mining folklore – #FolkloreThursday

The changing faces of ghosts in the Wild West … or what I learned from #FolkloreThursday

February 17, 2022 by Ronald M. James

Let us begin with a ghost story. In 1872, fourteen-year-old Agnes McDonough announced that she was communicating with the spirit of her deceased father. She was part of a community of Irish Americans who settled in Virginia City, Nevada, home to the fabulous Comstock Lode and the Big Bonanza (giving its name to a famous television show). Crediting her father’s ghost, the young girl revealed insights about the afterworld, all scrutinized by a local priest who hoped to control the sensational aspects of the incident.

The Last Gleam of Sunlight: Mining Folklore on the International Frontier

September 19, 2019 by Ronald M. James

alking deep into a mine, when the last gleam of sunlight is eclipsed by the next turn, reveals the overwhelming weight of being underground. When all signs of the outside world are gone, the bulk of the mountain above seems even more menacing as it threatens to crush the wooden supports that keep miners alive. […]

Lost Mines and the Secret of Getting Rich Quick

July 18, 2019 by Ronald M. James

old! The very word fuels the imagination. And when that furnace is stoked, folklore is not far behind. Legends of lost mines are at the heart of traditions inspired by gold, greed and dreams of sudden wealth. Tales of mines won and lost are international, but they are especially common in the West of the […]

Piskies, Knockers and Tommyknockers – Cornwall’s Misunderstood Folklore

January 10, 2019 by Ronald M. James

The Folklore of Cornwall: The Oral Tradition of a Celtic Nation addresses everything from piskies – south west Britain’s fairies – to mermaids, harvest festivals, a corpse visiting his betrothed, and the giants long noted for making the Cornish peninsula their home. And amid all this are the spirits of the mines – knockers together with the tommyknockers, their New World descendants.

The Pit of Ghosts: Exploring the Haunted Mines of Victorian Wales

January 4, 2018 by Mark Rees

Welsh miners of the nineteenth century held strong superstitions in supernatural elements, which they believed existed deep in the mines.