Trolls, Garden Gnomes and Leprechuans

Maybell flitted around and ate the seeds off the Sumac and munched on the berries on the Junipers. When she finished she stopped by to tell me that she was gong to take a little nap and would see me in awhile. Maybell's nap lasted a couple of weeks. The weather had gotten cold, it snowed a little, got warmer, was sunny, rained and gotten cold again before she raised her head from her little nap. When she stopped back I was sawing some Apple wood for our new smoking apparatus. David cut up some trees with the permission of our neighbors. They grow apples and were pulling some trees out because the apples were too big and beautiful to sell to the schools. Kids won't eat a whole big apple and the districts would rather have more apples per crate that will get eaten. I saw the smaller pieces of wood in short pieces for the smoker and that's what I was doing when Maybell flew on by.

"I'm ready to tell you about Trolls and Garden Gnomes now."

"Right now Maybell? I'm a little busy, how about in a couple of hours?" I said.

"I guess you aren't all that interested then, maybe when the growing time come." 

"No, no, that'll be summer, that's months from now!" I almost shouted. "I don't want to wait that long, I'll stop right now so we can talk.

She had a coquettish smile on her fine little face, she knew she would get my immediate attention.

"What do you want to know about Garden Gnomes? I'll tell you anything I know."

I thought for a few seconds and came up with my first question: "Gnomes and Trolls move so very slow and have such a strange walking gait, why doesn't everybody see them?"

"Oh," she said, "they do, everyone sees Trolls and Garden Gnomes, they just don't know what they're looking at. They can change color. That they can do very, very quickly. They can stand very still, for awhile as well."

Knowing what Maybell might mean after the little nap, "awhile" had  much more latitude than I normally would have put to it. "You mean they can stand still for weeks, don't you?"

"What's a week? They can stand still from snowfall time to growing time to snowfall time again. Is that a week?

"That's more than a week Maybell, way more than a week."

"Garden Gnomes like to be in gardens where people have those odd statues of little men in funny hats and wear beards. They pretend they are the statues, it's easy for them to do that. People who have those little statues have so many they don't notice a few more."

"Well, that makes a lot of sense, but I've seen Gnomes where there aren't any and Humans still don't see them."

"Some times they just lay down and pretend they are dirt. Most Gnomes and Trolls can do real good dirt and sometimes they do tree stumps. That's easy to but a little dangerous. There are Humans that just have to cut tree stumps down or dig them up.'

"I do suppose. This makes a little more sense, especially if the change really quick. Is that why Leprechauns seem to disappear right in front of people when they do see them and try to catch them?"


"Well of course, what do you think, they just pop off in to the air? Now, what's another question, I have time right now, I'm not all that hungry and the weather is too nice to sleep. You know you could saw that wood and listen to me at the same time, it doesn't take all that much thought to make that little thing go back and forth through those pieces of dead Apple Tree."

She was right so I sawed, slower than I should have because she was interesting and I didn't want to miss a lot.

"Trolls are sort of small, but not so very small that they couldn't mate with humans. Are there ever half Trolls or Garden Gnomes or Leprechauns and half human."

Did you ever see a fairy laugh. I mean guffaw, laugh so hard she flew up in the air and then had to lay on the ground and then sit up and keep laughing. Bryan and Effie came flying like mad Fairies to her, I am sure they thought she was having the Fairy equivalent of a seizure or a stroke.

Finally she calmed down and tried to calm her rescuers instead. When they asked her what had happened she said, "Georgia wants to know if Trolls and humans ever mated and had half Troll, half human bebes."

 Well now we had everyone laughing I caught it and I didn't have any idea what the heck I was laughing about.

"Trolls and Humans, Humans and Gnomes, Leprechauns and Humans. Mating! Mating?"

"Have you ever really looked at  a Troll? Have you ever really watched a Garden Gnome at work in a Garden? Have you ever?

 "I guess I haven't if it is such a ridiculous question. Tell me what I should see."

"You Humans think you be the only smartish in the whole of everywhere. Smartish comes in different places. You got, I think you got that we People are more related to your bats than to Human, right, you got that now don't ye Georgie my girl?"

 "Yes, Maybell, I got that." I may have been a little surly.  "Bats that got a little bigger, developed bodies and smartish, to do things right besides Humans and lived with them for generations. I got that."


"Next sun around we all, you, me, my dear Effie and her Bryan are gonna go watch some Gnomes do their work. I need Effie and her Bryan, just in case I get into another one of those funny fits."

"Tomorrow is Sunday, I go to breakfast with David's family in town, how can I watch Gnomes there."


"We'll be outside the windows, you just watch for us and we'll have some Gnomes around. Ye can see them, folk sittin next to ye will just think they are lookin at the little statue sittin on the shelf by the eatin board." It'll be alright, Humans don't much notice you there than they do us, jus keep a watch and then we'll talk some more about Gnomes and Trolls."

Maybell, Bryan, Effie and several other of the Fairy folk were out in Lili's yard and garden last Sunday. Lili is David's daughter's mother-in-law where we have Sunday morning breakfast. Yes, there is a little Garden Gnome sitting on her window ledge across from where I sit.

As I sat eating and listening to the family talk about events in the town of Aurora, I saw a parade of Gnomes waddling across the yard obviously under the instruction of Maybell. One after another much like a family of ducks. I tried to see what Maybell thought was so funny about a human/Gnome or a Human/Troll connection. Sure they don't have magazine model looks but heck, not many people do. Gnome/Trolls are shortish, anywhere from about three foot tall to maybe five foot. Not terrible short. That can't be what's so funny. Their skin color is a little off, grayish, maybe, but Maybell obviously asked them to do some changing for me and their skin became very human, a couple looked dark-skinned, one definitely took on an oriental tone and the rest looked a healthy caucasion. THEN they changed, they had all wandered over to the Labarynth that Lili has made in her yard. They walked into it and then the turned into it. Their color changed their attitudes changed, I don't think I would have seen them if I had bumped right into one of them.

One of the Gnomes wandered back out from the garden near the big tree that has a tire swing attached to it  and "became" identical to the little statue that was standing on Lili's window ledge. Exactly.

On the way home from breakfast I told David about Garden Gnomes and Trolls. I read him the first part of this blog. Well, oh boy, is he good at finding Trolls in pieces of tree limbs. He found faces and Trolls that I would have never noticed. He works with wood so it's not so miraculous.

It was a few more days before I saw Maybell again. She looked at me and started to giggle. I knew she was thinking about my foolishness about Trolls and humans mating.

"Okay Maybell, sit down here next to me while I saw up some of this Apple wood and tell me all about Trolls. I have figured out there must be something about their evolution that I don't understand.

Georgie, let that little Troll out of that stick ye be cuttin' up before I start me jabberin'

Yep, there it was right in the knot of the wood. It was a tiny little lady Troll. She popped off the wood and waddled off to another branch, looked around carefully and then waddled off down the path to the chicken house.  

Ye remember a bit back we talked some about all ye hoomans who be thinkin' that they is the only folk in this whole big dirt and water ball that ever got any smarter, d'ye remember that?

Yes, of course Maybell, it has been on my mind a lot lately. I look at all of the fairies in a different way. I suppose I see them a little more realistically and not so much like I did when I was "the Kid." It's not so much fun though.

Well, Trolls, Garden Gnomes and Leprechauns did 'volve too. They ain't nothin' like their long time ago relatives, well I cain't quite say that. They do disappear real quick and their feet still come out from the sides. That's why they walk all waddely like they do. If ye ever see a Troll runnin' on four legs, they can really move fast. Soonish there's gonna be bugs around and yer gonna see jus why they are so damn good for yer garden. And the two of you sure do have  a lot a space fer a lot bugs around this place. 

I best be goin' off now, we'll be waitin' fer bugs so ye can see the diffrinc in Hoomans and Trolls.

Ye and yer David Hooman stert takin' sem pictures with yer little silver boxes of Trolls when ye see them. Look at the damn pictures and try to figur it all out by yerselfs. I gonna go play with yer hens and eat some of that "Layer Food" yer David Hooman bought. It's way too good fer dem birds all by themselfs.

We had some warm weather last week. There were a few flies around, very few and I even saw a couple of mosquitoes. Mostly there were these odd "Stink bugs" around that never completely  go away. I asked Maybell if there was enough bugs for her experiment with the trolls. All I got was a shrug of the shoulders.

There I was, I knew it was the last day before a horrible cold spell that would last a few days and not warm up appreciably for a few days after that. I sat very still. We had several Trolls (or Garden Gnomes) sitting around the yard who had disguised themselves as pieces of Apple Wood that we were planning to use to smoke salt. I had separated the Trolls from the random pieces of wood, I really do not want to smoke them and I am not all that sure if they will move out of the wood fast enough.

I had a couple of Stink Bugs outside with me and there were a few flies around and a no mosquitoes that I could see.

All of a sudden I heard a noise a little bit like one of those electronic "bug zappers." I missed what had happened. Maybell, was more than a bit disgusted with me, that I was so BLIND that I did not see what happened to a fly.

The next time she shoved my head as hard as she could and I saw what she wanted me to.

"Yee Gods, Oh dear!!" I said, well maybe I said something quite a bit stronger than that and possibly a little more like a yelp.

"Maybell! His tongue was like two feet long and came out BACKWARDS! What the hell is he?"

"My dear Georgie, ye need not be so loud an ye need not use sech words in frent a me, I is a laidy, ye knew."

"Yes, Maybell, I know and I am so sorry, but I was very startled."

"New we kin be talkin' aboot the ebolution of Trolls, Gnomes and yer Lepreekons."

"A long, long time ago, when yer folk were not ner bein a menkey, mer ner what ye guys now call a "Lermur," Effie looked that up fer me, they wer yer early folk. That Effie sur kin read an she found thet white plastic learnin' thing out in the tin buildin' behind yer house."

"Yes, we have an older computer out there for Silas, David's grandson, when he comes to visit. I'm so glad Effie finds use for it. She is my oldest friend."


 "Aboot thet timin' our folk were sert of liken to be bats only they just wern't bats, just sort a like bats. Memmals Effie calls us, flyin' memmals."

"Yes, I know that, Bryan and Effie told me about that a few years ago."

"Georgie, now din't ye intrup me, I ain't gitten a lot yenger while we be talkin' an now I get te think bout what I been sayin."

She sat for a minute or five recollecting where she had been when I interrupted her. I sat there feeling WAY more than a little guilty.

"We are bin reltives of them bats, ye be reltives of them Lemur animals. You and us are memmals. De Trolls and de Gnomes, they sorely de not be reltives of eny such memmels. 

They be gizards."

Effie flew over and whispered something into Maybell's ear and whisked away before Maybell had a chance to scold her as she had scolded Me.

"LIZZARDS!!! Okay Effie LIZZRDS!!" Lizzards that could change whet they lookin like when they get scerred or when they go courtin other lizzards."

"We all got sem smarter over yers an yers an years. Now I don't mean, the same "we," we did be dyin and birthin and dyin and birthin fer way a long time. Sem of us'n gettin smerter, some of us gettin to use rocks and sticks and stones and stuff. Ye people learnin to be nice an be horrid, we Fairy folk jes learnin to get on with ye folk and Troll Folk and other folk they ye still don't know are stan'in aroun ye all de while."

I had to stifle myself not to ask about these "others." I didn't want to stop Maybell now that she was on a roll about the evolution of the Trolls.

"Der  Trolls did too get smartish, they did learn to get on with Fairy Folk, Fairy Folk got on with Hooman Folk and Trolls did sur liken da bugs in Hooman gerdens. More bugs be there than jes welkin fer miles in woods. Jes stend arend while Hoomans plented stuff and the bugs come runnin in and the Trolls do be whippen their long tongues out te get em."

"Trolls are more skered a Hoomans that we are, they jes cain't move as fast. As they did ebolb standin up, they lost der fast, that they had walkin on the belly. But, stendin' up they see better then not. Their eyes sterted to be in the frent of dem. They never did  ferget how change der looks an da coler of der skein."

"It did tek dem a long tem to be sooo quiet thet no Hooman ked see dem move. They do think thet is awfool funny. And it is funny ye de know. Ye cain't see Fairies because we jes move so damn fest and ye cain't see Trolls ces they move so damn slow."

"See I cann use dem  words like you did."