Kabouter

Kabouter is the Dutch/Afrikaans word for gnome or leprechaun. In folklore and mythology, the Dutch Kabouters are akin to the Scandinavian kind, known as Tomte, and the German Klabauter or kobold. The term "kabouter" was also adopted by a 1970s hippie movement in Amsterdam that sprang from the Provo movement. One of its best known representatives is Roel van Duijn.

In Dutch mythology and Dutch folklore, kabouters are tiny men who live underground or in mushrooms, or spirits who help in the home. The males have long, full beards (unlike dwarves, who don't always have full beards) and wear tall, pointed red hats. They are generally shy of humans.

There is a theory that their appearance, little red pointy hats running through the forest, can be attributed to hallucinations from eating mushrooms. Though not associated with narcotics by the general public, they appear in the iconography of smart shops.

In the "Legend of the Wooden Shoes," an old Dutch folktale, a kabouter teaches a Dutch man how to make piles and how to make wooden shoes. [" [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/books/dutch/griffis/woodenshoe.html Legend of the Wooden Shoes] ," as retold by William Elliott Griffis in "Dutch Fairy Tales For Young Folks." New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1918. (English). Available online from SurLaLune Fairy Tales.]

The Dutch illustrator Rien Poortvliet played an important part in modern Kabouter lore with his publication of "Leven en werken van de Kabouter" (English title "Lives and works of the Gnome"), later translated into English and published as "Gnomes". [(1977) "Gnomes", Harry N. Abrams Inc., ISBN 0-8109-0965-0 (20th Anniv.) ISBN 0-8109-5498-2 (30th Anniv.)]

In popular culture today, the business Travelocity uses a Rien Poortvliet-style statue of a Kabouter for commercials. They call him the Travelocity gnome.

See also

* Kabouter King Kyrië

Notes