Tonttu or haltija is a Finnish version of the Swedish Tomte. The word is derived from Gothic *haltijar, and referred to the original settler of a homestead.
When written as haltia, the term usually refers to the elves in Tolkien's mythology or other such fantasy works. Both tonttu and tomte are related to words tontti (Finnish) and tomt (Swedish). They mean a piece of land, on which a house is built, and later protected by a local spirit, a tonttu.
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