Handmade Scandinavian Gnome — Toadstool

In the damp corners of the forest, where fly agarics grow in fairy rings and the air smells of moss and decay, the Toadstool Gnome has his territory. He has lived among mushrooms for so long that he made himself a hat in their image — bright red with white spots, unmistakable from a distance.

The chrysoberyl on his staff he found himself, years ago — wedged under the root of an old fir tree in particularly damp soil. He has never had it assessed. He knows what it is, and that is enough.

The Toadstool Gnome is a quiet gnome, not given to long conversations, but enormously knowledgeable. Ask him about mushrooms — edible, medicinal, magical or simply unusual — and he will talk until sunset without repeating himself.

Twice a year he leads a walk for anyone who wants to come — through the parts of the forest where fungi are most varied and most easily overlooked. He does not lecture. He points, occasionally. He lets the forest speak, and waits to see who actually listens. The gnomes who go more than once are, without exception, more careful walkers. They start looking down. He considers this the whole point.

In the waistcoat embroidered with autumn leaves, there is one pocket he never opens in company. The other gnomes stopped asking long ago what is in it. Judging by the smell — something very old and very fungal. Best, perhaps, not to know more than that.