Ye can call us what ye will, the wee folks, the fae, it dunno matter we won’t come anyways. We hail from the old country of course you know. Some live under bridges and tell riddles or spin straw into gold to buy more straw or some such nonsense. We call those types of brownies freckin’ idiots. We are miners. Ores or gems, we dig in the earth and she gives us her treasures.

That is why we took pity on the humans. Big, stupid things always crashing and suffocating without a lick of magic or common sense. Oh the racket, the wailing of their womenfolk and little ones when the troubles fell upon them. We helped as we could. We knocked to warn of unstable rocks and pockets of poisons. We knock when one of the big lugs is trapped underground to guide the rescuers. And when a poor soul has hung up his hard hat for the last time we littles sit with the lad until the other humans can take him home.

We came over from the homeland, the luscious swells of Devon and Cornwall. We came over in grand big ships, stinking and leaking, but grand don’t you know. Some stayed behind but some were up for adventure. We followed the miners across the pond. To the Welsh other tongues wagged, all different kinds of human silly talk, German, Portuguese, Cherokee like a bloody orchestra of chatter. Digging is the same. Miners are the same. The earth she is the same.

Till recently. Lately the earth has been off her feed. We could feel her change, get peaky. We dunno understand at first, so we listened

We listened hard. We heard the crunch crunching of the fancy new machines. The gray water sloshed and swirled deep in the crust. Then we parlayed with the wood sprites and the water nymphs. Now the sprites and the nymphs are nutters, so airy fairy, if you pardon my French. Despite their wishy washy ways they taught us the word fracking. We stood with the miners and the families of our miners. We held their cooling fingers and searched for that crack of blue sky. We helped as we could. Hear our warning ye. We still not tolerate the shenanigans. Now we have to climb up out of the earth’s bowels and put an end to this tarnation. Our kind has always lived down below but we canna let our old girl wither and perish. We will not. The time has come to knock.