Dag's Story

(written by Bryan Field, Dag's biographer and friend.)

After finding several gnomes around my house, I became more than a little interested in where they had come from. Our dog, Teddy, had been sniffing around the backdoor. When I went to see what he was sniffing, I found some interesting tracks in the snow. They looked like human footprints, but they were only three quarters of an inch long.

I followed the tracks behind our house, and, noticing chimney smoke, came upon a tiny shack deep in the woods. I knocked on the door and it was opened by a tiny bearded man with a strong Scandinavian accent. After I explained how I had found him, he invited me in for a glass of aquavit. With the exception of the little pot-belly stove every flat surface was covered in gnomes. The gentlemen introduced himself as Dag Arvidson, Nissehesse and he told me his story.

Dag Arvidson emigrated from his native home, Norway, in the year 2001 at the age of 70. In Norway, while working for the National Postal Service, he spent his spare hours studying the lore of the Nisse (Norwegian for gnome). He travelled to Sweden, visiting various masters of Tomte (Swedish for gnome) there, and was eventually initiated as a Nisse Hesse, or Gnome Master.

Dag had moved to the United States to be closer to his daughter, Solveig, a high powered economist currently working for one of New York's major banking institutions. Four days in New York City was enough for Dag. Too loud, too busy, and a lousy place for gnomes.

While touring Scandinavia in search of gnome lore, Dag had heard rumors of a village of gnomes who had stowed aboard a ship to the United States in the latter part of the 20th Century. Knowing that gnomes are particularly partial to wooded areas of the country with a solid granite bedrock, he set out to find where these gnomes might have settled.

While sipping a beer one day at the Post and Beam Brewery in downtown Peterborough, New Hampshire, he was stunned to see, out of the corner of his eye, a Bryggeri nisse (Brewery gnome). Shouting “Herregud” (Oh my God), he fell off his chair, spilled his beer and banged his head on the floor.

Waking up later in the emergency room of Monadnock Community Hospital, he knew he had found the spot. The Monadnock area reminded him of his homeland and, he realized, it was an ideal place for the gnomish immigrants to have settled. He called his daughter in New York and told her that he would move to Peterborough and spend his remaining years working with his beloved gnomes.