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Hallo! Ray Brown wrote: > [...] > > As for 'gnomes', it was apparently the Rosicruceans who are responsible > for depicting them as misshapen elemental spirits, dwelling deep within > the earth and guarding mines and quarries. But it does seem that it was > indeed Paracelsus who first coined the term 'gnomus' (gnome) to denote an > elemental spirit of the earth. And then Tolkien, in his early writings, confusingly used the word for the Noldor, a race anything else than misshapen. Realizing how misleading this was, he later dropped it. Greetings, Jörg.