[5] The last four gnomes in Great Britain live beside Folly Brook in Warwickshire; they are named after the flowers Baldmoney, Sneezewort, Dodder and Cloudberry.

This is the story of the gnomes' epic journey, set against the background of the English countryside, beginning in spring, continuing through summer, and concluding in autumn, when the first frosts are starting to arrive.

Using their clockwork boat the Jeanie Deans, and later a flying machine named Wonderbird, they travel to Ireland and colonise a ruined chapel surrounded by a loch.

[7] Years earlier, a community of gnomes in the Forest of Boland build a narrow gauge railway to transport their miners to the gold mines and cope with the growing yields of ore.

Some wicked goblins steal the steam locomotive named the Boland Belle, overrun the town and enslave the population, but are eventually driven out of the forest by a friendly tribe of Cowzies.