Post by Graveyardbride on Jun 11, 2015 8:57:16 GMT -5
Meet the Elf Whisperer
Iceland is a land where magic happens. Magical people live there – and I don’t mean those Vikings roaming the streets of Reykjavik. (Although, for all you single ladies out there, yes, they are indeed magnificent.) If you don’t believe me about the magic, just ask an Icelander. According to one study, up to 72 percent of people in Iceland believe in elves, trolls and the huldufolk (“hidden people”) – who apparently look just like us, but live in a different dimension inside rocks, which open (for them, not us) like a Harry Potter tent. I’m not making this up. This is really what people will tell you in Iceland. They will even tell you that stones which form a certain angle and look like faces, are actually elves.
Elves, trolls and other sorts of creatures apparently wander all over Iceland – hidden to most human eyes – and hiding in plain sight. But every now and then, they will come out of hiding and even save human lives.
Icelandic Parliament member Árni Johnsen almost died in a car accident in 2010, but claims he was saved by a family of elves living in a 30-ton boulder nearby. So, to thank them, he agreed to move their boulder onto his property, where they could live their lives in luxury and not off the side of a highway. True story.
So, if you are as obsessed as I am about all this, and if you want to know everything about these fairy people, stop by the Hellisgerði Lava Park, aka the Elf Park, just outside Reykjavik, and ask for Ragnhildur “Ragga” Jónsdóttir (above), the official caretaker of the elf park and unofficial elf spokeswoman. According to Ragga, who sees all sorts of creatures hidden to the normal human eye, elves don’t look like Orlando Bloom in The Lord of the Rings – he would be more like huldufolk – although there are several types and species of elves.
So, for your edification, and should you go to Iceland and run into a magical creature, the images above shows you how to tell them apart: Elves look like the fellow on the left; the middle figure depicts a troll, and the people at right are huldufolk. Laugh if you will, but go to Iceland and see – or better yet, book your own trip there via Icelandair, or order The Elf Book, written by an elf and translated by Ragga. It is a magical place, and it’s not hard to see why people there believe in elves.
Source: Paula Froelich, TravelIceland, June 9, 2015.
Drawings of the elf and huldufolk are by Sirrý Margrét.