When darkness falls, something magical awakens in the garden.
The garden gnomes leave their places and begin their nightly adventures. They help animals in need, solve little mysteries, and make sure kindness always wins.
But someone is watching, and not everyone wants the gnomes to be free...
A warm and enchanting story about friendship, courage, and the magic of doing good.
Excerpts from the Book
The Shadow That Left the Gnome
My name is Morris, and I live in the yellow house at the end of the street, although the people who live there still believe it belongs to them. I let them think so. They handle the food reasonably well, open the door when I want to go out, and have understood that the big armchair by the window is mine. You shouldn't expect more from people than they can manage.
In the garden stands a garden gnome named Algot. Of course, the people don't know that's his name. To them, he's just that old gnome by the gate, but I've known him for years. He's kind, dependable, and unusually proud of his beard, even though a blackbird likes to use it as a lookout post in the spring.
During the day, Algot stands perfectly still with his little lantern held in front of him. He doesn't speak, blink, or move so much as a finger. If it rains, he gets wet. If it snows, snow lands on his cap. Sometimes people walk past and laugh at his faded paint and crooked smile, but he doesn't care. He simply waits for evening.
It was late on the night when everything began. The moon had appeared between the clouds and shone over the gardens as the last people went indoors, closed their doors, and drew the curtains. I was lying on the wall, washing one front paw, when I heard Algot clear his throat by the gate.
"All clear?" he asked.
I looked around. A window was still lit in the house across the street, but no one was standing there looking out.
"For the moment," I said. "But Märta and Sigge usually come by soon."
"Then I'd better hurry."
Algot didn't move. Garden gnomes never did, at least not in the way people expected. First, a dark mist rose from the gravel. Then it formed arms, legs, a cap, and a beard. When it was completely free, Algot stood in front of me just as I knew him: small and sturdy, with kind eyes, a red cap, and a green coat that people could never see.
"Evening meeting under the oak," Algot said. "A message has come from the crows."
"They exaggerate," I said.
"Often," he admitted. "But not always."
He had barely taken two steps when I heard Sigge's paws on the path. Algot darted to the side and slipped behind the hedge just as Märta came around the corner with the dog on his leash.
Sigge stopped short. He couldn't see Algot as clearly as I could, but he recognized him at once and began wagging his tail so eagerly that his whole back end joined in.
"Come on," Märta said, giving the leash a gentle tug. "It's only the old garden gnome."
Sigge sat down and stared toward the hedge where Algot was hiding.
"There's no point trying to look innocent," I whispered. "Dogs don't fall for that."
Algot didn't answer. He waited until Märta looked away, then raced across the path and disappeared behind the bushes on the other side. To a person, he would have looked like nothing more than a quick shadow flickering in the moonlight.
Märta stopped anyway.
"Did you see that?" she asked.
Sigge gave a happy bark. Märta looked at the garden gnome. The stone figure still stood by the gate with its lantern in front of its belly.
"It was probably just the moonlight," she murmured.
People often say that when they've seen something they can't explain. Moonlight gets blamed for a great many things it never did.
When Märta and Sigge had moved on, I followed Algot. I took a shortcut over the wall and through the lilac hedge, while he moved so quickly that sometimes he was only a dark streak across the ground. The gnomes could travel a long way in very little time, but they had to avoid human eyes at all times. A streetlight, a car turning the corner, or someone unexpectedly looking out a window could cause trouble.
Three other gnomes were waiting beneath the old oak. Tilda stood nearest the trunk with her hands on her hips. She usually led the meetings and had a habit of looking stern when she was really just thinking. Beside her stood Vilgot, who always carried a backpack filled with rope, string, nuts, and anything else he thought might come in handy. The third was little Knut, whose good intentions were greater than his ability to listen all the way to the end.
"You're late," Tilda said when Algot arrived.
"Märta almost spotted me."
"Almost doesn't count," Knut said.
"It certainly does," Tilda replied. "Almost being discovered is the first step toward being completely discovered."
Vilgot opened his backpack and took out a small pinecone, which he placed in the middle of the circle.
"The message came from the crows by the creek," he said. "A puppy squeezed through a hole in a fence and ended up on the wrong side. His name is Bosse, and he can't find his way home."
"Is he hurt?" Algot asked.
"No, but he's alone, and the road is close by."
Everyone fell silent. The gnomes could joke about many things, but never about an animal in danger.
"Then we'll go get him," Tilda said. "We'll cross the creek, lead him through the old pasture, and take him back to the people who are looking for him. No unnecessary detours and no unusual solutions."
As she said the last words, she looked at Knut.
"I've never suggested an unusual solution," he said, wounded.
We moved quickly through the neighborhood and on toward the creek. I followed at my own pace. Cats don't travel the way gnomes do, but we have other advantages. For one thing, we never have to explain why we're somewhere no one expected to find us.
Bosse was sitting at the edge of the pasture, whining. He was small and brown, with one ear standing up while the other drooped, as if the two still hadn't agreed on what a dog was supposed to look like.
When he saw the gnomes, he got to his feet immediately. To him, they weren't dark shadows but friendly little figures, and he ran over to Algot with his tail wagging.
"There, there," Algot said, patting him on the head. "We'll help you get home."
Bosse tried to lick him in the face.
"That means he trusts you," I said.
"Mostly it feels wet," Algot replied.
The plan was simple. Tilda would go first, Algot and Vilgot would walk on either side of Bosse, and Knut would bring up the rear. I would come along and keep watch for people.
It could have worked perfectly if Knut hadn't found the piece of sausage.
It was lying under a bench near the path, dropped by some person who clearly didn't understand the value of food. Knut picked it up and immediately brightened.
"We can use it to lure Bosse in the right direction."
"He's already following us," Tilda said.
"Yes, but with sausage he'll follow even better."
Before anyone could stop him, Knut broke off a small piece and put it on the ground. Bosse ate it, and Knut placed the next piece a few yards farther along.
At first, it actually seemed like a good idea. Bosse obediently followed the sausage and stayed on the path. The only problem was that the smell traveled much farther than Knut had expected.
First, a hedgehog came out of the grass. Then two crows swooped down from a tree. A fox appeared between the bushes, and behind us we suddenly heard Sigge's cheerful bark.
Märta came walking along the path, still holding the leash and looking more puzzled by the second.
"What is going on here?" she said.
Bosse walked in front of her. Behind Bosse came the hedgehog. The crows flew overhead, while the fox crept along beside the path, trying to look as though it just happened to be passing by.
Knut was holding the last piece of sausage. Tilda slowly turned toward him.
"No unusual solutions," she said.
"It was a perfectly ordinary sausage," Knut replied.
Now we had to get Bosse home without Märta seeing the gnomes. Vilgot lured the crows away by tossing a few nuts in the opposite direction. I dealt with the fox by staring at him in the way only a cat can. He understood the message and disappeared among the trees.
Algot and Tilda led Bosse across the little wooden bridge while Knut ran ahead and placed the final piece of sausage at the end of the path. On the other side stood a boy with his father, calling for the dog.
When Bosse heard the boy's voice, he forgot all about the sausage and the gnomes. He rushed forward, threw himself at the boy, and nearly knocked him over.
The boy laughed and wrapped his arms tightly around him.
"There you are! How did you get back?"
His father looked toward the bridge. Märta arrived with Sigge, and all three tried to understand how the little dog had found the right way through the darkness.
"He must have followed something," Märta said.
"Followed what?" the boy asked.
Märta looked toward the trees. The gnomes had already withdrawn, but for a brief moment moonlight fell across them and their shadows appeared between the trunks.
"I don't know," she said. "I almost thought I saw..."
"Nothing. It was probably just the moonlight."
After the people had gone, the gnomes hurried home. Algot reached the yellow house shortly before Märta and Sigge. He slipped through the gate, stood in front of his stone figure, and sank back into the shadow at its feet.
When Märta came by, the garden gnome stood exactly as usual with his lantern in front of his belly.
"See, Sigge?" she said. "It hasn't moved."
Sigge sniffed by the gate. Then he found a tiny piece of sausage beside one of Algot's stone boots. He ate it, sat down in front of the gnome, and wagged his tail.
I was lying on the wall again, watching Algot's painted face smile in the moonlight. The people still believed they hadn't been given an explanation.
But Sigge knew. I knew.
And now you know too.
[...]
The Night the Field Began to Dance
The morning after Bosse's rescue, Märta stood by the gate for a long time, looking at Algot. At first she walked past him with Sigge, but after a few steps she turned around and came back. Then she bent down until her face was directly in front of the gnome's painted smile.
"You haven't been out having adventures at night, have you?" she asked.
Naturally, Algot didn't answer. During the day he couldn't even raise an eyebrow, which was sometimes a shame because it would have suited the moment perfectly. I sat on the wall and watched Märta inspect him from every angle.
"I must be starting to see things in my old age," she said.
Sigge sniffed Algot's boots and wagged his tail.
"You're no help," Märta told him.
Sigge knew more than she did, but dogs are good at keeping secrets when necessary. They say all kinds of things with their tails, but people still haven't learned to understand them properly.
When darkness fell, Algot slipped free of his shadow by the gate. He had barely had time to say hello before Klara told us the news again, this time with more pauses and even bigger movements of her wings.
"A field that sings," Algot said when she had finished.
"It could be the wind," I said.
"The wind can do many things," Klara replied.
We hurried to the old oak, where Tilda, Vilgot, and Knut were already waiting. Tilda listened without interrupting while Klara told us about the distant field, the strange sounds, and the animals that had seen lights moving over the grain.
"How far away is it?" Algot asked.
"Far for a cat, and even farther for a person," Klara said.
Knut immediately looked excited.
"Are we going really far?"
"If we have to," Tilda said.
"To another country?"
"Not this time."
"Almost to another country?"
"Knut," Vilgot interrupted, "the place is beyond several forests, two lakes, and a town. That's more than enough for one evening."
Of course, I had seen the gnomes move quickly before, but I had never gone with them on a longer journey. They could travel through shadows in a way that was difficult to explain. A dark forest path could be folded up like a piece of cloth, and when the gnomes unfolded it again, they would be somewhere completely different.
"I suppose you're not waiting for me," I said.
"You're coming with us," Algot replied.
"I'm not running halfway across the country."
"You don't have to run."
Vilgot opened his backpack and took out a dark green piece of cloth with two straps.
"Travel pocket," he said.
"You're planning to put me in a bag?"
"A travel pocket."
"That's a bag with a fancier name."
"It's lined."
In the end I agreed, which I still blame entirely on my curiosity and not at all on the fact that the pocket turned out to be unusually soft.
We left the neighborhood as soon as the last people had gone indoors. The gnomes moved first among the shadows of the gardens and then continued toward the forest. I saw only glimpses through the opening of the travel pocket: a fence vanishing behind us, a road becoming a gray streak, and treetops sliding past overhead. Then Tilda stepped into the shadow beneath a spruce. When the light returned, we were standing at the edge of a lake I had never seen before.
"How did you do that?" I asked.
"Old gnome road," Algot replied.
That wasn't an explanation, but gnomes like to give answers like that when they want to sound wise and avoid explaining how something actually works.
By the time we finally reached the field, the moon was high over the landscape. The grain rolled in the light breeze like a vast dark sea. At the edge waited two hares, an old badger, and several mice. The badger was named Rurik and looked as though he had spent most of his life worrying.
"At last," he said. "It started three nights ago."
"What started?" Tilda asked.
"The sounds. Then the stalks began moving in circles even though the wind was blowing the other way."
"How small?" Knut asked.
"Small."
"Like fireflies?"
"Smaller."
"Like very small fireflies?"
Tilda put a hand on his shoulder.
"We investigate first and ask questions afterward."
The mice led us between the stalks. To the animals, the field was full of paths and hiding places, but the gnomes could move straight through without breaking a single stalk. The farther in we went, the clearer the sound became.
Thump. Thump-thump. Thump.
It actually sounded like music from far away.
Algot stopped.
"I know that rhythm."
Tilda looked at him.
"So do I."
We reached a small clearing in the middle of the field. About a dozen gnomes stood there in a circle. One was playing a fiddle no bigger than a matchbox, while another kept the beat on an empty walnut shell. They stopped abruptly when they saw us.
"Good evening," said the gnome in the blue cap.
Tilda folded her arms.
"What are you doing?"
"We're having a meeting."
Knut looked at the other gnomes, then at the fiddle, and finally at the flattened ground.
"Do your meetings usually include dancing?"
"Sometimes important matters require rhythm," the blue-capped gnome replied.
It soon became clear that there was nothing dangerous in the field. The local gnomes had gathered to celebrate successfully guiding a herd of deer away from a busy road. The job had been difficult, but they had managed it without a single person seeing them. Afterward, someone had brought out a fiddle, someone else had found the walnut shell, and the meeting had developed in a direction no one now wanted to take responsibility for.
"You've been dancing for three nights in a row," Tilda said.
"The first evening was a small celebration. The second evening we were only going to clean up after the first."
"I told you the ground was singing," Rurik said.
"Apparently it has a pretty good sense of rhythm," I said.
Now that we knew what was happening, the mission should have been over. The gnomes could go home, the animals could stop worrying, and the local group could promise to keep future meetings a little quieter. But Knut had begun examining the ground.
"Look here," he said.
Where the gnomes had danced, the stalks were bent in the same direction in a broad circle. Outside it were smaller rings left by the different dancing pairs.
"This will be visible in the morning," Vilgot said.
"We were going to stand the stalks up again before sunrise," one of the local gnomes said.
"Have you tried?" Tilda asked.
"Yes."
"And?"
"They fell down again."
Knut walked around the largest ring, looking more impressed by the second.
"If you made another circle here and a smaller one there, the pattern would be more even."
Tilda turned toward him.
"We're supposed to remove the tracks, not improve them."
"I only thought that if they're already visible, they might as well look neat."
Naturally, that was exactly the sort of thought that usually led to trouble.
While the other gnomes tried to lift the grain back into place, Knut carefully began straightening one edge. Then one of the local gnomes noticed what he was doing and joined in. Soon they were working their way around the ring to make it perfectly round.
"Stop!" Tilda shouted.
"Now it's even more obvious," Algot said.
Knut looked at the result.
"But it's straighter."
No one answered.
The gnomes hurried away from the field shortly before dawn. The local gnomes returned to their motionless figures in nearby gardens and parks. Tilda, Algot, Vilgot, and Knut took the same fast routes home, and I spent the return trip in the travel pocket trying to get a stalk of grain out of my fur.
When the sun rose over the field, the farmer arrived on his tractor. He stopped, climbed down, and stood still for a long time. In front of him lay the large ring, the smaller circles, and the winding tracks between them. Soon more people arrived. They took pictures, measured distances, and discussed what might have happened. One of them pointed toward the sky and said something that made the others look up. People almost never did that.
When we returned to the yellow house, Märta was standing by the gate again. She held a newspaper and was reading aloud to Sigge.
"Mysterious circles discovered in grain field," she read.
Sigge sniffed Algot and wagged his tail. A long stalk of grain was caught behind Algot's stone lantern. Märta noticed it and pulled it free.
"How did this get here?" she murmured.
Algot stood perfectly still. Märta looked at the newspaper, then at the stalk, and finally at the gnome. For a few seconds she looked as though she had almost understood something.
"No, this is ridiculous," she said at last, and went inside with Sigge following her.
People continued talking about the circles for many years. They examined the ground, compared patterns, and tried to understand how everything could have happened in a single night. They came up with many theories.
None of them included a fiddle the size of a matchbox, a walnut-shell drum, or a gnome named Knut who believed that if mysterious tracks had to exist, they should at least be neatly made.
But now you know better.
- Quote paper
- J Mattsson (Author), 2026, The Mysterious Gnomes, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1761349
