It Lurks in the Mine Shaft, Part 2

tradition to the minds of the Western United States. And we're back today to talk about more so, rob In the last episode we talked a bit about the creature from German folklore known as the Cobald. Would you mind if we do a little bit more on this one because I found an interesting geological history connection.

Apparently there's a whole very popular meme among younger D and D faults where you would have three Cobalts in a trench coat pretending to be a person and like people make you know, there's all sorts of fan art of this. You can find three D printed miniatures and so forth.

The cobalt seems to have been well known in German sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and is usually described as a type of goblin or fairy like creature, looking like a little old man. I believe Georgia's Agricola, who we mentioned last time, says that they are about twenty seven inches tall. Other times they're said to be

two feet tall, somewhere in that range. They are sometimes described as wearing a conical hat and pointy shoes, or they can be dressed like a human miner in mining clothes and mining gear. Sometimes friendly, but often delicious and deceitful. The I don't know the moral alignment of the cobalt from what I was reading, seems to have the same range as the Tommy knocker, but it with a little

more emphasis on the meaner side of the scale. Okay, the cobalt is most notably associated with mines, but it's not limited only to minds. It can also inhabit households on the surface, so it can be a household trickster, like many of these other spirits we've talked about. In either place, it would often play tricks, even nasty tricks, on people. So in your house. It might throw sawdust all over the floor, or kick ashes around up of

the fireplace, or drop sand in your milk. In the mine, it could lead you astray, making you think you had discovered a great vein of silver, only for you to waste so many hours working on it and later realize you had been fooled. The element cobalt actually gets its name from the impish form of the cobalt, because early modern miners believed the presence of cobalt or near a

vein of silver was problematic in some way. It made the silver harder to get out, or damage the purity of the silver in some way, So cobalt was a demonic or mischievous mineral. One interesting thing about the cobalt is that I found references to a passage where Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, talks about the cobalt

as a type of devil or minion of satan. I came across this reference in a book called Early Modern Supernatural The Dark Side of European Culture fourteen hundred to seventeen hundred. This is a book from twenty twelve by an author named Jane P. Davidson, who is a professor

of art history at University of Nevaderino. Davidson is in the middle of writing about the blurring between categories of supernatural beings and interesting that that's something that came up in part one one of this series, that sometimes you have these creatures where it's not quite clear are they considered a fairy type creature, something other than human, or a ghost of a dead human. Sometimes there is a

crossing of boundaries between these categories. A creature can be considered one or the other, or maybe both at the same time. In the case of the cobalt, some early modern authors treated them as a type of fairy or gnome. Others treated them as ghosts, having qualities similar to a Poultergeist noisy ghost moving things around and making a rucus.

But also they were sometimes considered to have the qualities of a demon or an imp, and some authors embraced a fully Christian theological framing and simply said they were devils of Satan. So Martin Luther is an example of the latter. In a passage from his table talk, he says, in translation of course quote, the devil vexes and harasses the workmen and the mines. He makes them think they have found new veins of silver, which when they have

labored and labored, turn out to be more illusions. Even in open day on the surface of the earth, he causes people to think they see a treasure before them, which vanishes when they would pick it up. I have never had any success in the minds, but such was God's will, and I am content. And I thought this was interesting because it recasts the mining imp as one associated not so much with the mine as a place,

but with the mental space of searching for treasure. You know, he says, even in open day on the surface of the earth, if your mind is in prospector mode, if you are looking for treasures and riches, searching for little signs of ways to profit and get rich, this devil will find you and take advantage of your greed or your hope. So this made me think, is it worth thinking about the difference between devils with a theological framing and goblins or fairy folk with a more secular folklore framing.

The latter seems to me to be more part of the geography or the environment, sort of a part of the natural world, but a magical part of the natural world, whereas the former the devil is part of a very human focused cosmology. It's hard to think of a devil as something leading a life of its own, living a parallel existence in a hidden world where you might get in trouble for spying on it going about its business.

You know, like these stories we have the Knockers, where people are peeking in on the knockers working and they get caught, and that's no good for them. That it's not really going to happen with a devil because devils have no business. They're not going about their own business. Their business is exclined lusively the tempting and tormenting of human souls.

an accident. The meeting with a devil is never an accident. The devil is looking for you, you know, and if you meet it, it is because you have done something wrong and you have allowed it the opportunity to get you, which is something it's all trying to do.

embodiments of nature, nature spirits, nature guardians, nature deities. But then you are also in a highly social environment, you know, working with people, trusting people, having weird feelings about how your foreman is treating you, and so forth. And all of that seems like maybe a little richer area for the devils to do their work.

This book is from the University of Minnesota Press, nineteen eighty eight, and the authors note that while mining legends are prolific throughout continental Europe, they're actually a little bit less common, though still present in Scandinavia. So they were able to collect five different varieties of mining legend here based on accounts from different times in places from Sweden and Norway. It seems mostly collected in the first half

of the twentieth century. So in contrast to the most common subterranean mining spirit found elsewhere in Europe, which as we discussed last time, was usually this elf like being shaped like a tiny old man, the creature that haunts a mine in Norway or Sweden is most often described as a solitary female being, often a fine lady. There are a few examples here that go by different names. You have the Groovra, the ruler of the mine, the groove Froken, the Lady of the Mine, or the Soulvmora,

the Silver Mother. Almost exactly like the Tommy Knocker and other spirits we've discussed, the spectral Lady of the Mind has a dual nature. In some tellings, she is benign and even helpful, leading the miner to loads of ore or protecting him from danger. But in other situations she is a jealous guardian of the riches of the earth, and she can cause disaster and strike the greedy miner dead.

In addition to the Lady of the Mine and the Silver Mother, there are also stories in Scandinavian legend that depict mythological beings as miners themselves. For example, mythical dwarves are often depicted as in dustus miners and smiths, and they could carry dangerous and powerful magic of their own. So the authors include a few specific tales. First, I'll mention a couple having to do with a lone female

mining spirit like the Silver Mother. One story from Middle Sweden involves silver miners in a place called Holifores Forest. The story goes when the mine first opened up, the miners worked for a while without finding much, but then one day they heard the voice of a lady calling out to them. It was a woman's voice, and she said, keep to the left, otherwise you disturb the foot of my bed. These miners were, you know, they paid heed

to the voice. They followed her instructions, keeping to the left of the pit, and what do you know, they struck silver. So turned out well for them. Who knows what would have happened if they had done otherwise, Maybe they would have angered the silver mother. Another story collected from near the same place in the Swedish province of Vostmanland call. This one was called the Lady of the mine warned them. It goes like this quote. In Clack Mountain,

there was a mining pit called Sunshine Mountain. My father heard from my grandfather who worked there in his time, that one day the miners had emerged from the mine and were eating their noon meal in a shack. Suddenly a fine lady appeared and said, go down into the shaft, pick up your gear, and go home. The older men did as she told them, but the younger fellows just laughed and stayed. The mine collapsed and they were all

buried under the rocks. It was the lady of the mine, who had warned them whenever she showed herself, a miner would lose his life. Interesting detail here. The old men listen and are saved, the young men ignore her and die. Are the old men simply more cautious or is it that the old men have respect for the legend and thus are saved.

down there in the mine long enough. I mean, they didn't they didn't become old miners by not listening to the mine.

went over to look at the minds of Nasa. As it turned out, he stayed away for quite a long time, and when he finally returned, the people were just getting ready to come after him. They had feared that the Silver Mother in Nasa had taken him. So here the Silver Mother herself seems to be the threat, a malicious figure who in fact in the story does not harm anyone, but the people assumed could seize you on a solitary survey and make you disappear forever. But fortunately the father

and the story was spare. Okay. Now a couple more Scandinavian tales in the other tradition, not the Lady of the mines or the Silver Mother, but the spirits and beings who are minor themselves, or at least make some claim over the ore in the mine. One of them is a story collected from Norway concerning a place called Klett Mountain, a mountain with silver hidden inside it. The main character of the story is a ferryman who works

a boat taking people across a nearby sound. One day, two men come over and hire him to take them across the sound, and one of them is carrying a load of silver so big it almost sinks the boat. The ferryman asks them where they got all the silver. They tell him it's from Clett Mountain. He asks them if there is more silver still in the mountain. They say, yes, there's a bunch more there, and they tell him the

secret of where to find it. But when the boat reaches the other shore, the two miners disembark, and as soon as they leave the boat, they vanish into thin air. I don't know if the implication is that they were actually dwarves, but there was some kind of spectral miner here, you know, they knew where to get the ore, and they gave him the secret, and then they're gone.

A rough voice shouted the first, who are treasure? A spies will lose both eyes. When he pushed aside the coals to quench the fire, the rock was laid bare and there glistened the copper. But as soon as the exploitation of the find began, Martin Finn went blind. So that story is interesting because there's some ambiguity, at least

to me, in the way it's being told. I think, though, I am not sure that this should be interpreted as another example of supernatural miners, or at least supernatural claimants to the discovery of the ore there. But it could also be like supernatural guardians or protectors of the mind, more like the Silver Mother. I guess it depends on how you interpret the sound of the hammering and pounding that woke Martin up. Was that the sound of the beings that cursed him pounding the rock trying to reach

the ore first? In other words, is the speaker of the curse a competing spectral miner, or was that hammering the sound of human mind workers or explorers who were there at the same time as Martin. If it's the latter, I think you could interpret this more like the malevolent version of the Silver Mother, like I am the spiritual owner or guardian of this mine, and I will curse and punish the first person who finds the ore I

have hidden there. But it reads to me more like these are you know, the dwarfs or whatever other spectral beings. They want the ore, They want to get there first. You know that I saw it first, and if you lay your eyes on it, I will punish.

or trying to swindle the spirits. By contrast, I tried to actually separate out what is being punished in the three Scandinavian examples here that feature punishment or feature the threat of punishment. In one, it seems to be simply looking at the minds, like trespassing or possibly spying. That could be a curiosity punishment, but it could also just be a jealous guardianship of the mind. In another, it seems to be not listening to the warning of the

Silver Mother. This might actually not be seen as a punishment but merely a consequence. And in the third, it is accidentally laying eyes on or that the spirits either guard or seek to extract themselves, and this one to me doesn't feel like a moral punishment. It seems just random. So I think there's really no evidence here of punishment for greed or excessive ambition. The magical violence feels more capricious, random and purely dangerous.

people who believe in it. And I would note also that the curses here are more acute than we saw in the Cornish legends, because if you remember the original Cornish Tommy Knockers, they would curse you if you crossed them, but that curse tended to be bad luck or bad luck in mining. If the Silver Mother or any of these Scandinavian beings curse you, it seems more likely to mean violent death or being struck blind, something really acute.

And that's more like the later American evolution of the Tommy Knockers, which tended to give omens about death and disaster.

in pop culture as well, and like what does that mean? Yeah, valkyries are a great example. What does that mean? You know, looking I guess considering like the the heteronormative male view on sexuality, is it is it an eroticism of death or is it something more maternal? I mean is it all these things? You know? And then what what service does it do? Does it kind of lessen the blow uh or the fear of an approaching death? You know?

I want to change the subject. I want to come back to something that I was thinking very early on in this and that is that J. R. R. Tolkienah for the student of European myth of course, nicely explored and reused many of these concepts with his depictions of the dwarves of Kaza Doom later known as Moria who digged, who were digging too greedily and too deep in the relentless mining for the precious metal mythrill, and of course, you know, unlocked their own doom and released the ball

Rock upon them.

more epic and grim. You know, the warning of awaking this demon of the ancient world, something that is more dangerous than anything you've ever seen, does seem it seems like it goes much further beyond any of these actual old bits of folklore where the worst thing that's going to happen is like there's a being that causes a cave in or seizes you in the mine, and it's just sort of death. I mean, it's not it doesn't have this epic monstrous form like.

So I want to talk about one that was new to me that I found very exciting, and that is der berg Munch, which is translated as the mountain monk or even the mine monk. More often than not, I found this entity described as the mine monk amazing.

and so forth. And concerning the translation here I found I have to stress this is something that's not directly about the mind Monk, but is talking about a German poem that references the mind Monk, and how we might translate that into English. This was from nineteen twenty two. Leonard Dhalty commented on the translation of the name meister Hammerling in the poetry of nineteenth century German poet Henrik Heine, and this is from notes on Translating Heina from the

Texas Review. Basically, the author here notes that there are a few different possible meanings tied up in the name. So first of all, is it is on its own like a hateful gnome or cobalt who hammers underground. We've been talking about this throughout these episodes. And is therefore like a trickster, a devil, or even a clown. You know, there's a sins, there's a there's a wide spectrum by which this entity might manifest. The hammer also in German,

takes on the connotation of bully. Apparently that's something to consider as well when when a hammer or the Hammerling is mentioned. And the poem in question that the author is commenting on here in concerns a passage where the poet is pleading for Master Hammerling to build a bridge for the poet, like, you know, like hey, master of Hammering,

build me a bridge. And sometimes in English that gets transmitted into Hangman, apparently because I guess English readers aren't going to necessarily pick up on the mind monk thing, and you need some sort of ominous press like that you were calling to, like hey, hey Hangman, or even like hey, Death, build me a bridge. So I found that interesting and perhaps speaks to the intimidating nature of the monk in question, because descriptions of this entity sound

rather intimidating. We're not talking about a little person here. We're talking about a gigantic figure in a dark robe, a giant. And the Grim's right that he frequently appears in several different minds that he mentions. One is the Gara Bunden Alps, but especially on Fridays, that's when you will find him in the in the shafts. He's generally seen there emptying a bucket of ore into another bucket

and then back again. So once more we have this idea of the supernatural entity in the mind creating a racket, messing with the tools and equipment, but not getting any work done.

he kept to himself, didn't cause any trouble. But then, of course, one day a reckless miner, probably a young miner, scolded and cursed at the mine monk, and this did not go well for him. They explained that the giant hooded figure lunged at this reckless I assume youth. They pick him up, It picks him up and then shakes him so severely that his face turns inside out. Like it doesn't kill him, but for the rest of his life he walks around with an inside out face.

of fear locked into the facial features or something. All Right, So there are more mind monk stories, though they share some accounts of the annamine. They say a dozen men were working in the silver rich Rosenkrantz shaft when a mine monk appeared, or the mine monk appeared and breathed on them, causing them all to drop dead, and the shaft was abandoned thereafter.

It's apparently nearly always methane, highly flammable and explosive at higher concentrations. Then we have white damp or carbon monoxide, particularly toxic and perhaps a reasonable fit for the breath of the mine bunk because the correct or the wrong concentrations, it can cause death within a few minutes, and this is a risk, particularly in coal mines. We have black damp. This is a situation where the atmosphere won't allow you to light a lamp, usually because of an excess of

carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the air. Then there's stink damp hydrogen sulfide, so you have the smell, the rotten egg smell. And then there's after damp, and this is a mixture of gases found in a mine after an explosion or a fire.

see a few other tails of the mind Monk. They mentioned that in the Ana Mine, the mine Monk appeared as well, in the shape of a steed with a long neck and terrifying eye, so an alternate form here. And in the Saint George Mine it said that he appeared in his standard form, you know, the tall, black robed giant grabbed a young miner, lifted him up into a silver rich shaft, and then sat him back down so violently that he injured all of the youth's limbs.

And in the Harz Mountains, the mind Monk was said to punish a foreman who was cruel to his workers by positioning himself above the entrance to a particular shaft, and when the foreman emerged beneath him, he caught the man's head between his legs and crushed his skull. Whoa, Okay, yeah, so now we have a little bit of the like the moral even you could maybe say devil work of the entity here because he's punishing a cruel foreman. Yeah

all right. But the best story, and this is one where the mine monk speaks, is the tale they tell of the mind monk of the Harz Mountains, which I found some nice similarities between this and the Japanese ghost story concerning the Yuki. Oh no, the Lady of the Snow.

So it seemed like a real losing situation. Yeah, but then what occurs, Well, they see a light appearing down the shaft, deeper in the shaft, you know, coming from a you know, deeper into the mountain, and blow and behold, approaching them is a towering figure in a black robe carrying a miner's lamp. It is the mine monk, and the two miners are of course terrified here, but the mine monk actually speaks to them and tells them not to be afraid. Quote, do not fear. I shall do

you no harm. But rather good, All right, what's he gonna do? Well, he pours some of his lamp oil into their lamps, and then he grabs their tools and begins to work, doing a week's worth of work in a single hour. It seems like a good deal. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna read another passage here. Tell no one that you have seen me here, he says, and then he slammed his fist against the shaft wall, which shattered, revealing

a long vein sparkling with pure gold and silver. So once more, you know, a spirit of the mountain revealing a rich vein of treasure inside the wall.

that the mine monk had revealed to them. But the oil in their lanterns proved inexhaustible and it gave them. This of course, gave them a huge advantage over other miners. Other miners their lamps can run dry and then they have to go out and get more lamp oil. But these two, their lamps have been blessed by the mine Monk's lamp oil, and they'll just burn, you know, without end.

given them. And it's similar to what occurs in the Lady of the Snow. You know she in most tellings anyway, she does not kill the man who has finally revealed what happened on that fateful night during the snowstorm. But she does leave him, and I believe takes the children that she has had with him as well.

various other related events. There are various sorts of rapid high release energy phenomena inside of a mine that could stand in for, you know, one of these encounters where again like the mind monk is picking you up and shaking you, or even like picking you up and putting you in, sticking you into a shaft and then dropping you back down again. You have things like mind trimmers and rock burds, seismic events, methane, cold dust explosions, and

ground falls. As for the lights, you know, you have sensory deprivation that might result in visual hallucinations in a mining environment, but then also methane or cold dust explosions, open flame ignitions, and even electrical arcing and lightning strikes in mines. This is apparently a significant risk for some mining operations, which you know, might seem counterintuitive to a lot of folks that you know, don't know anything about mining.

You would think, oh, you're underground, you're safe. Not necessarily the case. And then mythologically, I can only assume there is at least some connection here between again the towering mine monks and tales of stone giants such as you know the ootin of Norse myth which included yes, like storm giants and so forth, but also and ice giants, but also mountain giants divided between mountain dwellers and cliff giants.

A number of Norse mythological concepts find their way into German traditions, and this includes the figure of Rubsol or the Lord of the Mountains, and there are various versions of him and other European traditions as well. Joe I included a painting of this character rubes All, the Lord of the Mountains here. This is from eighteen fifty nine by Morse von Schvend. I believe I'd seen this before

in a book from my childhood. Maybe it was one of those fantastic legends from time life books, a series on giants. But you know, we see like a monk type figure with a jutting beard just walking through the forest here.

some great photographs with it as well. So basically, the practices associated with this entity occur in the silver mines Osirio Rico in the Bolivian Andes and here otherwise Catholic Christian local miners leave cigarettes at the base of some apparently six hundred shrines to alto, which I believe translates to the uncle, and this is a goatish, devil looking figure with horns like red skin, a goateee, and generally a jutting erection. They'll soak his impish likeness in alcohol

lah blah. Blood is apparently offered once a year as well. There are some different accounts of that. And then you also will make offerings of cigarettes or even light a cigarette in his lips, and the degree to which the cigarette burns down might be a sign of good luck.

that Eats men. So brutal conditions here, and you had this influx too of Christianity and its devil likeicnography, melding of course with local folk beliefs and those of enslaved people from Africa, again in a dangerous environment. I think that's one of the things that's so captivating about any of these mining tales is that we have folkloric elements being developed and nurtured, like right at the edge of

life and death. I mean, that's often the case, I guess in life anyway, actual life and death scenarios, perceived life and death scenarios. But in the mind everything feels perhaps heightened, right, It's like it's a pressure for folkloric belief.

in creative stories. Folklore is developing under really harsh conditions, under times when people are facing threats of death or when they've got, you know, a lot to worry about.

And so, you know, clearly influenced by some visual ideas concerning the Christian devil, but he seems very rooted in indigenous ideas of earth deities and the entities Phallus would seem to speak to this as well. You know that he's an entity that is associated with sometimes doom, but also life, But where does that life spring from? It would seem to be more elemental in nature.

this in a minute. This entity is portrayed as both a trickster and a protector, is the patron of both mothers and childbirth. And miners in Nigerian coal fields, and he's depicted as having a large lock of plaited hair sculpted like a penis. Now elsewhere I've seen this described as more of a huge backward curving horn or like a horned head dress, and the god, while usually regarded as male, also sometimes either takes a fine form or

features feminine features such as breasts. I've also read Assue described as the anger of the gods, and as one might expect, religions from Afar, such as Christianity, have often attempted to recast Essue as more of a devil figure, though clearly he seems to have a more nuanced presence, sometimes described as a god of trickery but also a

god of surprise, and I found that really interesting. But again a god that, according to these sources, was both associated with mining but also childbirth and surprise.

with tricks and miss pranks. Yeah, that seems like that doesn't seem like I mean, obviously I don't have I'm not a miner, so I have no experience in the mind. But you I think the lay person who has no experience would not assume a natural connection between the environment of a mine and the concept of tricks, trickster behavior or mischief or pranks. But that does seem to be very common.

definitely do. But I again, I would just like to hear from from actual folks out there who have real life experience in the.

Just to remind it that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.