G is for ...

Gnome.

Every good garden should have one!! Given their popularity I find it quite odd that there aren't really any good stories or old folk-tales about Gnomes. You see statues of them in gardens all over Britain and yet there are virtually no detailed accounts of encounters with them. I suspect that a lot of people mix them up with Dwarves, as I've seen several Disney Dwarf statues being sold alongside Gnomes. I'm sure this would annoy both the Dwarves and the Gnomes as they are different creatures altogether.

© Shona M MacDonald 2012. All Rights Reserved.

 It was the 16th Century alchemist Paracelsus who is credited with first using the name Gnome to describe Earth Elementals who lived within the earth itself. I wonder if, perhaps, his perceived superior knowledge about them made other people shy away from writing about them in anything other than more modern children's stories. Yet despite this they have earned their place within Faerie mythology. Ask most people what they think a Kelpie or a Spriggan look like and they will probably stare at you blankly, but everyone knows what a Gnome looks like and that they are connected with gardening and the earth.

When I did a google search for Gnome, once I'd got past all the GUI computer speak (which took a few pages I can tell you!) I found that there is now even a Garden Gnome Liberation group fighting to free Gnomes from garden oppression!! This put me in mind of a story that featured on several news programmes here in the UK when I was a child. Someone had their Gnome stolen from their garden and a short while afterwards starting receiving postcards from his Gnome from all over the world. If my memory serves me right, the was Gnome eventually returned to his garden complete with a little suitcase covered in travel stickers. I'm not sure if that says more about people's fondness for Gnomes or the eccentricities of my fellow countrymen!

As we're talking Gnomes I'd also like to add a quick shameless plug for a company in the US, called Gnomeworks Puzzles, who make the most exquisite wooden jigsaw puzzles (I know because I've got one), including ones featuring some of my artwork.

H, I and J will be following soon and I've created a bit of 'walkthrough' for L to let you see how I put these pages together.