Goblins, Knockers, and the Things Beneath Us: Dark Folklore of Underground Beings Worldwide Part 2

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, dear listeners, Welcome back to part two of our

0:02 Speaker 1: Goblin series. Tonight, we are not looking up. We are

0:06 Speaker 1: looking down, because long before flying saucers, before radar blips

0:11 Speaker 1: and grainy footage, people across the world were already telling

0:14 Speaker 1: the same story and whispers not about invaders from the sky,

0:19 Speaker 1: but about neighbors beneath the ground. Miners, farmers, shepherds, children

0:26 Speaker 1: warned by grandparents who would never explain why the rules mattered,

0:30 Speaker 1: only that they did. Don't whistle underground, don't throw stones

0:35 Speaker 1: into dark holes, and if something knocks you, pretend you

0:40 Speaker 1: never heard it. The first sounds In the tin mines

0:44 Speaker 1: of Cornwall, men worked in darkness so complete it erased

0:48 Speaker 1: the idea of time. Lanterns barely pushed the blackness back,

0:52 Speaker 1: the rock pressed close, the earth breathed, and, sometimes long

0:57 Speaker 1: before a collapse, miners heard it knocking, soft at first, careful,

1:03 Speaker 1: almost polite. At first. They thought it was another crew

1:07 Speaker 1: working nearby, but when they called out, no one answered.

1:11 Speaker 1: The knocking continued anyway, always ahead of them, deeper in

1:14 Speaker 1: the mine. Some miners believed the knockers were warning spirits,

1:19 Speaker 1: tapping to save lives. Others believed They were tricksters who

1:23 Speaker 1: mimicked sound, lured men into dead tunnels, and hid tools

1:27 Speaker 1: for sport. Either way, miners learned to leave offerings, bread

1:33 Speaker 1: tucked into crevices, milk poured onto stone, coins left where

1:37 Speaker 1: no human hand could reach. Those who didn't tended to

1:41 Speaker 1: be the ones whose lamps went out first.

1:43 Speaker 2: The hidden people who never left.

1:47 Speaker 1: In Iceland, the stories never became folklore. They remained instructions

1:52 Speaker 1: the hold of folk. The hidden people were not legends

1:56 Speaker 1: meant to entertain. They were neighbors who shared the land,

2:00 Speaker 1: but not the rules of visibility. They lived inside hills,

2:04 Speaker 1: inside boulders, inside the places humans decided were empty simply

2:09 Speaker 1: because they couldn't see inside them. People still reroot roads

2:13 Speaker 1: around certain rocks. Construction still halts when machinery breaks repeatedly

2:18 Speaker 1: for no clear reason, and when accidents cluster around one place,

2:23 Speaker 1: no one laughs it off. They apologize. The hidden people

2:27 Speaker 1: are not cruel, but they are old, and old things

2:30 Speaker 1: expect respect.

2:32 Speaker 2: The ones who whistled back.

2:35 Speaker 1: Across Central and South America, parents warned children about the duendes,

2:40 Speaker 1: small figures with oversized eyes and backward feet, said to

2:44 Speaker 1: live in caves, forests, and abandoned tunnels. They whistled, not cheerfully,

2:51 Speaker 1: not loudly, just enough to be followed. Travelers told stories

2:55 Speaker 1: of hearing whistles echoing underground, growing closer, then stop abruptly,

3:01 Speaker 1: as if something was waiting to see whether curiosity would win.

3:05 Speaker 1: Some who followed the sound were found days later, disoriented

3:08 Speaker 1: and terrified, unable to explain where they'd been. Others were

3:13 Speaker 1: never found at all. Appalachia already knew by the time

3:18 Speaker 1: Kentucky was settled, the hills already had rules. In Appalachia,

3:22 Speaker 1: people didn't name the underground beings. Naming things invites attention.

3:27 Speaker 1: They simply called them them. The little watchers in the hollows,

3:31 Speaker 1: the ones who lived beneath the ridges, the knockers who

3:34 Speaker 1: answered back if you made too much noise. Underground children

3:39 Speaker 1: were taught to step lightly near cave mouths, Hunters were

3:42 Speaker 1: warned not to fire into sinkholes, and when dogs refused

3:46 Speaker 1: to approach certain places no one forced them. They listened.

3:52 Speaker 1: Reframing the goblins of Kentucky, which brings us back to

3:56 Speaker 1: Hopkinsville and the strange night in nineteen fifty five, when

4:00 Speaker 1: small beings emerged from the woods and stared into windows

4:04 Speaker 1: like they were unfamiliar with the concept of glass. The

4:08 Speaker 1: so called goblins didn't rush, didn't attack, didn't chase. They hovered,

4:13 Speaker 1: peaked withdrew, returned again and again. They behaved less like

4:19 Speaker 1: invaders and more like something displaced, something curious about the

4:23 Speaker 1: surface but uncomfortable in it, as if whatever had fallen

4:27 Speaker 1: from the sky or struck the ground had forced them upward,

4:31 Speaker 1: briefly into a world they didn't belong in. When the

4:35 Speaker 1: noise became too violent, they retreated downward.

4:39 Speaker 3: Tonight's episode is brought to you by Absolutely Not Caving,

4:43 Speaker 3: the world's leading underground avoidance lifestyle brand. Have you ever thought, Wow,

4:47 Speaker 3: that whole looks interesting.

4:50 Speaker 2: Wrong?

4:50 Speaker 3: Thought at Absolutely not Caving. We believe caves are just

4:55 Speaker 3: basements for things that don't pay rent and don't want roommates.

4:59 Speaker 3: Our services include a personal friend who slaps your phone

5:02 Speaker 3: out of your hand when you try to google is

5:05 Speaker 3: this cave safe? A mobile app that screams nope anytime

5:10 Speaker 3: you approach a sinkhole, and our premium feature knock Detection.

5:15 Speaker 3: If something knocks underground, we knock you unconscious. With common sense,

5:19 Speaker 3: experts agree, nothing good starts with hey let's see what's

5:23 Speaker 3: down there. Curiosity did not just kill the cat. It

5:27 Speaker 3: also disappeared three miners, a hiker, and that one guy

5:31 Speaker 3: who said, watch this absolutely not caving, because if it

5:35 Speaker 3: whistles back, you've already made a mistake.

5:38 Speaker 2: Why the stories all end the same.

5:40 Speaker 1: Way across cultures, centuries, and continents. These stories rarely end

5:46 Speaker 1: with victory. They end with silence. People stop digging, stop exploring,

5:52 Speaker 1: stop asking questions. Not because the beings leave, but because

5:57 Speaker 1: humans learn where the boundary is. Folklore is not a

6:01 Speaker 1: warning about monsters. It's a record of consequences. So tonight,

6:06 Speaker 1: dear listeners, remember this. Not everything strange comes from above.

6:11 Speaker 1: Some things were here first. And if you ever hear

6:14 Speaker 1: knocking beneath your feet, not on a wall, not on

6:17 Speaker 1: a door, but inside the earth itself, that is not

6:21 Speaker 1: an invitation. I'm amy. This has been the Strange History Podcast.

6:27 Speaker 1: Sleep lightly, stay on the surface, and let the old

6:31 Speaker 1: things keep their dark