, yet never seemed to tire. Curious as to how he managed this feat, the other miners one day quietly followed him to his workplace, where they found the old miner asleep while a team of Tommyknockers, each wearing a tall red hat, did his work. The Tommyknockers quickly disappeared. Then, the following day, the mine collapsed.

The Tommyknocker legend lives on in the old Colorado mining town of Idaho Springs, not in its long-closed mines, but at the Tommyknocker Brewery and Pub, where the raucous little gnomes would blend right in on a Saturday night.

Saint Barbara and Mining Traditions

Spirituality and religious beliefs also helped miners cope with conditions in the underground. Barbara, their protective patron saint, was the daughter of Dioscorus, a wealthy pagan nobleman in a Roman provincial capital during the 3rd century C.E. To protect his daughter from religious influences, Dioscorus imprisoned her in a tower. Nevertheless, a tutor secretly converted Barbara to Christianity. Even under torture, she refused to renounce her new faith. After the Romans sentenced Barbara to death, Dioscorus beheaded his daughter with his own sword, only to be struck down by a fearsome bolt of lightning from Heaven, which consumed his body in fire.

For her martyrdom, Barbara became a revered, yet somewhat obscure, saint in the Catholic Church—until the 1300s and the introduction of black gunpowder. For miners, black powder was both a blessing and a curse; while it could break rock much faster than hammers, when used improperly, it also could—and often did—smite miners just as God’s lightning bolt had struck down Dioscorus.

Seeing a parallel between God’s avenging lightning bolt and the feared black-powder explosions, miners venerated Barbara. By 1380, the mining town of Freiburg, Germany, had more than 60 altars dedicated to Saint Barbara and ceramic effigies of the saint guarded its mine portals. Barbara is usually depicted alongside the symbols of her life: a tower, sword, and lightning bolt, and floating on clouds above a mine with miners, ladders and hoists.

Mining Folklore in the Americas

Spanish miners in the great colonial silver-mining districts of Mexico and South America brought Santa Barbara with them, lending her name to many mines and mining towns, and adorning mine portals with plaster statues in her likeness for protection against the hazards within.

The mines’ overseers who placed these icons of Santa Barbara, of course, were almost all Spanish Catholics. But at Potosí, the richest of all colonial silver districts in what is now Bolivia, the miners themselves, all indigenous, forced laborers who endured horrendous conditions, created their own “patron saint,” a bizarre mix of the Catholic concept of Satan and their indigenous gods Supay and Huari.

This unlikely demigod has evolved today as El Tío (the Uncle), the miners’ “Lord of the Underworld.” Even today, El Tío continues to watch over thousands of independent Potosí miners who work in hundreds of small mines in conditions not far removed from those of the colonial era, and who rely on tobacco, alcohol and coca leaves to get through the long shifts.

Representations of El Tío fashioned from whatever materials are available are present in virtually all the mines. Resembling a cross between the Devil and a horned goat, they range from doll-size to life-size and have bulging eyes. The mouth is usually open to accept gifts of coca leaves and tobacco, while one hand is extended to accept a bottle of alcohol. Miners appease El Tío with these daily gifts in return for protection from injury or death.

Because today’s Potosí miners are mostly Catholic, El Tio might seem at odds with the Christian God. But not so with the miners who steadfastly believe that God rules the world above, while El Tío rules the world below.

The Legend of White Boots

I was introduced to mining folklore years ago when I hired on as a hardrock miner. Following a fatal accident, I heard miners wondering aloud if the deceased, in his last moments, had seen the “Man with the White Boots.” Our shift boss even concluded his impromptu safety lecture with a euphemism to work safely: “Keep an eye out for the Man with the White Boots.”

I learned that White Boots was a dark, ghostly figure that appeared just before a serious accident. His face was obscured beneath a hard hat surmounted by an oddly dim cap lamp and he wore clean, white boots—a striking incongruity in mines filled with mud and broken rock. White Boots never spoke; his appearance alone warned of imminent danger.

The legend of White Boots seems to have originated during the 1930s in the Arizona copper mines following an ore-train derailment in which a miner lost his legs and soon died. The fate of the deceased was to wander the mines forever, looking for his legs—and warning other miners of impending death. This legend flourished in the huge San Manuel copper mine at Magma, Arizona, during the 1950s. By the 1970s, it had spread to mines across the West.

Although I never believed in the legend of White Boots, I remember shifts where my partner and I worked alone in a remote drift amid the drip-drip-drip of water and with only our cap lamps to temper the pitch darkness. When we glimpsed a faint speck of light at the end of the long, dark drift leading to our work heading, we knew, intellectually, that it was the cap lamp of our shift boss who was making a routine check. But as his dark figure slowly materialized out of the gloom, I admit that I glanced at his boots—just to be sure.

Tommyknockers & Mining Legends: Final Thoughts

The tales of Tommyknockers and other mining folklore reveal how miners made sense of the dangers and mysteries of life underground. Whether seen as protectors, pranksters, or harbingers of disaster, these legends reflect both the fears and the resilience of those who worked in the dark. Even today, stories of spirits in the mines endure, keeping alive a rich tradition of myth and memory tied to mining’s past.

This story about Tommyknockers and mining folklore previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Steve Voynick.