Damp autumn air has replaced the balmy nights of summer,
so all over Germany cheerful little red cheeked, bearded folk in workman's trousers and shoes, red pointed hats often bent at the tip, are being taken into homes, the time has come for most of the countries 25 million Garden Gnomes to escape winter and begin their hibernation. And cold weather quarters for a Gartenzwerg, as they later became known, who spends his summers in a German garden, are often a clearly visible spot in the home, not a cardboard box or dusty shelf in an outhouse or attic.
In the land which for generations has produced the talented landscape gardeners and architects who designed many of the famous gardens still in existence worldwide, including the aristocrat Hermann Heinrich Fuerst (Prince) von Pueckler-Muskau who inspired the creators of New York's Central Park, the garden gnome is king.
Perhaps sitting incongruously on a perfect lawn or peering out of an otherwise faultlessly co-ordinated flowerbed, sometimes in the rafters of farm yard sheds protecting the farmer's crops and livestock, and believed to bring good luck when either inside or outside the home, the Gartenzwerg, garden dwarf, has been a part of German culture for over a century.
It was in mid-nineteenth century Germany where craftsmen, specialised in the production of ceramics and living in Graefenroda a Thuringian village, took advantage of legends that gnomes helped and protected gardens at night, and began mass producing in terracotta the Gartenzwerg that had been made from clay since the early 1800s.
Suddenly a gnome, (pronounced nome), was the must have ornament for gardens including, until the end of the 19th century when the general public began to follow the trend, those of ancient and stately homes, and to keep up with the increasing demand for them across not only Germany but also France and England, German manufacturers of all sizes and capabilities began to make them.
World Wars, an East German government that considered them symbols of capitalism, together with changing tastes and circumstances including the advent of plastic replicas and, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, inexpensive poorly produced designs from the Polish and Czech Republics and later China flooding the market, have affected the industry.
Now only one of the original German manufacturers remains, the fourth generation of Philip Griebel's family, and on the 'birth certificates' of those Graefenroda garden gnomes their species is given as Nanus hortorum vulgaris, 'common garden dwarf'.
The garden gnome's history has passed from garden status symbol through kitsch, and is back to becoming something of a cult, but in Germany they have never gone out of fashion.
What are they, and why put them in a garden, on a windowsill or hanging from rafters.
One of several ideas for the tradition stems from Priapus a fertility god in Greek-Roman mythology who, wooden sickle in his hand, was reputed to protect gardens, farm animals and agriculture, and 'in real life' was used as a scarecrow in Roman gardens. And garden gnomes are indeed effective small scarecrows.
A German myth however describes gnomes who during the night frighten away any two or four legged prowlers, while also helping with the weeding and the rest of the garden work.
The word gnome is based on an original Greek phrase for earth dweller, as in ancient times not only were certain gods believed to live underground, but later strange and wayward beings were supposed to inhabit the woodlands, living in burrows and coming out only to cause chaos. Something that was not difficult for the inhabitants to assume in the cold, dark and overgrown European forests of those days.
Even the Harry Potter books of J. K. Rowling describe garden gnomes as wretched creatures to be cleared away at every opportunity, although in 'The Gnome', the collection of stories by The Brothers Grimm, they are portrayed in both kind and malicious examples.
France and Italy have Garden Gnome Liberation groups which free gnomes from gardens to release them back into their natural habitat, which is rather unfortunate if the gnome is made from terracotta because close contact with the soil and inclement weather will shorten his life considerably.
Some Britons have taken to travelling with gnomes and photographing
them in front of the Taj Mahal or sunbathing on Bondi Beach, Amelie, is a French film that features the world travels of a stolen garden gnome, and June 21, summer solstice, was established as International Gnome Day in 2002.However in Germany apart from a few digressions which have been dealt with swiftly, garden gnomes created unclothed, behaving badly or as Nazis for example, a German Gardenswerge just continues to do what folklore decrees that it does best, wake up as darkens falls and start work in its garden, keeping the soil moist and healthy, helping plants come into flower, leaves to change their colours, and frightening away those two and four legged prowlers.
So as temperatures drop and daylight decreases over Germany worker gnomes such as Instus with his Wheelbarrow, and leisure and culture gnomes like Heinz the fisherman and Willi with his book, are brought inside, dusted down and carefully placed somewhere warm and dry, just as they have been for many years in the past and as they will continue to be for generations to come.
'Gartenzweg' photo by courtesy Wikipedia photographer EddyDD
