Lögberg-Heimskringla - 06.09.1996, Page 4

4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 6, september 1996

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The belief in huldufolk fits in well with our increasing awareness of the importance of the natural worid.
Hunting outthe Huldufolk
Continued from page 1.
He led her at a fast pace, along the
heath to a house quite high up the
slope. The midwife thought she knew
the district very well and thought it
veiy odd that she had never known of
a home here before.
They entered the house and the
midwife helped the woman there
through a difficult childbirth. After the
child was delivered successfully and
all was in order with the woman, the
man accompanied the midwife home
again. Once again she followed him at
the same fast pace. On the way, she
stumbled over a stone and lost her
shoe. The man proceeded so fast that
she left the shoe and rushed to keep up
with him. When they reached her
home, she retumed to her bed and
slept.
In the moming when she awoke, it
seemed all like a dream to her. How-
ever, she quickly realized that one of
her shoes as missing and that it could
not have been only a dream. She fol-
lowed the path up the heath where she
remembered having gone the night be-
fore and came upon her shoe where
she had lost it. There was her shoe,
but she never did find any houses fur-
ther up the heath. The face of the land-
scape showed no evidence that there
had ever been a dwelling there.
This story is one example of the
very many stories that are told
about the huldufolk. For some of
you who are skeptical of all this and
think they only belong in ancient folk-
lore, we can move on to the more re-
cent past.
After my summer on the farm, I re-
lated this story to a friend of mine
who is a schoolteacher in Kopavogur,
a suburb of Reykjavík. She lived in a
modem apartment in a modem city,
certainly not a typical setting for
someone who had had there own hul-
dufolk sighting.
After I told her my story, she said
that if I had told her this story two
years ago, she would simply have dis-
missed it. “I know more know,” she
stated.
That summer, when she and her
family were on holidays, they
had gone camping in the West
Fjords. It was the last day of their hol-
idays. They had spent the moming
packing up and all was ready in good
time. She continued: “My husband
had decided to take our daughter for a
walk before the long ride back. I
stayed back to clean up the campsite
and relax in the summer sunshine. The
door of our Jeep was open and when
all the clean-up was done, I sat down
on a seat and that’s when I saw them.
They were right in firont of my eyes,
the huldufolk. There were children
running around. Some were picking
berries with their parents and another
was pulling the down from a thistle-
head. They were going about their
business much as we had while we
camped there. They existed right there
with us and the window to their paral-
lel universe was suddenly open. I
watched them for a while and then
tume to see if my husband and my
daughter were retuming from their
stroll. When I looked back, I couldn’t
see them anymore.”
The original stories all agree that
the huldufolk all live in the earth.
There reside in knolls and cliffs. They
appear to be neither entirely good nor
entirely bad by nature, but show their
better or worse side according to the
situation in which they find them-
selves. When humans help the huldu-
folk or have good dealings with them,
they are well repaid. Sometimes there
are stories of rich gifts. However,
most often the helper has noted there-
after for having a life of prosperity or
the comfort of knowing that the hul-
dufolk are watching over him. Their
homes, their families, their farm ani-
mals are in their safe keeping. Equal-
ly, there are stories of dreadful misfor-
tuned befalling those who have had
bad dealings with the huldufolk.
Here’s is another instance to show
that the huldufolk are as much a sub-
ject of modem times and from earlier
history. The following story is taken
from a recent newspaper clipping.
During a recent road construction pro-
ject in Iceland, the earth-moving
equipment kept breaking down. The
head contractor called in a medium to
see if the huldufolk were responsible.
“Mediums are people who can negoti-
ate with hudulfolk and we can make
us use of that,” said Birgir Guðmunds-
son, an engineer with the Icelandic
Road Authorities.
It transpired the huldufolk were in-
deed responsible for the breakdowns.
They wanted a large stone that they
had once lived in to be removed with
dignity, not dynamited away as had
been planned. The problem was
solved.
Iceland and its people have long
been concemed about the goodwill of
the spirits that the co-habit the island
with them. The prosperity of the coun-
try depends upon them.
While I was in Iceland I attended
university in a program called Ice-
landic for Foreign Students. One of
my professors dealt with the subject of
folklore one day. He told us of a few
old and modem huldufolk encounters,
much like the ones I have just de-
scribed. He told us a similar road con-
struction story where the crew had
disturbed the habitat of huldufolk and
subsequently run into all kinds of dif-
ficulties. The result was that they
eventually had to give up and reroute
the road.
A Danish classmate with a most
disbelieving look on her face said:
“Well, you can’t yourself believe in
such ridiculousness?” That kind of
question really puts and Icelander on
the spot. He hedged a little by re-
sponding: “I am not going to say that
it couldn’t be so.”
I felt compelled to speak up. I
looked over that this unfortunate,
unimaginative Dane and challenged
her with the fact that I believed, so
what was her problem with that?
This professor, an enthusiastic
teacher at the best of times, leapt
into the air and clapped his
hands. He pointed at me and said:
“Now there’s a good Icelander!”
My best friend, a classmate from
England whose mother was Icelandic,
agreed: “I believe it,” she said. This
put our poor Danish classmate over
the edge. She stared at us and sput-
tered: “I really can’t believe this! This
is too much!”
The stories all tell of the huldufolk
resembling humans in dress and ap-
pearance. There is an Icelandic saying
“Að vera vel buinn” meaning that one
is well decked-out in nice clothes.
Continued on page 5.