Gnomes are thought to bring good luck to their owners and the gardens and yards within which they are placed. This is one of the main reasons that people have purchased gnome ornaments over the years.
It is not quite known why they are thought in this way but the most likely reasons being due to the way they look, their origin story and that it is thought that they have magic abilities.
Gnomes that bring good luck and protect their owner’s homes can come in various forms such as the classic ones that everyone knows with red hats but also military gnomes and valentines gnomes.
Appearance
Gnomes have not always looked how they typically would on someone’s lawn today. The earliest depictions of gnomes from literature and drawings was less like the human-like figures that we see today. They were more like goblins and their behavior was more akin to an animal that live among long, grassy areas.
As time has moved on, human’s need to make these figures more friendly in stories and with items such as garden ornaments has increased and they have turned into more friendly looking figures that are more human like and, almost comical in their appearance. This may have been partly a commercial decision as an garden gnome ornament that is more friendly and human looking would be more appealing to potentially customers than something that is not particularly attractive-looking.
They Have Magical Abilities
They have often been associated with magical abilities which helps them to manipulate nature to help them in their daily lives which would help them to protect the earth from damage. People also associate them with magical abilities as they never see them actually moving and so they attach this fact to gnomes’ ability to move across land extremely quickly and to be able to sense when humans are near. It is also thought by many that gnomes are frozen when a human sees them which means that they need to have these magical abilities to avoid people’s sight. These magical abilities add up to humans placing a sense of good luck on these figures that they keep in their gardens.