Gnomes are self-possessed, materialistic, and practical. They move through the earth, their element, as we humans move through air. Our air is their water, found in caves and crevices, hoarded up in great tunnelings and artificial caverns underground.

Humans sense their presence as a taste of dust in the mouth, or as a feeling of heaviness. We seldom see them, except as a brown shadow, or as the shifting of shadows in a late night room. Children may see them, may play with gnome children, and then forget them as they age. In great age, the memories come back, as a misplaced treasure found again.

We think of them as ugly, but they are not ugly to their kind. Some human women have admired them for their strength and cleverness. Country families may claim lineage partly from the gnomes, and boast it in names like Small and Berowne.

Kobolds

Not all the kobolds are earth spirits. Water kobolds are sailors, and house kobolds may live in a home’s hearth fire. Most kobolds, though, live underground, and complicate a miner’s life. They are stout, very muscular, and may seem blind above ground. Sometimes they smoke a tobacco pipe, and they may disguise themselves as martens, cats, or snakes.

They are cunning artisans, and hard rock miners often hear them working away, drilling and pounding. Some miners will tunnel toward the sound, reasoning that the kobolds know where the best ore is, but some will dig in the other direction, for safety’s sake.

Kobolds get on with those who treat them respectfully. Most are not interested in our terrestrial lives, because their business is with the treasures of the earth. Annoyed, however, they may curse their tormentor, cause him or her bad luck, or even poison a miner’s ores. The name of the sometimes-dangerous element cobalt comes from the word Kobold.

Pan

A great earth spirit is Pan. He haunts the empty places, causing panic in those caught out alone. He is also the goat-footed horned god who plays music on his panpipes, and leads the dance. Late revelers may see him on the last downtown bus, in the seat beyond the rear door, stout in his shiny black suit, feigning sleep, his slitted eyes hiding unhuman joy. He rules the natural world, with his entourage of satyrs, wood nymphs, and seleni.

Silenus is the oldest of the sileni, the oldest son of Pan. He is stout and merry, and was the tutor to Bacchus, the god of wine.

The satyrs are fertility gods. They are lusty and strong, with pointed ears and heavy beards. They often wear circlets of ivy or grapevine. They may have horse’s tails or goat’s legs like great Pan.

Nymphs

Hamadryads are the spirits of oak and poplar trees. Though they assume the form of maidens, still their life is bound up with their tree, and they die when it dies. Dryad means oak tree spirit, but some dryads were associated with other trees. Oreads are mountain nymphs, and there are nymphs of glens and groves.  Anthousai are flower nymphs. These nymphs may live hundreds of years, though they are mortal, if no one disturbs their grove.

Because each tree has a spirit that dies with it, it was once considered impious to destroy a tree without good cause.