It Is Gnoe

If you've been a gift shop or drug store this holiday season, or the last couple, you might have noticed a growing proliferation of Gnomes. In fact, it isn't just Christmas, Halloween-based Gnomes and even Valentine's Day-themed fellows have popped up here and there, but it's definitely as Christmas decor where they've really flourished. They've begin to codify into a certain look where their long beards and heavily lidded cap means the nose is the only visible part of them. I think it's this aspect, the Hallmarkization of Gnomes (perhaps the second such incident after Lawn Gnomes) makes them an interesting study, how consummately Medieval American McFantasy is.

It's quite possible their ascendency as a Holiday staple owes to a few factors: One is just plain kitschy irony. Another is that, on contrastg to elves, they do truly resemble mineratures Santas. And perhaps the Tolkienesque elves, the ones from Lord of the Rings and various MMRPGs has seen them less viable as Santa's little helpers in the popular conciosness. (Others have suggested that that the Elf on the Shelf has sort of destroyed Elfin street cred.In any case, the Gnome as high tech tinkerers as seen in various modern fantasy is probably unlikely to catch on, but then again, one might have never guessed that Legolas would break out of the image most Americans had of elves as primarily makers of cookies) That they might be orchestrated by Hallmark makes them no less a part of Americana--Paul Bunyan was whipped up under similar circumstances, and Smokey Bear was created whole-cloth at the end of the 1950's. I do sometimes wonder how White feels about the "cottage core" movement, and how that would play into Medieval America if the project was created today. To some degree, the rustic cottage lifestyle is actually less attractive when you actually have to live it, and don't have modern ameneities to feel back on. But I get the sense UFOs, the "Little Green Men" had culturally replaced a lot of the fair folk for Americans living at the tail end of the 20th century, so it's sort of interesting to see people psychologically go back to the source.

In any case, when conjuring up a new Medieval America "folklore", one might have to account for the presence of Gnomes--perhaps they would completely supplant elves, or may be supplanted by something else. But the idea of dimunitive, hairy, but overall extremely festive creatures might become inextricably part of Medieval American lore, if the fad doesn't fade away anytome soon.