In Finland, there's a lot of old folk tradition around "house elves" ("tonttu"), that sometimes perform useful tasks, sometimes not, but are best not angered in

In Finland, there's a lot of old folk tradition around "house elves" ("tonttu"), that sometimes perform useful tasks, sometimes not, but are best not angered in any case. On the one hand, it's easy to see that mice rattling around could lead to such stories, but on the other hand, it's difficult to imagine people intimately familiar with mice being very mystified by them. However, if they do things like cleaning up in the night, I can imagine that might give rise to some myths!