Reykjavík Grapevine - 05.10.2007, Síða 4

Terry Gunnel is a professor of Folkloristics at the
Unicersity of Iceland. He recently initiated a survey
to explore how Icelands’ attitude towards elves and
other supernatural phenomena have have changed
since a similar survey was conducted over thirty
years ago.
Perhaps you could start by describing the
study?
Over thirty years ago, in 1974, there was a survey
done by Professor Erlendur Haraldsson at the
psychology department here. What Erlendur was
doing at this time was essentially taking a look at
people’s experiences of the supernatural and their
belief attitudes. The figure that came out of this sur-
vey attracted quite a lot of attention from abroad,
especially figures to do with belief in elves and
suchlike figures. 10% of people said that the exist-
ence of such figures was out of the question, 7%
said they were certain they existed, 17% said they
had no opinion, but then you have 33% in the mid-
dle who said it was possible that they existed.
This is what started the attention. Every year,
I tend to get people to this country from Italy and
France and other places, who believe that here
they are going to find a country full of people who
see elves dancing around every rock, wearing na-
tional costumes. You even have an artist here who
believes people still have sex with elves. The key
thing it is not so much that Icelanders’ believe in
these figures, but they are open to them.
But, this was 30 years ago. I was getting a lit-
tle tired of answering questions about a study that
was done so long ago, and I felt that in view of the
way Iceland has changed in that time we should
do a new survey to see if the same attitudes existed,
this time doing it on behalf of the Folkloristics de-
partment. We are growing and developing into new
areas and underlining the fact that folklore is not
just a thing of the past, but still lives a very good life
amongst the people of the country.
We got the Social Sciences Institute to send
out a survey to 1500 individuals in the autumn of
2006, asking basically the same questions as those
asked by Erlendur in 1974 and some new ones. We
got back about 660 answers. It was thus question-
able what these answers said about the nation as
a whole. It could very well be that it was just peo-
ple who are very interested in the subject that an-
swered. So, we asked all the students in folkloristics
here at the university to pick ten random individu-
als of varying ages and place of residence to do the
survey and make sure they answered. This meant
that we also heard from people who might not have
answered first time around. What we got from these
new 325 answers was exactly the same figures as in
the random study. This suggests to us, although you
can never be certain, that the first survey should be
trustworthy as an overview .
So what were the general conclusions of the
survey?
What comes out of the survey largely is first of all
that belief has changed very little. There is a little
bit more doubt than there used to be, but generally
the figures were much the same as they were. When
we get to elves, the figures were very similar. People
are more doubtful, but a large percent of the coun-
try are open to them and they certainly won’t deny
that they exist.
How does Iceland compare to other countries
in these matters?
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d find similar num-
bers in Ireland, especially West-Ireland. There I
know there are places in the hillsides [so-called
raths] that people would never go to in the dark
because of connections with the fairies. You might
find other parallels in the Scottish Islands. Maybe
Northern Norway, but the Scandinavian countries,
except for Finland, tend to be very doubtful. There
is a long history of pietism and strong Lutheran
influences that have tried to kill these beliefs off
in the past. But I think you would find similar sorts
of beliefs there maybe twenty or thirty years back
in the countryside. But what is different here is this
openness to the supernatural world. We have to be
wary, though, about using the word “believe”, be-
cause it could be picked up by foreign papers who
will then certainly say that all Icelanders “believe”
in elves. The title of my lecture that I will give in De-
cember is “There Is More Things in the Heaven and
Earth, Horatio”, which is what Hamlet says to Hora-
tio after seeing his father’s ghost in the play Hamlet.
I think this is very much the Icelandic attitude. And
it is not very surprising really, when you think about
how your house here can be hit by something you
can’t see, even destroyed by something you can’t
see, because of earthquakes. You turn the tap and
boiling hot water comes from it from the earth be-
neath that looks on the surface pretty placid. You
look at the sky and you see incredible Northern
Lights, created from nothing. You have pitch dark-
ness in the countryside still; you have people pretty
close to the old tradition. In some senses, Iceland
only came out of the Middle Ages in around 1940.
These numbers are often used by Icelandic
companies in marketing, they push this image
of Iceland as a place of great mysticism where
everybody believes in elves. Foreign journal-
ists talk about what a large percentage of the
people believe in elves and so on, so there
exists this stereotype of Icelanders as peo-
ple who are in touch with the nature and the
supernatural. And this bothers me because I
don’t know anyone who claims to believe in
elves.
Of course not. Very few will say immediately that
they “believe” in such, but they won´t deny it ei-
ther… As regards national image, certainly, they
find the “elf image” quite attractive nowadays. It
wasn´t so in the past. Icelanders got very upset in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when for-
eign writers seemed to consider them as country
bumpkins who believed in elves and spirits. They
wanted to underline that they were a modern, en-
lightened European country like everyone else.
Now, in the last few years, after having pushed the
sagas and pushed the nature for tourists, the image
that is sold has changed, from Björk onwards; it
seems that nowadays weirdness is attractive.
Yes, I would claim that Björk and Sigur Rós
are responsible for this image, at least up to
a point.
Yes, and the Sugarcubes of course. Einar Örn told
foreign journalists about mating festivals in Iceland.
It is probably because people like Einar realised
that this made the nation look different. People are
attracted to weird. You stand out in crowd when
you are weird; you are allowed to do what ever you
like if you are weird. Coming back to the elves, of
course, this image sells. Folklorist Árni Björnsson
has stated that this is nothing but a tourist belief.
That is, that this apparent Icelandic belief in spirits
is just a way of selling the country to tourists. But
the figures from the survey don’t suggest that. Really,
we are dealing with a kind of cultural vocabulary;
a way of talking about experiences that happen to
all of us. We are not surprised today when children
talk of having imaginary friends, all children have
imaginary friends, but the vocabulary that was used
back then was that these were elves. Certainly, as I
say, you won’t find Icelanders saying ‘I believe in
elves”, but here is a test I often tell foreign journal-
ists to try when they come here. Ask an Icelander
this question: ‘imagine you are going to build a hot
tub in your garden. The problem is that there is a
big rock where you want to put the hot tub and you
need to blow it up to put in the tub. Then some one
tells you, ‘don’t, that is an elf rock’, will you blow it
up?’ And this is where people hesitate. It is not so
much that they won’t say they do believe, it is that
they won’t say they don’t believe.
I see what you are getting at, but then you are
referring to some instinct that is imprinted
into you from childhood.
Of course, it is cultural. This has also been argued
that rather than belief that it is something in your
culture that affects your behaviour. This is what be-
lief is all about, be it Christian attitudes or wearing
trousers rather than skirts. This is a part of inherited
culture that we follow. We use the vocabulary that
is given.
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson
Elves in Cultural Vocabulary
“Really, we are dealing
with a kind of cultural vo-
cabulary; a way of talking
about experiences that
happen to all of us.”
Professor Terry Gunnel surveyed Icelanders attitude
towards the supernatural.
Photo by GAS
06 | Reykjavík Grapevine | Issue 16 2007 | Interview
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