gnomes

   This name for dwarfs living underground is not part of folk tradition; it is a Latin word invented by the 16th-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus in a treatise on four species of elemental beings: nymphs in water, sylphs in air, salamanders in fire, and pigmaei or gnomi in the earth. The first English writer to adopt it was the poet Pope, in The Rape of the Lock (1714). Gnomes became more common in 19th- and 20th-century literature, especially for children, where illustrators gave them the standard appearance of dwarfs in Swiss and German folklore, including a red cap. They were often said to be mining for metals and precious stones.

   The first gnome figurines for gardens were small porcelain ones imported from Germany in the late 1860s by Sir Charles Isham, to decorate a large rockery at Lamport Hall (Northamptonshire) imitating a mountain landscape, in which they represented mining dwarfs. Terracotta gnomes were fashionable in late Victorian times; modern mass-produced ones are generally regarded with affectionate mockery.