What's a tomte?
The most important question in Scandinavia is: “Who plays the most important role at Christmas?”
In Scandinavia, the gnomes play a very important role at Christmas. And do you know that the American stories about Santa Claus are based on these gnomes?
In Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the gnomes are called “tomte” and “nisse”.
Why are there actually gnomes and what do they carry out the very actual days?
From tradition we know that the gnomes Nisse (r), Tomte, Tonttu, so many languages names, never grew longer than a hundred centimeters. Nisse and Tomte are always dressed in worn clothes and you can recognize them by the long white beard. And you'll never run into Nisse and Tomte without a brightly coloured (usually red) hat on their heads. In the Netherlands we say that Tomte and Nisse look like our garden gnomes, but a bit different.
Leprechaun - Wikipedia