Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 5739749" data-attributes="member: 19675">Well, if you actually look at European fairy tales, "gnomes" were, like "elves", "goblins" and "dwarves", another kind of fey...sometimes used interchangeably, depending on the translation.Paracelsus used the term for a kind of diminutive earth elemental.Draupnir ("Dripping") Odin's  magic arm-ring, which every 9th night, dropped eight new bracelets, was created by the gnome Sindri.  As I recall, they were master craftsmen who create much of the other magic of the Asgardians- Sif's hair and possibly Mjolnir as well.JRRT uses the term as an alternative term referring to technologically advanced elves, the Noldor.In C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, gnomes, or "Earthmen" as they are sometimes called, live in the Underland, a series of subterranean caverns. William Cullen Bryant and Nathaniel Hawthorne use the term to refer to earth-linked fey.Alberich in the Der Ring des Niebelungen, is- again, depending on the translation- king of the Dwarves or Gnomes...and that despite the name meaning "Elf King".The Dutch have the legend of Gnome King Kyrië.Germans name them Erdmanleins, except in the Alpine areas, where they are called Heinzemannchens. In Denmark and Norway they are Nisse; Nissen is a Swedish variation. In Brittany they are called Nains. Tontti to the Finns and Foddenskkmaend is their name in Iceland. The Polish call they by the familar Gnom. Bulgaria and Albania, however, use Dudje. In Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, Gnomes are called Mano. The Dutch use Kabouter and the Belgian, Skritek. Switzerland and Luxembourg use the same name, Kleinmanneken, which means "littlemen." Domovoi Djedoes is used in western Russia.Essentially, with the possible exception of their involvement with technology or crafts, D&D and many other western RPGs have essentially taken most gnomish attributes in legend and assigned it to other races, like elves, dwarves, pixies, goblins and kobolds.</blockquote>

Verification