Tiny Tales Tuesday: A Gnome named Man

So, while trying to come up with a name for a villain in my WIP, I ran across a fantasy name generator. I showed it to a twitter friend, who discovered that one of the names it comes up with for Gnomes was Man, and thought that was funny. I thought it would make a good story, the adventures of a Gnome named Man. So, here's my take on that idea.

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A Gnome named Man

Before you ask, yes, I am a Gnome. No, not a lawn gnome, those are little figurines that were made by humans with no clue as to how culturally insensitive they were being. No, real Gnomes (with a capital G) are fairies; earth spirits who travel underground collecting gems. It’s difficult to explain beyond that.

Now that that stuff is out of the way, let me introduce myself. My name is Man.

Yes, Man. Go ahead and laugh. I’ll wait.

Back? Good. See, my parents thought they were being funny. In the ancient tongue, not really spoken by Gnomes anymore, Man means hero. If they had known how much trouble that name would get me into… on second though, they would still have named me that. My ten brothers and nine sisters were named similarly. My parents are just masochistic like that.

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, I just saved the human race, and I figured I disserved a little credit for it.

What? You didn’t even know you were in danger? Typical humans, you are so unaware of what is really going on in your world. Here, I’ll just sum it all up for you.

About a thousand years ago, an elf wizard messed around with things that mortals were not meant to know, and went insane. He came to believe that some kind of dragon was trapped in the middle of the Earth, and wanted to destroy the world to free it. Thankfully, a group of elven, dwarven and gnome heroes stopped him. They locked him up in this magical tree, there to stay for all time.

If you really must know, it’s a tree in Kansas, that ended up being in someone’s backyard, and had a tree house built in it.

So, anyway, about a year ago, the humans that lived in this house decided to cut down the tree, and, as you can guess, freed him. Sadly, the heroes that defeated him last time were all dead now (we’re not as long lived as you’re stories would have everyone believe. I blame Tolkien myself). I got involved because the people in that house were my family.

No, my human family.

Look, stop interrupting. It’s not my fault you know nothing about Gnomes. See, in adition to collecting gems, we also like to adopt certain human familys that we see as worthy, and gift them with good luck. Turns out, I’m not very good at that. Or maybe, I just picked the wrong family. Whatever, they released this bad guy into the world.

I didn’t notice at first, I was just doing my usually rounds, wandering by the humans invisible and granting luck to them. The boy gets luck for his math test, the girl gets luck with that boy she likes, mom gets luck in getting that job she really wants. Dad gets luck with mom when she comes home that night. That sort of thing.

I’m passing by the boy, who was playing with the tree stump, when I see the evil elf’s head popping out of it. I didn’t recognize it for what it really was at first, I was just freaked out. So, I zapped it. Turns out, he was still partially trapped, and I killed him in the first go. That was when I noticed who it was.

So, there you have it. The story of how a Gnome named Man lived up to his name and saved the world. Now, say thanks so I can go back to my family. Dad needs some extra luck tonight.

The End.