the.com/garden gnome

means A small decorative figurine, typically a bearded man in a pointed red hat, placed outdoors to ornament lawns and gardens.

from Rooted in 19th-century German folklore — gnomes themselves trace to Paracelsus's 16th-century writings on earth-dwelling spirits. The popular story is that a British baronet brought ceramic gnomes back from a trip to Germany in the mid-1800s, seeding the garden-gnome craze in England, though the exact details of that tale are more legend than documented fact. The word 'gnome' itself is of uncertain origin, possibly coined by Paracelsus from Greek roots meaning 'earth-dweller,' though etymologists aren't fully certain even of that.