The Welsh mine goblins, not unlike the knockers of Cornwall. Wirt Sikes devotes some room to them in British Goblins (p.24). He says they are about eighteen inches in height, dressed something after the manner of the miners and grotesquely ugly. They are good-humoured and propitious to see and hear. By their knocking they indicate where rich lodes of ore are to be found. If they are mocked they throw stones, but these do no harm. They appear to be very busy, but they actually perform nothing. In this they are like the 'Goblins who labour in the mines', so often cited from Georgius Agricola by the 17th-century writers.

[Motif: F456]