Handmade Scandinavian Gnome — Shaman

No one knows his true age. All that is certain is that wherever he goes, he carries an ancient staff adorned with mother-of-pearl shells and raven feathers. He is clad in a magical woollen cloak with antlers. His constant companions are a tangled beard and a raven's claw held in his hand.

They say the Shaman came to Gnomenlands long before the current trees had grown. He remembers when the forest was young, when the first streams carved their way through stone. That is why no path leads to his dwelling twice by the same route — he decides himself who may pass.

The Shaman's staff holds the memory of distant shores: each shell marks a place he has been, each feather is a message from those who can fly above the clouds. When the Shaman speaks, the forest falls silent. When he is silent, the trees begin to speak among themselves. The raven's claw in his hand is not a trophy but a token of a pact with those who see both worlds at once: the visible and the hidden.

The gnomes who know the Shaman never trouble him with trifles. But in an hour of true need, they come to him alone. On the days of the equinoxes he goes into the forest before dawn and returns after sunset. What happens in those hours, he does not say. The gnomes have noticed only one thing: after such days, the forest sounds different for a while. Quieter, and somehow more content.