tomte

plural tomtes

1. A small human-like creature in Nordic folklore that lives on farmsteads and watches over their inhabitants.

   In Sweden the Tomte is sometimes seen at noon, in summer, slowly and stealthily dragging a straw or an ear of corn. [...] Any one who treated the industrious Tomte with respect, and set store by the smallest straw, became rich, and neatness and regularity prevailed in his household.

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 147