A Gnome By Any Other Name
Popular image of the Gnome
My paternal grandmother was born in a rural area of Sweden in 1891, and when I was a boy she told me stories of the Tomtar, small beings that took the appearance of old, bearded men. Tomtar were no more than 3 feet tall and wore pointed hats, which we’ve of course come to associate with gnomes and similar creatures. Legend tells that Tomtar were capable of invisibility and could shapeshift, sometimes taking the appearance of a large, grown man.
Also, according to legend — and Grandma Alice’s stories — Tomtar would usually be found on a farm and would carry out chores at night and help care for the farmer’s animals. It was thought to be bad luck to see one, but my grandmother claimed that she would often find his small footprints in the snow or mud around her home.
Although basically a benevolent spirit, Tomtarna were easily offended and could be vindictive. If, for example, Tomten felt that the farmer was mistreating his livestock, heard swearing in the barn, or neglecting to clean up a mess, he would become incensed and cause mischief. Items around the house were found broken, the milk curdled, even the cows’ tails tied together. Tomtar also became angered and would seek revenge if they were seen or if the farmer and his family failed to leave a bowl of porridge and butter out for him on Christmas Eve. My grandmother and her family used to follow this tradition, leaving out porridge with butter for Tomten each Christmas Eve.
My grandmother was quite insistent that the Tomtarna were not merely the stuff of fairytale and legend, but real beings that occupied the farms and rural landscapes of Sweden. It was these stories that contributed to my lifelong fascination with tales of diminutive humanoids. Originally coming out of the pagan traditions regarding “earth spirits” and the worship of the natural world, Tomtarna later became associated with ungodly or heathen beliefs after the Christianization of Scandinavia. However, despite the sometimes negative association, they have remained a popular figure in Swedish folklore.
Pedro Mountain Mummy - 14" high
Obviously, the more familiar correlative is the Gnome, of which their are purportedly a great many variations and go by many names, including Erdmanleins (Germany), Nains (Britain), Nisse or Nissen (Norway and also Sweden), Tontti (Finland), Dudje (Bulgaria and Albania), and others. Not surprisingly, legends of little people are found not only in Europe, but throughout the world.
In North America the Native American people speak of “little feet” or “baby feet” that often inhabit mountainous regions or dwell underground. These beings are also said to have various magical and psychic powers, including the power of invisibility and to mentally confuse any human foolish enough to pursue them. Encounters with these entities are also associated with memory loss and periods of missing time, much akin to the reports that we hear in relation to the UFO/alien abduction phenomena (a subject that I’ll save for another post). An excellent article on Native American lore concerning little people or babyfeet in North America can be found on Dr. Karl Shuker’s blog.
In 1932, gold prospectors Cecil Main and Frank Carr, blasting open the walls of a gulch in the Pedro Mountains of Wyoming, discovered a cavern that had been sealed behind a wall of rock. Within the cavern sat, cross-legged, a small, wizened figure no more than 14″ high. The tiny manneken was naturally preserved and mummified, having been spared from the elements because of that fact that it was sealed within the cave. The creature was removed from the cavern and later examined and underwent an x-ray analysis by Dr. Henry Shapiro of the American Museum of Natural History. The fact that the little man sported a full set of teeth and a fully-fused skull dispelled any possibility of the small humanoid being an infant. Interestingly, the Shoshone people told of the Nimerigar, a small, aggressive people who occupied that region of Wyoming. The Nimerigar were supposed to have hunted with bows and poison arrows and lived in the Wind River and Pedro Mountains.
I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself - underpants gnomes
Personally, the question that I most frequently ponder is “are accounts of these creatures merely folklore, or are they based in truth?” I imagine that posing this question would be much more quickly dismissed prior to 2004’s discovery of Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores. These diminutive humanoids, which have become known as “hobbits”, appears to be a separate species of human that only grew about a meter tall. The bones found are believed to be as young as 13,000 years old, demonstrating that this tiny human lived at the same time as modern Homo sapiens. If a distinctly different version of humanoid existed alongside modern humans, I believe that we must entertain the idea that other such diminutive humanoids may have lived elsewhere throughout the world.
In South America many of the native people speak of the Duende, a race of small goblin- or gnome-like creatures that make their home in the surrounding forests and mountains. Recently, a video of a small, pointy-hatted being in Argentina surfaced on the Internet. The creature, if it is a fake, is a convincing one. It shuffles out of some high grass with a strange sideways gait, into a road as a group of teenagers returning from a fishing trip lounge nearby. The boys seem genuinely startled, judging from the scream that escapes one of them as the being appears (the version with the original audio in which the boy screams can be found on YouTube).
The video, of course, is so outlandish that it has been dismissed by most who have seen it, but coming from a graphics background I’m of the opinion that this creature is not a CGI creation, and it certainly seems to be quite diminutive — of proportions that you might only see from a person who suffers from primordial dwarfism, an exceedingly rare condition. His hat barely clears the high grass out of which it shuffles. I’ve posted it below for the readers to judge for themselves.
So, is it possible that little people once existed, or do currently exist? If so, are they flesh-and-blood beings such as ourselves, simply an undiscovered race of creatures that has cleverly hidden themselves from us? Or, are they something more than that? Are they of an interdimensional or paranormal nature? Folklore has consistently described them as having magical gifts and properties, but is that nothing more than myth and fairytale?
As the newer developments in quantum physics point us to a different view of the nature of reality, that we exist not in a Universe, but a Multiverse, is it possible that there might be beings that can traverse these different planes of existence, moving between our reality and others? What connection, if any, have reports of these creatures in a paranormal context have to do with the modern reports of alien abductions and missing time experiences? This is an area which I personally find fascinating and will revisit frequently in the course of my writing on this blog. Meanwhile, I encourage anyone who has an opinion about such matters to comment on this article.
Here’s another tomtar-related article that came to my attention, by blog author Jack Hunter:
http://discarnates.blogspot.com/2009/09/sweden-trolls-tomtar.html
John Carlson is a husband, father, and business owner. He’s been a self–employed Web designer/developer and consultant for almost ten years. John was raised in New Jersey USA where he currently resides with his wife and two sons.
Tomte is the singular, not the plural. The plural is tomtar. Here is how it works:
Gnome = Tomte
The gnome = Tomten
Gnomes = Tomtar
The gnomes = Tomtarna
Thank you for the correction! My Swedish is poor, although my father speaks it fluently because his parents were born there. I mostly just know dirty words. And I can sing the Swedish birthday song.
By the way, several years ago we found my grandfather’s birth certificate, and the original spelling of our family name was ‘Karlsson’. He was from Norkopping and came to New York City in 1904. They changed the name, Americanizing it to ‘Carlson’ when he registered at Ellis Island.
Thanks again, Johan.
I made the edits, and hopefully used the correct nomenclature (or is that gnomenclature?).
Have you considered that the South American ‘gnome’ may be a small, fat child in a pointed hat? I don’t think it’s a CGI -created image at all, but it is entirely possible, and even probable, that it’s a very small adult or, more likely, a fat child.
Just because the teens appear to be genuinely surprised and frightened doesn’t mean the being in question is of what we would call supernatural origin. We’ve all be surprised and frightened by other human beings if caught off guard or when coming upon them suddenly in unexpected places.
No! It’s a gnome, dammit! And where there are gnomes, there are sure to be hobbits. And I’m going to find them, and they’re going to take me to Middle Earth, and….
Sorry, just kidding. Of course, it could have been a short, fat child, or a dwarf. This apparently took place late at night, at about 1 or 1:30 AM, so it would be unusual that someone was lying in wait in the brush wearing a gnome outfit in the hope that someone comes by so that it could jump out at them. That would be strange, but certainly not outside of the realm of possibility.
According to the story that I read when this video was first released a couple of years ago, the article said that quite a few people in the area had seen this thing and purportedly were afraid to leave their homes at night. Still, a hoax is always very hard to rule out. It’s really more probable than the idea that it’s actually a gnome or duende. Nevertheless, I’ll admit that I WANT it to be a gnome.
You might find some answers, with much well presented facts and evidence, in this book:
http://www.hiddenmysteries.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17313&cat=476&page=1
Interviews with the author are here:
http://mottimorphic.com/Radio_Appearances.html
Pretty compelling stuff. Looks like some people have figured this out. Being brave enough to write about it is admirable too.
Cool! Thanks, Boris. I’ll check those out and listen to the radio appearances. I appreciate the links.
Hello, I found your link through Professor Hex, and just wanted to let you know that your article is one that intrigues me deeply! My boyfriend and I read tons of paranormal articles each day, and we both agree that this is one of the most interesting ones we have come across in weeks. Thanks for the great info, and I’ll be passing along this article via twitter! Best, Kiki
Wow, that’s really nice of you to say, Kiki. Thanks for the positive feedback. I hope to write more about the little folk in the near future. Right now I’m trying to write something about an excellent book that I read called Hunt for the Skinwalker. It’s not a huge book, but there’s SO much weird stuff and bizarre happenings in the story, it’s hard to tackle it all. That one might have to be in more than one part.
I’m particularly interested in anything where the lines are blurred between areas that are normally compartmentalized, like the UFO phenomena in relation to a lot of the old tales about faerie folk talking people away, or missing time in relationship to sightings of little folk. Or out-of-place animals and cryptids in a paranormal context. That’s all very cool and interesting stuff to me, so keep checking back regularly because I’ll be doing a lot of writing. If you want to, you and your boyfriend can sign up for my RSS feed or get updates through my Facebook page. Just enter The Paranomalist in the search field.
Thanks again for the kind words! And if you have any odd stories that you’d like to share, feel free.
Great article there .
Actually there is something similar in southeast Asian , my grand pa said that long time ago farming family would leave some food (mostly leftover ) to an little entity ( I forgot the name) . thus the little creature would take care of the house and see that its safe , once in a while it would show sign (like a faint shadow or outline ) to remind people that he is there. but if you forgot to put food , he is going to do some bad prank. I find it odd to see some identical point with European folklore.
My Father also once told me stories of red clothed dwarf living deep in the forest and other wild stuff hes seen, I don’t know if its true or not but he seems firm with his point : paranormal seems to like to followed him somewhat from his native country to his new home in Canada.It may sound weird but the most recent happening was an encounter with 3ft greys like being popping out of an satellite dish…(its okay if you don’t believe even I have an hard time swallowing that)
I never saw anything special in my life so that’s just what some of my family member experienced and told me …
Parady
You know, I mentioned Europe and North and South America, but I neglected to mention Asia (and Africa, for that matter). Actually, I’d thought of that but the article was getting kind of long and I didn’t want to write a whole book.
There are accounts of little people all of the world, although I don’t know an awful lot about the ones in Asia. Something I’ll have to research. Cool stories, though. Yes, very interesting about the similarities coming from two such disparate cultures that are so far from each other geographically. I also find the fact that, as you said, the phenomena seemed to have “followed him”. That’s something else I’d like to discuss: the fact that some people are prone to seeing these things and often do throughout their lives. Popping out of the satellite dish is pretty wild, but who’s to say? Can we accept one thing and not another because it’s too “out there”?
Thanks for checking in with that, Parady. Hope to hear from you again.
what if i told you that little men come at night and make noises in our ceiling until one evening they remove 3 of our boards in the ceiling and leave foot prints. its scarey but true. Once we heard them sweeping and the other like a horse galloping. its crazy but true. Here in west africa,nigeria,niger state very close to the rocks.
Wow, that’s fascinating! I interviewed author Herbie Brennan who writes the Faerie Wars Chronicles series of books, and he claimed to have seen small, 0.6 meter tall “fairy horses” when he was a young man in Ireland. He told me he saw them near an ancient megalithic structure, and you say that you live near the rocks. That’s an interesting similarity. Please email me if you have any other experiences that you’d like to share.