Vol. 4, 2014–2015

Garden Dwarves and House Spirits

Claude Lecouteux

The impression that we have of dwarves from fairy tales is essen-tially based upon nineteenth-century folk literature. In fact, once upon a time they were a fantastical people that lived in wild and uncultivated regions, some of whom entered into the service of lords or heroes.

According to the Poetic Edda, dwarves were originally born out of the decomposing body of Ymir, the primordial giant, although the traditional accounts are hardly unanimous. These children of Ymir who created a race in their image were named Móðsognir and Durinn. They were not the only ones, however, since the gods took Ymir’s skull to use as the celestial vault, set it atop four columns, under each of which they placed a dwarf. These dwarves bear the names of the four cardinal points: Norðri, Suðri, Austri, Vestri.

In the tenth century, the various Germanic terms for a dwarf—such as Old High German zwerc, Old Norse dvergr, and Old English dweorg—were portmanteau words that concealed all manner of figures from folk mythology. The names designate elves as well as nightmares, howlers, fauns, satyrs, ogres, goblins, and brownies. The dwarf’s own image suffers as a result of this, and a number of its actions can only be explained in the light of such conflations.

The first dwarf turns up in medieval German literature between 1023 and 1050, but other non-literary evidence exists to show that dwarves were present long before this. As a result, it becomes apparent that the medieval romances drew upon folk traditions, among other things.

In this same geographical region, the Heldenbuch (Book of Heroes), printed in Strassburg around 1483, puts a Christian spin on the earlier mythological material when it relates how God peopled the earth that he had just created. God first made dwarves to develop the earth; afterward he created the giants whose duty it was to protect the dwarves against the then-

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teeming population of dragons. But the giants turned treacherous and began oppressing the dwarves, at which point God created heroes to restore and keep secure His order. Another very old text, the thirteenth-century Middle High German translation of the Magnificat, says: “God distributed the demons among the entire earth. In the waters and mountains lived the Nixies and the Dwarves, in the forests and swamps the Elves, the Thurses, and other spirits.” We should note that an Icelandic tale collected in the nineteenth century, Huldumanna genesis (The Origin of the Hidden Men), made dwarves the children of Eve. Because they were unwashed, Eve hid them from the eyes of God, who then decreed: “Whatever should be hid from my sight should also be hid from that of men.” These children were therefore invisible: they dwelt in the hills and mountains, in holes, and among the rocks.

Illustration by Helen M. Armstrong, from “The Peas-ant and the Brownies,” Swedish Fairytales, 1901.

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The Dwarf Proper

There are three major types of dwarves in the Germanic regions. The first is the old, bearded figure, who is somewhat rare but whose existence is attested to by the figure of Alberich in the Nibelungenlied; this type of dwarf is ubiquitous in folktales and, much later, in European gardens. Next, there is the extremely beautiful child, a type for which the sole evidence is found in the thirteenth-century epic romance Ortnit, but this depiction actu-ally corresponds with that of an elf. Finally, there is the figure of the dwarf knight, which appears quite frequently and is a dimin-utive version of a human hero.

Dwarves reside in hollow mountains, have hierarchical systems and families, and their society is similarly structured to that of humans. Like human beings, dwarves fall prey to their passions, wage war, become jealous, and so on.

Originally, the dwarf had no set size, but rather could trans-form at will to whatever size he desired. Furthermore, we constantly come across expressions in the Middle Ages like “little dwarf” or “miniscule dwarf,” as if it was necessary to indicate that a given dwarf was a small or tiny figure. The small size of the dwarf undoubtedly stems from the influence of the scholarly tradition regarding the pygmies, which were called Trispithames because they measured three spithames, in other words, around three feet tall. Generally speaking, dwarves measured between two to four feet in height.

The dwarf possessed the strength of twelve to twenty men, which is sometimes explained by their ownership of magic objects such as a belt, a helmet, or a ring.

As a cave dweller and a subterranean inhabitant of wild and rocky places, the dwarf knew all the secrets of nature: the virtues of plants, waters, and minerals. For this reason, he is an excel-lent smith, although the weapons that he manufactures under coercion—often after having been captured—turn out to be malevolent in nature. He can go wherever he pleases in the blink of an eye, knows the future, is the keeper of great wealth, and sometimes kidnaps women to be his brides. His heredi-

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tary enemies are dragons and giants. In Germanic mythology, dwarves and giants often bear the same name, and giants have dwarves for sons. A figure like Regin, the smith who took in the young Siegfried, was even described as a giant with the size of a dwarf. Again it becomes apparent that “dwarf” and “giant” do not connote the size of the creatures they designate; these are the generic names of mythological races.

Names That Speak

Thanks to the names of dwarves, we are able to see that these crea-tures are regularly confused with elves—one is named Gandálfr, for example, which literally means “Elf with the magic wand.” Elves are typically craftsmen and more especially smiths, and we find dwarves with names like Sindri (“Spark Sprayer”), or even simply Brokkr (“Blacksmith”). The harmful nature of dwarves is evident from names like Alþjófr (“Master Thief”), Ginnar (“Deceiver”), Þráinn (“Threatener”), Dori (“Damager”), Eitri (“Poisonous One”), or Mjǫðvitnir (“Mead Wolf”). They know magic, as is evident in such names as Galarr (“Enchanter”) or Finnr, Fiðr (“Finn,” i.e., Sámi or Laplander, a people who were regarded as sorcerers). Their physical nature is displayed in such names as Dúfr (“Twisted”), Bǫmburr (“Fatty”), Hárr (“Hoary”), and Blindi (“Blind”). This last name refers to a very specific characteristic of dwarves: the sun blinds and petrifies them. Undoubtedly even more interesting are the names that clearly show that dwarves represent a mythical vision of the dead, or, at the very least, that they have a very close bond with the dead. Here are several of them: Dáinn (“Died”), Nár and Náinn (both meaning “Corpse”), Frosti (“Cold”), Funinn (“Decomposed”), Dvalinn (“Torpid”), Hornbori (“Pierced by a Horn”), Haugspori (“The One Who Enters the Burial Mound”) and Búinn (“Ready-for-Departure,” i.e., for burial). To this list we can also add Nýi (“Dark”) and Niði (“New Moon”), since this planetary body is that of the deceased, and Ái (“Ancestor”), which clearly indicates the transformation of the dead into dwarves. Furthermore, the natural habitat of the dwarves is the lithic realm, which is of

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course that of the deceased. We should note that the malevolent dead (those who experienced a premature, violent, or unusual death) become dwarves and revenants. The good dead, as I have shown in another study, Fantômes et Revenants au Moyen Âge, become elves. One final detail is that whoever follows a dwarf into his kingdom never returns, as is related in the legend of the Scandinavian king, Sveigdir, and, with a subtle difference, in the legend of King Herla in England, the leader of the Infernal Hunt, which is also known under the name of Mesnie Hellequin.

Dwarves are fabulous artisans who forged various instruments and objects owned by the gods: Thor’s hammer, Odin’s spear, Njord’s boat, the ring Draupnir, and Freyr’s boar. All of these items are magical. But it was dwarves, too, who crafted the grate that seals off the underworld, Hel, and the chain that shackles the wicked Loki. When they forge things for men, their wickedness comes to the fore: the weapon is baleful. As for their treasures,

Freya in the cave of the d wa rv e s . I l l u s t r a t i o n by HLM, Asgard Stories, 1901.

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whoever makes off with them will die, the best example being the cursed gold in the legend of Siegfried. In short, what is predom-inant among the “true dwarves” is their sly and ill-scheming nature, a quality that reappears in the romance literature. It is this character attribute that distinguishes them from elves.

Household Deities

Garden dwarves have adopted some of their traits from goblins and from spirits of the mines: their red caps come from the former and their lanterns from the latter. The beard is an old attribute intended to represent their great age and therefore their erudition and wisdom. The pipe is an element that was appar-ently added to this figure during the nineteenth century. But the garden dwarf has another, much more profound meaning, in that it actually represents the household deity: a creature that oversaw the proper functioning of the house and the well-being of its inhabitants on the condition that they granted it their respect, gave it regular offerings of food (broth or dairy products), and made sure never to set foot in the territory reserved for it, such as a corner in the attic. There is a spirit that lives in the main house, and others reside in the outlying farm buildings. All of these spirits have various names in the Germanic countries and are characterized by their physical aspect. Names referring to objects are not uncommon, such as “Piece of Wood” (Poppele) or “Block” (Butz); these beings were originally amorphous and gradually were given human features. In earlier times they were certainly idols. Their generic names may also refer to anthropo-morphic features., such as Junge (“Youngster”), Kerlchen (“Little Fellow”), Männchen (“Little Man”), or, in the case of Grieske and Schrättli, connote the idea of deformation. They can refer to their color (which may be gray, white, or red), or a distinctive feature of their dress, such as Hödeken (“Little Hood”), Blauhösler (“Blue Pants”), or Stiefel (“Boots”); or simply their vague and indefi-nite nature such as Umg’hyri (“Disturbing Monster”) or Spuk (“Phantom”).

The majority of these spirits are of male gender and their

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names, which are quite often diminutives, suggest the notion of their small size as well as that of familiarity and affection.

Beyond the aforementioned sorts of names, we come across those that simultaneously designate spirits, deities, and the dead who are predisposed to smoothly running households.

A house can have one or more spirits. When they are numerous, a family of spirits may be involved, although this notion seems due to a contamination with the dwarves. A Frisian account relates how a poor peasant finally managed to finish building his house thanks to the gifts from his neighbor. To ensure his good fortune, he invited the Puke [spirits] to live with him. They soon arrived to inspect the new house, and danced about it until one of them, about three inches high, decided to stay there and chose a hole in the beam for his home.

Typically, each individual building of a homestead is inhab-ited by its own spirit. This explains the multiplicity of names that we find for these spirits in a single geographic area.

These spirits that we see today, frozen in our gardens and reduced to the status of simple decorations, are the misunder-stood vestiges of a former time when they were vitally alive and participated in the lives of men. They have lost their names and are now little more than generic dwarves. Since men no longer believe in them, and because our habitat has profoundly changed, they have abandoned us—they no longer perform any domestic duties, and, with their disappearance, part of a dream has vanished.

(Translated by Jon Graham)

A version of this article originally appeared in La Grande Oreille 35 (2008): 52–55. For publication in English, it has been slightly expanded in collaboration with the author.

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Selected Works by Claude Lecouteux on This Theme:

Claude Lecouteux. Nos bons voisins. Nains, elfes, lutins, gnomes, kobolds et compagnie, textes réunis, présentés et annotés. Paris: Corti, 2010.

———. Les nains et les elfes au Moyen Âge. 3rd edition. Paris, Imago, 2004.

———. Eine Welt im Abseits. Studien zur niederen Mythologie und Glaubenswelt des Mittelalters. Dettelbach: Röll, 2001.

———. “Zwerge und Verwandte.” Euphorion 75 (1981): 366–78.