#deze kabouterberg moet liggen tussen Hoogeloon en Vessem

[laurasimonsdaughter]

I'm from noord Brabant as well, I'm surprised you say there are a lot because I absolutely adore myths and legends but always have a hard time finding any from here... my favourite of the ones I know is de rode advocaat (the red lawyer?)

I’ve never heard of that one! I will tell you about the death of the King of the Gnomes, but then you have to tell me about the Red Lawyer!

All of the Netherlands, no, all of Europe knows of gnomes, though they call them by many different names, but in Noord-Brabant they are exceptionally numerous. Many a cobbler has muttered the tale about little hammers helping his work along in the night, many a housewife has found her cooking pots cleaned before she touched them, but many an artisan has found his tools stolen or found the work that was done yesterday all undone. You never know what you get with gnomes.

What we know for certain, though, is that there once was a hill where the gnomes held court and a farmhouse very near it where the inhabitants knew very well how these gnomes spent their time. Because every night, after they had gone to bed, the gnomes came to make use of their kitchen to prepare their food. Lying in their beds, safely under the covers, they could clearly hear them: cooking, baking, churning butter, even scrubbing the pots and mopping the floors. But in the morning they could never find a single trace of all that had been going on, the gnomes always left the kitchen exactly how they found it.

Now it was so that one day the farmer that lived in that house was taking a small rest from his ploughing and while he leaned against his plough, a gnome walked right up to him and silently offered him a plate with a pancake. The farmer gratefully accepted the food and when he had eaten it he said:

“That was a treat! And I thank you for it.”

The gnome nodded and said gravely: “You thank me by telling Arie that Kyrië is dead.”

And with that he took the plate and disappeared the way he had come.

The farmer did not know exactly what to make of this, but he was certain there must be a gnome that watched over his house, with all the midnight visits that were always going on. So when he got home, he announced to the kitchen in general that he was tasked to inform that Kyrië was dead.

No sooner had he said this or the gnome, who had been hiding invisibly under the table, cried out: “Oh woe! Is Kyrië dead?!”

From that moment on, for days on end, the farmer and his family saw sad, mourning gnomes walk slowly to and from their hill, sighing and crying that Kyrië, their leader and noblest of the gnomes, had died.

Soon after this they left their hill and to this day they have never returned.