Winter Solstice Celebration in Nidlongdir

[Marianne Mathiasen]

The Winter solstice celebrating takes place every year at the Gnomes Inn, and in the garden behind Apple Hold Castle. This celebration is a very old gnomish celebration that goes back to the time when the gnomes still lived in Valhalla. At that time there were no gifts, Santa Claus wasn’t born, and pancakes were a recipe jet to be invented. The gnomes have always been crafters, and they relied on fire for many of their crafts. Fire would provide them with light and heat, so when the dark time of the year came they were afraid that the sun wouldn’t return, and therefore they had a celebration to worship the sun. Later in history the gnomes were sent across the bridge called Bifrost, to live in the human world. Some of the gnomes chose to live among the humans, other preferred to live in the nature. The gnomes’ relationship with the humans was a bit strained, because the humans believed that the gnomes had magic powers, and therefore the gnomes had to be very carful not to get caught by a human. The humans thought that the gnomes were able to make gold and if they could catch a gnome they were sudden that their fortune was done. This was of cause a misunderstanding, because gnomes are not alchemists. The gnomes had bad experiences with the humans, so as time went by most of them retreated into the woods, where they started to build houses in hollow trees, or in old fox caves. A few gnomes stayed behind on the farms. Some humans liked the gnomes and started to treat them better, they provided them with food and beer, to make them stay as protectors of the animals on their farms.

There was one celebration that the humans and gnomes had in common, the humans called this celebration Yule, but among the gnomes it was called the Winter Solstice.
The gnomes, who lived on the farms, liked some of the humans’ customs, especially the part of it that had to do with food, and decorations! So to please the humans the gnomes started to bring small gifts to the human children, in the hope that they would get some of the delicious food in return. In other parts of the world the children had started to believe in Santa Clause, but that is another story!

As I told you the gnomes also liked the humans Yule decorations, so the gnomes on the farms started to create decoration for the Winter Solstice. They traded the decorations with the gnomes living in the woods, and as time went by the gnomes had their own kind of decorations with symbols of the sun. Later they had decorations with moons and stars to honor King Winter. The humans’ think they invented the Christmas tree, but that is actually not true, it was an old custom among the Apple Fairies to burn a large wooden oak log to worship the god Thor. The fairies are known to be very competitive, and this celebration actually turned into the worst disaster in the history of the Apple Fairies. The fairies couldn’t get the oak logs big enough, and eventually they brought an entire oak tree into Leafenheim city and set it on fire, with the horrifying result that the whole city burned down. Only Apple Hold Castle and The Blue Bells Inn was saved. This tragedy made the King proclaim that it was forbidden to burn oak logs! Instead he would provide the city with a beautiful and very rare tree, that the whole city could decorate in the honor of Thor. The next winter the king swung his wand in the garden behind Apple Hold Castle, and a Fir tree fell down from the North Star. The Apple Fairies had never seen a tree like this, they gathered its cones, and the next spring they went around the world to spread the seeds from the Fir tree, to make sure there would be enough Fir trees to celebrate the Winter Solstice in the feature. The King had heard about the gnomes decorations for the Winter Solstice, and sent a knight into the woods to trade some decorations for some Fir cones. The knight came back with a big sack of decorations for the city’s Fir tree. The Apple Fairies are not very good at crafts, so they decided to decorate the tree with apples and flowers as well as the gnome’s decoration. At present time they only decorate their Fir tree with winter roses, magic stars, snow, and fairy dust.

This year the Fir tree at the Gnomes Inn has been decorated with traditional sun, moon and star decorations. The patterns are very old and from the book Dragonian Cave Patterns published by Plotka Hildur, who gathered all the old patterns in order to save them for the feature generations of gnomes. You will find a printable version for human Christmas trees, or for the decoration of your house at the Gnomes Inn. You can also get them at Kaputs & Recycling in the Kaputs Caves in Dragonia.


Happy Winter Solstice!

Visit the Gnomes Inn and get free printable decorations for the cel...