GRAEFENRODA, Germany (AFP) - With his jolly face and little paunch, Reinhard the potter resembles the garden gnomes he produces by the dozen in this little village in Germany where, they say, the phenomenon began. Reinhard Griebel grew up surrounded by gnomes in Graefenroda, tucked in the forests of the eastern German state of Thuringia. This village of 3,500 people claims to be the birthplace of "nanus hortorum vulgaris", or the common garden gnome, which local folklore says was dreamed up by a local potter in 1880. The craftsmen of the village, including Reinhard's great-grandfather, wasted no time in capitalising...