Garden Gnome

Spring has arrived! Gardeners are excited to grab their tools and slip into their ugly looking shoes with names that come from large reptiles like Croc or Gator.

One of my favorite wee friends of the garden is the amiable garden gnome.

Gnom mit Zeitung und Tabakspfeife (English: Gnome with newspaper and tobacco pipe) by Heinrich Schlitt. Public Domain

The Garden Gnome is known in folklore to bring good luck to your garden.

These little gnomes usually decked out in red hats, have long white beards and wear green clothes were once Earth Elementals, nature spirits, guardians of the plants and flowers that grow in garden beds. They are also known as the Nisse similar to the Icelandic Huldufólk that guard mines and land.

Gnome comes from Renaissance Latin gnomus, which first appears in the Liber de Nymphis, Sylvanis, Pygmaeis, Salamandris, et Gigantibus etc. by Paracelsus published in Nysa in 1566 and again in the Johannes Huser edition of 1589–1591.

Garden gnomes began in Northern Europe, the UK and Germany.

According to folklore the Nisse would move freely around the gardens at night. Once the sun rose in the sky and they were touched by its warm rays of light, these earth Elementals would turn into stone.

Hence, the modern day Ceramic garden gnome that we see peeking out at us tucked under a colorful green plant or friendly flower.

 

Sources & References:

* Way, Twigs (2009). Garden Gnomes: A History. Shire Library. 487. United Kingdom: Shire Publications.

*Featured Garden gnome:Replica of Lampy, Charles Isham’s 1847 Terracotta gnome from Germany. The original is on display at Lamport Hall.