Tracking the outbreak of 17/11/2011

It started when Mrs Zen mentioned them in passing in the announcements thread. Revealing the method by which the recent site readership statistics had been obtained.

This caused Mr Dreadful to twitch slightly, probably recalling the incident with the pointy hat.

In an effort to calm him down Malabarista let a couple out to give Mr. Dreadful a cuppa. However, she forgot to close the door behind them, and they began to run wild.

They then spread to the Manchester meet thread

Quickly followed by running over to the Atelier

This all upset Mr Dreadful so much that he started not one, but two journals about it.

Back in the announcement thread Z suggested using mammoths to round them up, though the general consensus was that this may be an over-reaction.

It all went quiet for a few moments, and it was thought that they may have returned to their home, but then they popped up again. Clearly, this time, 2legs was to blame.

Then a stampede just happened.

They also started to occupy h2g2.

In an effort to quell the rising tide of gnomes, Baron Grim got creative, and despite the naysayers managed to find a mammoth, much to Mrs Zen's delight.

Not even the The Post was safe, as the elves migrated over to there, bringing a flock of hampsters with them.

Such was the confusion caused by the gnomes that a drastic solution was needed, and following a little glitch a new appeared from out of nowhere.

He quickly took on a life of his own and the Little Lost Mammoth set about rounding up the gnomes!