In 2013, the Royal Horticultural Society admitted Gnomes to the Chelsea Flower Show, but only by caveat that they be used to help grow funding to encourage younger people’s interest in horticulture.  This fit nicely into British tradition, well delineated by David Bowie’s 1967 single, The Laughing Gnome, available here on YouTube.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQxTWDLZ8o?rel=0&w=400&h=300]

But the last word is, in a true Germanic sense, very serious, written by Franz Hartmann 1895, Among the Gnomes, An Occult Tale of Adventure in the Untersberg.  The Untersberg is a mountain on the border of Germany and Austria.  Within the Untersberg are unterwegs connecting…connecting to…Bonigen, Switzerland, where…

I discovered these fellows doing their duties.