Gnomes had recently become more popularized than ever because of add campaigns, but most of us remember them from childhood stories, films and cartoons. As adults, we often notice them as decorative garden statues, but there was a time in human history when gnomes were taken quite seriously.

Described as like your regular sized human, gnomes are characterized by their diminutive size and underground dwellings. It has long been thought that the word gnome comes from the Greek word for knowledge, or gnosis, but it has also been considered to come from the word for underground dweller, or genomus. Described as shy and uncommunicative, they are frequently associated in different systems of mythology with fairies, though other folklorists and occultists consider them a creature unique and separate from fairies. Most commonly they are depicted with some sort of deformity, such as being hunchbacked or prematurely aged and are known for wearing colorful, conical hats. They are frequently thought to guard buried treasure, and if not guarding the treasure, because of their knowledge of subterranean territory, they are thought to at least have knowledge of where treasure might be found.

The first ceramic garden gnomes were produced in Germany in the mid-1800’s and are considered as symbolic friends of the earth and all growing things. They are thought to help keep gardens healthy.

Gnomes in fiction are often depicted as the inventor, the stalwart and unflappable friend, the unlikely and grumpy helper, or the comic relief, often interchangeable with other mythical creatures like elves, goblins and dwarves. In mythology, gnomes personalities vary from the spiteful and treacherous to the friendly and helpful, but it is said that even helpful gnomes will seek revenge if provoked. Forest gnomes are said to avoid mankind at all costs, dune gnomes are said to be slightly larger than other types of gnomes and are similarly rarely seen, house gnomes are said to be in the most close contact with man and in the gnome hierarchy, they are the race of gnomes from which kings are chosen, because of their ties to both mankind and their own, more magical origins.