I remember a garden gnome being stolen from someone's front yard in my hometown. It was the scandal of the year! And then, when they started getting photographs of the gnome from all over the United States, it was an even bigger to do. Each photo was printed on the front page of our local paper. It was amazing. The gnome was finally sent home and all was well. It's such a silly thing, but I love it (and no, it wasn't me that stole the gnome. I was about 10 at the time).

That picture gave me a chuckle on this otherwise gloomy day. A few weeks back I was watching the movie Amelie again. I'd forgotten how Amelie kidnaps her father's garden gnome and sends photos of it in front of famous world landmarks to her father in order to encourage him to get out of the house and travel. I think Amelie predates the introduction of Travelocity's Roaming Gnome mascot - so much for originality!

Yes, Amelie definitely came out before Travelocity's "roaming gnome" campaign hit the air. I always felt that the website stole the idea from the movie, but it's such a cute idea that you can hardly blame them. :)

When I was a kid I had a stuffed penguin that I took on my travels & photographed it in different locations. And anyone with a young child in their life has probably heard of Flat Stanley. It's not a unique idea, but that doesn't stop it from being adorable!

On a trip to Weimar, also in Thuringia, Germany, two years ago, we read about Philip Griebel and his gnomes. Apparently, he started making them in 1872 or so -- rather late in the 19th century, after the unification of Germany. According to our guidebook, he used local miners as models, hence the startling realism of the faces.

I remember seeing the concrete ones in gardens in (northern) Italy as a child, and being almost as enchanted by them as by the puppets in musical puppet theaters, whom Goethe likened to Platonic forms in the ideal world (that was before the explosion of visual media).

Of course gnomes abound in Nordic folklore. They were nature spirits, who, if properly propitiated, would help look after the garden and animals, so it was hoped. (Or at least make doing one's round of tasks more cheerful).

I bought one myself -- not for the garden -- but for my vestibule, in hopes that it would help me to keep my house cleaner. Miraculously, the house is much much cleaner now than it used to be -- of course the fact that the children have grown up and moved away -- may have something to do with that, too.

Amelie got the idea from drunk college kids who started the prank years and years ago. I'm really impressed with anyone that would carry along such a bulky, heavy useless item. I hate lugging around the necessities.

Amelie was fiction, of course. It is funny how quickly and seamlessly the gnome incident has entered the category of urban legend (helped along no doubt by travelocity's ad dept). A tribute to the mischievous resonance of the gnomes in hitting a folkloric chord.

There was a similar Japanese fad a few years ago, documented on Cute Overload, of Japanese tourists taking cute stuffed pandas and photographing them en mass in scenic locations. It certainly makes a more interesting snapshot/memento of, say, the Eifel tower, to have something interesting or familiar in the foreground. They are panda puppets with pacman style mouths, which perhaps is why they are called Paku pandas.

http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2006/01/paku_paku.html

Some of these lovely photos have disappeared from the web, since Japanese fads come and go with the speed of summer lightning. A canadian one is here: http://pakupandas.blogspot.com/

Now there's a commercial that shows the father of a little girl taking pictures of her toy monkey in the different cities he goes to on business. I can't remember whether it's for a camera or for an airline.

You want a well-traveled panda, you want Professor Steve Steve.

I have a gnome my friend bought for me in Quebec City. He sits on my windowsill and makes the whole area more charming, I think. I love gnomes.