Gnomes are a tiny spirit of Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. Their characteristics have been reinterpreted to suit the needs of different storytellers, but they are usually described as small humanoids that live underground.
History[]
Origin[]
The word comes from the Renaissance Latin gnomus, which appears in Paracelsus's Liber de Nymphis, Sylvanis, Pygmaeis, Salamandris, et Gigantibus etc., published posthumously in Nice in 1566 (and again in the Johannes Huser's 1589-1591 edition of an autograph of Paracelsus).
The term may have been an original invention of Paracelsus, possibly deriving from the Latin term gēnomos (thus representing the Greek word γη-νομος, literally "dweller of the earth"). In this case, the omission of the ē is, as the Oxford English Dictionary calls it, a blunder. Paracelsus uses Gnomi as a synonym for Pygmæi, and classifies them as earth elementals. They are described as being two hands tall, very reluctant to interact with humans, and able to move across solid earth as easily as humans move through the air.
Chthonic or earth-dwelling spirits have precedents in numerous ancient and medieval mythologies, usually guarding precious underground mines and treasures, especially in the German dwarves and the chalybes, telchines and dactyls.
In modern romance and fairy tales[]
Gnomes are used in The Abduction of the Tuft by Alexander Pope. The creatures in this work are small celestial creatures who in their previous lives were prim women, now spending all eternity searching for prim women (reflecting the guardian angels of Catholic belief). Other uses for the term gnome are unknown until the early 19th century, when it is taken up by authors of romantic fairy tale collections and used mostly as a synonym for the older word goblin.
Pope's stated source, the French satire Comte de Gabalis (1670) uses the term gnomide to refer to female gnomes. In 19th century fiction, the chthonic gnome became a type of antithesis to the more luminous or aerial fairy. Nathaniel Hawthorne in Twice-Told Tales (1837) contrasts the two in "Small enough to be king of the fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes." Similarly, gnomes are contrasted with elves, as in Little People of the Snow (1877), which has "let us have a legend of elves that ride through the night, with jingling reins, or mine gnomes".
One of the first movements of Mussorgsky's 1874 Pictures at an Exhibition, called "Gnomus," is written to sound like a gnome moving, with movements constantly changing speed.
Franz Hartmann satirized materialism in 1895 with an allegorical story titled Unter den Gnomen im Untersberg. In this story, the gnomes are still underground creatures, guarding gold treasures on the Untersberg mountain.
As a figure in 19th-century fairy tales, the term gnome became synonymous with "little people" in the 20th century, such as leprechaun, brownie, kobold, leprechaun, Heinzelmännchen and other examples of the "domestic spirit" type, losing their strict association with the earth or the underworld.
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