they break, cleave,
and make them hollow; which also thrust in pitchers and buckets, and
carefully fit wheels and screws, whereby they are drawn upwards; and they
show themselves to the labourers, when they list, like phantoms and
ghosts."

The preceding quotations from Pennant and Jamieson correspond with the
Welsh miners' ideas of the _Coblynau_, or Knockers. There is a
difficulty in tracing to their origin these opinions, but, on the whole,
I am strongly inclined to say that they have come down to modern times
from that remote period when cave-men existed as a distinct people.

But now let us hear what our Welsh miners have to say about the
_Coblynau_. I have spoken to several miners on this subject, and,
although they confessed that they had not themselves heard these good
little people at work, still they believed in their existence, and could
name mines in which they had been heard. I was told that they are
generally heard at work in new mines, and that they lead the men to the
ore by knocking in its direction, and when the lode is reached the
knocking ceases.

But the following extracts from two letters written by Lewis Morris, a
well-known and learned Welshman, fully express the current opinion of
miners in Wales respecting Knockers. The first letter was written Oct.
14, 1754, and the latter is dated Dec. 4, 1754. They appear in Bingley's
_North Wales_, vol. ii., pp. 269-272. Lewis Morris writes:--

"People who know very little of arts or sciences, or the powers of nature
(which, in other words, are the powers of the author of nature), will
laugh at us Cardiganshire miners, who maintain the existence of
_Knockers_ in mines, a kind of good natured impalpable people not to be
seen, but heard, and who seem to us to work in the mines; that is to say,
they are the types or forerunners of working in mines, as dreams are of
some accidents, which happen to us. The barometer falls before rain, or
storms. If we do not know the construction of it, we should call it a
kind of dream that foretells rain; but we know it is natural, and
produced by natural means, comprehended by us. Now, how are we sure, or
anybody sure, but that our dreams are produced by the same natural means?
There is some faint resemblance of this in the sense of hearing; the bird
is killed before we hear the report of the gun. However this is, I must
speak well of the _Knockers_, for they have actually stood my good
friends, whether they ar