D&D General Christmas elves in dnd?

[Hriston]

The description of Santa Claus as "a right jolly old elf" is misguided and similar to the name Gandalf being applied to the maia Olórin; he is apparently long-lived, magical, and associates with elves, therefore people think he's an elf, but he's not. In both cases, the beard is a dead giveaway.

The nisse is a household spirit of the goblin/kobold family. They often wear red caps whereas Santa's elves are often depicted as wearing green. Gnomes, on the other hand, are earth spirits.

 

[Yaarel]

The nisse is a household spirit of the goblin/kobold family. They often wear red caps whereas Santa's elves are often depicted as wearing green. Gnomes, on the other hand, are earth spirits.

The nisse is in the "house sprite" family, like brownie and hob.

Nisse is a nickname, like Robin Goodfellow is. The proper name for the phenomenon is "tomt" (tompt, topt, tuft), literally a "property" of land. It is literally the animistic mind of the earth that a home is built on. A place has a presence, sometimes an interactive one.

The German kobold is also a house sprite. But the English goblin isnt. The goblin is a malicious sprite, unlike a brownie that is protective house sprite. (Tho sometimes the German kobold can be malicious, more like a goblin.)

The Latin term "gnomus" probably derives from Greek ge-nomos, literally a "division of land", a field. Hence it means the same thing as Norse tomt. In any case, the Latin term is normally used to translate the folkbeliefs about house sprites, from various languages.

Gnome is a house sprite, moreso than an earth elemental per se.

The Norse tomt, Scottish brownie, English hob, German kobold, are all Gnomes.

 

[Hriston]

Gnome was coined by Paracelsus in the 16th century. It refers to the Bergmännlein or "mountain manikin", a class of beings believed to lurk in the mines in early modern Germany. It was in the 20th century that gnome lost its strict association with earth and became largely synonymous with creatures of the household spirit type such as hobs, brownies, and goblins.