Gnome: Encyclopedia - Gnome

Gnome

A gnome is a mythical creature characterized by its small stature and subterranean lifestyle. According to Paracelsus, gnomes are the most important of the elemental spirits of the classical element earth, and they move as easily through the earth as humans walk upon it. The sun's rays turn them into stone. In other traditions, they are simply small, mischievous sprites or goblins. Some sources claim they spend the daytime as toads instead of in stone.

Often featured in Germanic fairy tales, including those by the Brothers Grimm, the gnome often resembles a gnarled old man living deep underground and guards buried treasure. Because of this, Swiss bankers are sometimes disparagingly referred to as the Gnomes of Zurich. Gnomes feature in the legends of many of central, northern and eastern European lands by other names: a kaukis is a Prussian gnome, and barbegazi are gnome-like creatures with big feet in the traditions of France and Switzerland. In Iceland, gnomes (vættir) are so respected that roads are re-routed around areas said to be inhabited by them. Further east, tengu are sometimes referred to as winged gnomes.

Individual gnomes are not very often detailed or featured as characters in stories, but in Germanic folklore, Rübezahl, lord over the underworld, was sometimes referred to as a mountain gnome. According to some traditions, the gnome king is called Gob.

Rudolf Steiner, and other theosophists before him, lectured at length on gnomes, and especially their supportive role in the development of plant life (and biodynamic agriculture). Rupert Sheldrake has written a good deal about morphogenic fields, an idea Terry Pratchett used in his Discworld books many times.

The word gnome is said to derive from the New Latin gnomus and ultimately from the Greek gnosis, meaning knowledge. According to myth, gnomes hoarded secret knowledge just as they hoarded treasure.

Gnome - Garden gnomes

The first garden gnomes were introduced to the United Kingdom in 1847 by Sir Charles Isham, when he brought 21 terracotta figures back from a trip to Germany and placed them as ornaments in the gardens of his home, Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire. Only one of the original batch of gnomes survives: Lampy as he is known, is on display at Lamport Hall, and is insured for one million pounds.

Garden gnomes have become a popular accessory in many gardens, although they are not loved by all. They are often the target of pranks: people have been known to return garden gnomes "to the wild", most notably France's "Front de Liberation des Nains de Jardins" and Italy's "MALAG" (Garden Gnome Liberation Front). Some kidnapped garden gnomes have been sent on trips around the world passed from person to person and photographed at famous landmarks, with the photos being returned to the owner; this practice is featured in the 2001 French film, Amélie and in the Travelocity commercials of the Roaming Gnome. Garden gnomes were made in various poses and pursuing various pastimes, such as fishing or gardening. More recently, garden gnomes have been depicted indulging in indecent exposure or having sex.

A sub-culture exists among those who collect garden gnomes, which is frequently lampooned in popular culture.

Gnome - Gnomic Culture

• The Nome King (spelled without the silent "G") and his gnome subjects nearly transformed Dorothy Gale and her friends into bric-a-brac in Ozma of Oz, the third book in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz series. The character appeared several times in later books in the series.

• The Gnome Mobile was a Disney movie.

• J. R. R. Tolkien used the word gnome in his early work "The Book of Lost Tales" for a fictional people later called Ñoldor. He dropped the term in his published works, since he found the gnomes of folklore to be so unlike his High Elves as to confuse his readers. "Gnomes" also refer to the Valar.

• Gnomes are one of several races on Terry Pratchett's Discworld, where they are also called goblins. The Nac Mac Feegle are sometimes considered an ethnic subgroup of gnomes.

• Terry Pratchett has also written a trilogy called The Bromeliad in which a race of "nomes" explore the world beyond their home, and keep discovering it to be bigger than they thought.

• The Shannara novels by Terry Brooks include the savage Spider Gnomes and the kindly Healer Gnomes.

• Gnomes are a prominent race in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and in novels based on the game's worlds, such as Dragonlance.

• One of the eight Elemental Spirits of the Mana/Seiken Densetsu video game series is called Gnome.

• In the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, gnomes are a race of diminutive faeries who have lost their natural magic. They live in subterranean homes, and once had a great republic, but it was destroyed in that world's Elf-Dwarf war.

• In David Brin's novel Earth, a major nuclear war is described in which many nations attack Switzerland in an effort to reclaim money from the "gnomes" (bankers): money that has been illegally smuggled out of ailing developing nations and hidden in numbered Swiss bank accounts.

• The British children's comic The Beano featured a character called Gordon Gnome in 1988, who was a garden gnome living next to a pond.

• Gordon the Garden Gnome is an animated BBC series which first aired in 2005. This gnome is not related to the earlier Beano character.

• Gnomes and Secrets of the Gnomes by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet are illustrated guidebooks to the fictional creatures, and resulted in a spin-off animated series David the Gnome. These are originally written in Dutch, where gnomes are called kabouters.

• In some computer games, including EverQuest, Horizons: Empire of Istaria, and World of Warcraft, Gnomes are a short race of humanoids closely related to Dwarves, and are exceptionally adept at tinkering and mechanics. This often results in they and their allies having technologies not normally found in fantasy settings, such as firearms or robot-like beings.

• Dave Duncan has gnomes in his A Handful of Men tetralogy, where they are depicted as filth-eating tunnel-grubbers, somewhat like Dragonlance's gully dwarves.

• The Harry Potter novels also contain references to gnomes. In chapter three of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and Ron, Fred, and George Weasley had to de-gnome their garden by picking up the gnomes by the feet, spinning them around, and throwing them as far away as they could. The gnomes are described as "small and leathery looking, with a large, knobby, bald head exactly like a potato." They also have "horny little feet" and "razor sharp teeth." They live in holes in the ground called "gnome holes."

• The seminal psychedelic band Gong first shared with the world news of "Radio Gnome", the means by which we may communicate with the Planet Gong.

• The Washington, DC based vaudeville/rock n' roll band The Cassettes are known for their songs about Gnomes in particularly their song "Rogue Gnome" based off Romanian and Scandinavian folklore.

• Gnome World Domination is a cult effort to propel gnomes into positions of social power

• Die Screaming With Sharp Things in Your Head is an organization that mutilates garden gnomes and displays the results for all to see

• A History of Garden Gnomes

• Garden Gnome From Hell exists to warn mankind about evil gnomes.

See also

• Dwarf
• Erdgeist
• German folklore
• Kallikantzaroi
• Leprechaun
• Lord Gnome
• Sprite (creature)
• Tomte
• Troll
• Vetter

Categories: European folklore | Legendary creatures

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Gnome", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki