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Neb · 08-28-2002, 01:29 PM

(This is long, just a warning. But it's also funny.)

"Once upon a time, all was as it should be in the Gilberts' garden. The grass was a lush green, and spring had sprung a sea of yellow gently bobbing in the breeze. Amongst the daffodils, more colour; flashes of blue tunic here, orange breeches there - a kaleidoscope of garish paint, pink flesh and white beards of a busy workforce of gnomes. A plastic tableau of Snow White and Seven Dwarves trailed across the lawn.

But this picture of parochial tranquillity was spoiled early one Saturday morning when pensioners Gladys and Thomas Gilbert looked out of their Thetford, Norfolk, bungalow to find Snow White and her entourage had gone - hey hoe, hey-hoed off into the depths of unresolved crime. The thieves returned the following night, and what was once a collection of over 20 ornaments was reduced to the four largest gnomes, each 20-inches tall in its Phrygian cap and secured by a sturdy metal stake.

The police's response didn't offer much hope for the gnomes' return. "The owners were obviously upset" said a local officer. He logged the first theft as 'garden furniture: Snow White + 7', and was unmoved by any suggestion for motive other than profit. "All we can wish for", he said grumpily, "is that the goods turn up at a car boot sale".

This was no isolated exodus, however. The story of the garden gnome that gallivanted off to remote, exotic locations, sending postcards home from his travels, is embedded in contemporary folklore. Sometimes the owner receives snapshots of the gnome, or the gnome returns home with a boot-polish suntan. Another version, reported in the Guardian sports pages, has a footballing gnome from Newcastle 'poached' by West Ham Utd, his black and& white strip repainted claret and blue - he's more settled in London, the postcard read, and his form has vastly improved. Then there's the story, volunteered to me by two police officers independently - one involved his own Chief Inspector - about the kidnapped gnome returned piecemeal to its owner after ransom notes were ignored. And, in his collection of urban legends, Curses, broiled again, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand tells of a mass disappearance of gnomes from a neighbourhood in Austria. They were found months later in a forest, grouped around the largest as if having a meeting.

Traditionally, mythology symbolises society's relationship with itself through its heroes and idols. We fashion these after our own aspirations. Just as some of us take pets to beauty salons, dress them up and psychoanalyse them, we imbue inanimate idols with a sentience of our hopes and dreams, consciously striving towards happiness, away from pain. There is no better indicator of cultural values than myth, and modern-day garden gnome stories are no exception. However, as cultural icons the gnomes themselves have suffered an ungodly fall from grace. In England, these once proud residents of grand Victorian mansions, introduced by batty Spiritualist landowners, are now generally considered the epitome of kitsch, rightly banished to suburbia.

Like Chinese whispers, folklore is often based on a seed of truth, but in this case the facts are particularly bizarre. For example, last summer in north-eastern France, 11 garden gnomes were found hanged from a bridge in what appeared to be a mass suicide. Police found a note in which the gnomes said they wanted to quit this world and join a sect of The Temple of Submissive Dwarves. "By the time you read these few words," it continued, "we will no longer be part of your selfish world, which it has been our unhappy task to decorate." Two years earlier, life imitated Brunvand's tale when 119 gnomes were discovered in a forest near Aix-en-Provence, miles from the town where they had mysteriously vanished.

In certain Papuan societies, the forest is the traditional resting place of effigies of the dead, left to rot as the spirit embodied within is set free and converted into memorised image. Much of this artifice has found its way en mass into European collections - to the locals, what is important is that it is elsewhere. Could the movement of 'civilised' gnomic idols represent an equivalent object sacrifice?

Single gatherings of this size are comparatively rare, though. More often the itinerants are rounded up in groups of seven, sometimes accompanied by Snow White. And sometimes they are repainted, usually blue and green, the colours of the Front de Libération des Nains de Jardin (FLNJ) - the Garden Gnome Liberation Front.

Like most revolutions, the one that mobilised European gnomes in the mid-90s was fuelled by a mix of big business and elitism. It began in a climate of stiff competition amongst German gnome manufacturers. Typically, they prided themselves in a high-quality product, and the nearly 30 million gnomes in Germany's gardens alone are a testament to this. Inevitably, however, this spawned a proliferation of cheaper copies from neighbouring countries, leading the Bundestag to curb imports."

[End of part 1]

08-28-2002, 01:29 PM	#1
Neb Account deleted by Request Join Date: May 17, 2001 Location: . Age: 39 Posts: 8,802	(This is long, just a warning. But it's also funny.) "Once upon a time, all was as it should be in the Gilberts' garden. The grass was a lush green, and spring had sprung a sea of yellow gently bobbing in the breeze. Amongst the daffodils, more colour; flashes of blue tunic here, orange breeches there - a kaleidoscope of garish paint, pink flesh and white beards of a busy workforce of gnomes. A plastic tableau of Snow White and Seven Dwarves trailed across the lawn. But this picture of parochial tranquillity was spoiled early one Saturday morning when pensioners Gladys and Thomas Gilbert looked out of their Thetford, Norfolk, bungalow to find Snow White and her entourage had gone - hey hoe, hey-hoed off into the depths of unresolved crime. The thieves returned the following night, and what was once a collection of over 20 ornaments was reduced to the four largest gnomes, each 20-inches tall in its Phrygian cap and secured by a sturdy metal stake. The police's response didn't offer much hope for the gnomes' return. "The owners were obviously upset" said a local officer. He logged the first theft as 'garden furniture: Snow White + 7', and was unmoved by any suggestion for motive other than profit. "All we can wish for", he said grumpily, "is that the goods turn up at a car boot sale". This was no isolated exodus, however. The story of the garden gnome that gallivanted off to remote, exotic locations, sending postcards home from his travels, is embedded in contemporary folklore. Sometimes the owner receives snapshots of the gnome, or the gnome returns home with a boot-polish suntan. Another version, reported in the Guardian sports pages, has a footballing gnome from Newcastle 'poached' by West Ham Utd, his black and& white strip repainted claret and blue - he's more settled in London, the postcard read, and his form has vastly improved. Then there's the story, volunteered to me by two police officers independently - one involved his own Chief Inspector - about the kidnapped gnome returned piecemeal to its owner after ransom notes were ignored. And, in his collection of urban legends, Curses, broiled again, folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand tells of a mass disappearance of gnomes from a neighbourhood in Austria. They were found months later in a forest, grouped around the largest as if having a meeting. Traditionally, mythology symbolises society's relationship with itself through its heroes and idols. We fashion these after our own aspirations. Just as some of us take pets to beauty salons, dress them up and psychoanalyse them, we imbue inanimate idols with a sentience of our hopes and dreams, consciously striving towards happiness, away from pain. There is no better indicator of cultural values than myth, and modern-day garden gnome stories are no exception. However, as cultural icons the gnomes themselves have suffered an ungodly fall from grace. In England, these once proud residents of grand Victorian mansions, introduced by batty Spiritualist landowners, are now generally considered the epitome of kitsch, rightly banished to suburbia. Like Chinese whispers, folklore is often based on a seed of truth, but in this case the facts are particularly bizarre. For example, last summer in north-eastern France, 11 garden gnomes were found hanged from a bridge in what appeared to be a mass suicide. Police found a note in which the gnomes said they wanted to quit this world and join a sect of The Temple of Submissive Dwarves. "By the time you read these few words," it continued, "we will no longer be part of your selfish world, which it has been our unhappy task to decorate." Two years earlier, life imitated Brunvand's tale when 119 gnomes were discovered in a forest near Aix-en-Provence, miles from the town where they had mysteriously vanished. In certain Papuan societies, the forest is the traditional resting place of effigies of the dead, left to rot as the spirit embodied within is set free and converted into memorised image. Much of this artifice has found its way en mass into European collections - to the locals, what is important is that it is elsewhere. Could the movement of 'civilised' gnomic idols represent an equivalent object sacrifice? Single gatherings of this size are comparatively rare, though. More often the itinerants are rounded up in groups of seven, sometimes accompanied by Snow White. And sometimes they are repainted, usually blue and green, the colours of the Front de Libération des Nains de Jardin (FLNJ) - the Garden Gnome Liberation Front. Like most revolutions, the one that mobilised European gnomes in the mid-90s was fuelled by a mix of big business and elitism. It began in a climate of stiff competition amongst German gnome manufacturers. Typically, they prided themselves in a high-quality product, and the nearly 30 million gnomes in Germany's gardens alone are a testament to this. Inevitably, however, this spawned a proliferation of cheaper copies from neighbouring countries, leading the Bundestag to curb imports." [End of part 1]