Аннотация
Stephen King
The Tommyknockers
FOREWORD
Like many of the Mother Goose rhymes, the verse about the Tommyknockers is deceptively simple. The origin of the word is difficult to trace. Webster's Unabridged says Tommyknockers are either (a) tunneling ogres or (b) ghosts which haunt deserted mines or caves. Because “tommy” is an archaic British slang term referring to army rations (leading to the term “tommies” as a word used to identify British conscripts, as in Kipling-it's Tommy this, an” Tommy that…”) the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary, while not identifying the term itself, at least suggests that Tommyknockers are the ghosts of miners who died of starvation, but still go knocking for food and rescue.
The first verse ('Late last night and the night before,” etc.) is common enough for my wife and myself to have heard it as children, although we were raised in different towns, different faiths, and came from different descendants-hers primarily French, mine Scots-I...
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