Cornwall, the 18th century. Two women who work the surface of a tin mine take the only way out that is open to them.
A bal maiden was a woman who worked at a Cornish mine. Bal is the Cornish word for a mine, and the maidens worked the surface: breaking ore with a hammer, spalling and cobbing and picking, in all weathers, for a fraction of a man's wage. Thousands of them were employed across Cornwall and west Devon at the peak of the industry. They were not allowed underground, and that division of the ground is where this film starts.
Bal Maiden dramatises the lesser known role of women within the mining industry in Cornwall in the 18th century. In an 18th century Cornish tin mining community, two isolated young women risk their lives to break free from abuse after a local miner pushes them to breaking point.
Underground the men had the knockers, spirits in the tunnel walls that could be heard tapping. They led a miner to good ore or to his death, and they expected the last piece of his pasty to be left for them. Ruth, who narrates, is clear that the men were frightened down there, and that above ground the fear ran the other way. When the two women need somewhere a body will not be found, they use the mine's own folklore, and the film leaves it open whether anything answers.
Cornish 'Bal Maidens' were female surface workers in Cornish metal mines, whose numbers peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries, handling tasks like ore dressing, which involved breaking, smashing, and separating valuable ore from waste rock.
While first documented in the 13th century, their work became more prominent after a 14th-century post-Black Death mining revival. They were often depicted as romantic figures in art and literature, despite the difficult conditions of their work. Their decline was due to changing Victorian attitudes about gender roles and the rise of new technologies and industries.
Part of the dialogue is in Cornish, and it carries weight in the story rather than sitting on top of it. One of the two women prays in Cornish and the other cannot follow her. Loveday's Kernewek and Ruth's flat English become two different ways of meeting the same night. Eighteen minutes, written by Aella Jordan-Edge and Amy Tattersall White, directed by Aella Jordan-Edge and produced by Owen Thomas.