**Willoughby Collection** Excursions underground, like this tour with his father and sister, lured the writer to further exploration, despite the Tommyknockers.

Every legend starts somewhere. In The Winze Files, the Tommyknocker isn’t just a ghost story; it’s the thing humming beneath the town, the pulse in the mountain, the reason Feverin was never quite right to begin with. But before it became part of my book, it was already part of something older: mining folklore passed down in whispers, warnings, and half-remembered songs.

Pauline Codd: Poem about a Tommyknocker.

So let’s dig in. Who, or what, is the Tommyknocker?

The Real-World Roots

The original stories of Tommyknockers came from Cornish miners, who brought the legends with them when they immigrated to North America during the gold and coal rushes of the 1800s. In those stories, the Tommyknocker was a small, goblin-like creature who lived underground — mischievous, sometimes helpful, sometimes deadly.

Some miners believed the knockers would warn them of cave-ins by tapping on the walls. Others said they stole tools, played tricks, or lured people deeper into the dark. Either way, they were a presence. A reminder that the earth doesn’t give up its riches without consequence. That something else might be down there with you.

Origins in Cornwall, England

The legend of the Tommyknockers (also called "knockers") originated in Cornwall, a county in the southwestern tip of England. Cornwall was home to a thriving tin and copper mining industry as early as the Bronze Age, and by the 17th and 18th centuries, Cornish miners had developed a rich tradition of superstitions, stories, and mythical beings linked to their work underground.

Among the most enduring of these beings were the knockers, small, goblin-like creatures said to dwell in the deep recesses of mines. According to folklore, they stood about two feet tall, wore mining garb, and were rarely seen clearly. What they were known for, however, was the knocking sound they made deep within the rock. These knocks were interpreted in two ways: sometimes as warnings of an impending cave-in or accident, and other times as mischievous taunts or tricks.

Miners believed that the knockers could either be benevolent spirits guiding them toward rich mineral veins or malevolent ones causing tools to go missing and shafts to collapse. To stay on the knockers' good side, miners often left small offerings of food or bits of their lunch in the tunnels.

Crossing the Atlantic: The Cornish Diaspora

By the mid-1800s, the Cornish mining industry was in decline, and thousands of skilled miners, often referred to as "Cousin J bega,” began emigrating to other countries in search of work. Many found new opportunities in the booming gold, silver, and coal mines of North America, particularly in regions like Pennsylvania, California, Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains.

These miners didn’t just bring their tools and techniques; they brought their traditions, superstitions, and stories. In American mining camps, the tales of knockers evolved. Now called "Tommyknockers" (a likely Americanization of the original name), the creatures became a fixture of local lore.

In the United States, Tommyknockers were still seen as either helpers or harbingers of doom. Some miners believed that hearing knocking was a sign of good fortune, a supernatural clue that a rich vein of ore lay just ahead. Others took the sounds as dire warnings and would evacuate the tunnels if the knocking became too persistent or ominous.

A Legacy in Pop Culture and Paranormal Lore

Though mining technology and practices have changed, the legend of the Tommyknockers has endured. In areas with historic mines, stories still circulate about unexplained noises deep underground, vanished tools, or feelings of an unseen presence. The myth has also crept into popular culture. Stephen King’s 1987 novel *The Tommyknockers* borrowed the name and some elements of the lore, transforming it into a chilling science fiction tale.

Even today, remnants of the legend linger. In towns with a Cornish heritage, such as Grass Valley, California, or Butte, Montana, museums and festivals occasionally reference the Tommyknockers. Some former miners or their descendants still share stories handed down through generations of mysterious knocks, strange sightings, or the belief that something, or someone, still lingers in the deep, dark tunnels.

The tale of the Tommyknockers isn’t just a spooky mining story; it’s a cultural artifact. It reveals how communities create myths to explain the dangers of their environment, and how those myths can travel, adapt, and endure across continents and centuries. Whether seen as protectors, tricksters, or omens, the Tommyknockers remain a fascinating thread in the tapestry of mining folklore and supernatural legend.

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How I Reimagined It

In The Winze Files: Volume 1, I took that folklore and let it grow into something stranger. My Tommyknocker isn’t just a mine spirit; it’s the physical embodiment of greed, grief, and gold lust. It doesn’t just knock on walls. It calls to people. It seeps into the town’s history like a shimmer in the veins of rock, twisting truth and memory and morality.

It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t care if you’re a believer. It wants what it’s owed, and it’s been waiting a long, long time.

The version in my story has roots in the same mining superstitions, but it’s also shaped by the eerie, echoing isolation of small-town British Columbia. The kind of place where people know too much and say too little. Where history is layered like sediment. Where old energy still breathes under the boardwalk.

**The Tommyknocker in The Winze Files Isn’t Just a Monster: It’s a Mirror**

Folklore has a way of coming back when we need it most. In The Winze Files, the Tommyknocker isn’t just a creature from the dark; it’s something far more unsettling. It’s a reflection. A metaphor. A warning.

This version of the Tommyknocker isn’t simply a ghost from the mine shafts of history; it’s the embodiment of everything we try to hide: corruption, unchecked power, environmental violence, and the silence we allow when we feel powerless. It haunts not just tunnels and caves, but boardrooms, town halls, and the quiet spaces where deals are made without community consent.

A Mirror to Power

In The Winze Files, the Tommyknocker becomes a symbol of consequences, of what happens when industry prioritizes extraction over ethics, when communities are treated like obstacles instead of stakeholders. It doesn’t just attack individuals; it attacks the illusion that we can keep taking from the land, from each other, and history, without something fighting back.

Unchecked power always leaves a scar, and the Tommyknocker is that scar coming to life.

It’s the echo of dynamite blasts from decades past, still resonating in today’s decisions. It’s the buried truth clawing its way to the surface. It reminds us: you can cover up history, but you can’t erase it. Eventually, it knocks back.

When History Is Buried, It Doesn’t Stay Dead

So many mining towns, including our own, have been shaped by this dynamic: promise, exploitation, abandonment. The past is full of these patterns, where the wealth was shipped out and the mess was left behind. And yet, here we are again, watching a new mining company lay out blueprints for profit, drawing lines on a map that cut straight through our homes, our water, our future.

What The Winze Files gets right is that these stories don’t stay buried. They return. The ground remembers. The people do, too.

The Tommyknocker isn’t here just to scare us. It’s here to hold a mirror up to the very forces that created it, to ask who gets to decide what’s “progress,” and at what cost.

Taking More Than You Should Always Comes With a Price

In Cornish folklore, the knockers were ambiguous, not always evil, but not to be trifled with. They punished greed. They warned of danger. They reminded miners that some things, once disturbed, don’t stay quiet.

The same can be said of our world today. When companies bulldoze through communities under the promise of jobs, when they treat environmental regulations as obstacles instead of responsibilities, when they try to buy silence with sponsorships and PR, that’s when the real horror begins.

Because the scariest part isn’t the monster in the mine. It’s the fact that so many are willing to let it loose, thinking they’ll never have to deal with the fallout.

The Knock Is at the Door — What Will We Do?

The Winze Files gives us something more than entertainment. It gives us a language for what we’re feeling: the unease, the betrayal, the knowing that something’s not right, even when the press releases say everything’s fine.

We are living in the knock.

The question now is: will we listen? Or will we pretend that the noises underground, the resistance, the memory, the warnings, don’t mean anything?

Because if we don’t face the truth, the Tommyknocker will.

The Winze Files: Volume 1 is just the beginning. The Tommyknocker has roots, and they go deep.

Order: The Winze Files, Vol 1:, The Taste of The Tommyknocker.

And if you ever hear knocking when you’re alone… maybe don’t follow the sound.

Caroline

What Is a Tommyknocker? Digging Into the Lore Behind the Curse