Posted: November 20, 1999 at 13:19:08: by Glorfindel
: : : Does anyone know the diff between dwarves & gnomes? I know
: : : what dwarves R bur im not sure about gnomes. All i know about
: : : them is in ancient & medieval philosophy, they're the
: : : elemental spirit of earth. (The others are sylphs of the air,
: : : undines/nymphs of the water & salamanders of fire): : feel free to shoot me down if i'm wrong here (it's very
: : possible, and quite likely), but i think i recall reading
: : somewhere that tolkien equated gnomes more with elves than
: : dwarves...i think it was some discussion of the naming and the
: : language that i read it in, something about gnomish -->
: : noldorin, in some form or fashion...don't quote me on that,
: : though ;) : Actually, I get the impression that Persia was asking about more traditional gnomes. : It's my understanding that in traditional folklore gnomes are somehow related to dwarves, but are not the same thing. Dwarves and Elves were very similar in Norse mythology, and some peopel say the Svartalfar (Dark Elves) were really very much like the Dwarves. : Click on the link below to visit a good starting place for reading about traditional gnomes and other fairies on the Web. ::: In Tolkien, there is a major difference between dwarves and gnomes. I hope this answers your question, but if it doesn't, you should still find it interesting.
In THE BOOK OF LOST TALES 1, gnomes are mentioned very often. The tales in the book were compiled by Chris Tolkien quite recently, but Tolkien wrote these before writing THE SILMARILLION. Therefore, many of the stories of the BOOK OF LOST TALES are the same as the SILMARILLION, but the names of people and things are different. To make it short, Gnomes were originally THE NOLDOR!!! The names of the Teleri and the Vanyar were different from the Silmarillion as well. But because of the confusion created by the use of the word GNOME and its misleadingness, Tolkien changed it to NOLDOR for the Silmarillion. If we are not tallking specifically about Tolkien, then Gnomes were like Dwarves in stature, but were a forest folk, whereas Dwarves were a mining folk living in houses. That is just a stereotype, but most fantasy series that I have read use Gnomes as a forest folk and Dwarves as a mining folk. This is probably why Tolkien change them to Noldor, because many people had a different meaning for Gnome than was meant in the Silmarillion.
I hope this answered your question. Feel free to let me know if you disagree with me.
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