The Small Folk Below
A Cornish fairy well and the industrious small folk underground
The Kickstarter for Hunt’s Complete Cornish Folklore is now in prelaunch and can be viewed here. Follow the campaign on Kickstarter for updates.
The Buccas or Knockers are believed to inhabit the rocks, caves, mine adits, and wells of Cornwall. What they do far below is a mystery. Perhaps digging for gold or the precious metals that are abundant underground in the county? The reason for their toil may be unclear, but one thing is for certain, to disturb them is to invite trouble.
Robert Hunt has an intriguing account…
The Fairy Tools
In the parish of Towednack there was a well where those industrious small people might every day be heard busy at their labours—digging with pickaxe and shovel. I said, every day. No—on Christmas day, on the Jews’ Sabbath, on Easter-day, and on All-Saints’ day, no work was done.
Why our little friends held those days in reverence has never been told me. Any one, by placing his ear on the ground at the mouth of this well, could distinctly hear the little people at work.
There lived in the neighbourhood a great, hulking fellow, who would rather do anything than work, and who refused to believe anything he heard. He had been told of the Fairy Well—he said it was “all a dream.” But since the good people around him reiterated their belief in the fairies of the well, he said he’d find it all out.
So day after day. Barker—that was this hulk’s name—would lie down amidst the ferns growing around the mouth of the well, and basking in the sunshine, listen and watch. He soon heard pick and shovel, and chit-chat, and merry’ laughter. Well, “he’d see the out of all this,” he told his neighbours.
Day after day, and week after week, this fellow was at his post. Nothing resulted from his watching. At last he learned to distinguish the words used by the busy workers. He discovered that each set of labourers worked eight hours, and that on leaving, they hid their tools. They made no secret of this, and one evening he heard one say he should place his tools in a cleft in the rock; another that he should put his under the ferns; and another said he should leave his tools on Barker’s knee.
He started on hearing his own name. At that moment a heavy weight fell on the man’s knee. He felt excessive pain, and roared to have the cursed things taken away. His cries were answered by laughter. To the day of his death, Barker had a stiff knee. He was laughed at by all the parish, and “Barker’s knee” became a proverb.
Extracts from Hunt’s Complete Cornish Folklore, Robert Hunt.
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