Needle Felted Tomten and the Fox

On a recent trip to the library, we found two books that are wonderful for the winter season: The Tomten and The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren of Sweden, and also the author of the popular Pipi Longstocking. The Tomten books are delightfully illustrated and tell of the Tomten, a spirit-being in the folklore of Sweden, adding a new wonder and delight to our seasonal reading.

Unlike the Gnomes of England who live in the forest, Tomten live on farms in barns or cellars. In these books, the farmer's children leave food for the Tomten each night. As the moon rises, he walks silently, never seen by people, in the snow to make his rounds checking on the farm animals and even giving a mischievous hungry fox some of his tasty porridge. When they wake, the children see the Tomten's footprints in the snow. (The tile below has set in our home for years. Little did we know we had a Tomten in our midst.)

Last night, I made a peg Tomten and needle felted a fox who now stand on our ever-played with nature table.

Our home is surrounded by Amish and Mennonite farms, so barns, cows, chickens and crops are a common sight. Surely Tomten are there. Perhaps after the next snowfall we will go on a search for little Tomten footprints.