Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2017, Page 18

Admiration,
Awe, And The
Hidden Folk
Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir’s Hafnarfjörður Elf Walk
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen
Photo: Art Bicnick
LIFE For most of history, scien-
tists indubitably believed that
humankind resided in a geocen-
tric solar system.
This theory was so wholeheart-
edly accepted that when Coper-
nicus and Galileo suggested oth-
erwise, they were laughed out of
town as loonies and heretics. The
same reaction might be said of one
who champions the supernatural
in today’s empirical world. Stat-
ing your belief in ghosts or elves
or fairies might well garner an
eyebrow raise and an automatic
categorization into the wacko
bracket. In fact, it indubitably will.
I was worried such would be
the case on Bryndís Björgvinsdót-
tir’s Hafnarfjörður Elf Walk. While
I love cheesy things like theme
restaurants, I didn’t really want
to spend any time on an elf chase
with someone who believed a su-
pernatural queen
blessed them last
night. It’s just
not my cup of tea.
Bryndís, though,
is an academic. A
folklorist by trade,
she is probably
one of the most
k n o w l e d g e a b l e
individuals in the
world on the sub-
ject of elf lore. The
tour was there-
fore historical.
She presented elves as they are
believed in with no agenda. This
was not a lol-look-how-stupid-
old-Icelanders-are tour, nor was
it a hokey-pokey-spiritual one.
But don’t worry—this isn’t
history class. Bryndís is not only
extremely personable, but she’s
also funny and outgoing. Her pas-
sion for the subject is infectious,
which made the tour pass by al-
most too quickly. Real talk: I could
have gone on with her all day!
Stealing socks and
scaring hearts
The day starts with a little lec-
ture—a short history of elves,
with one thesis being that every
country has its own endemic su-
pernatural beings. The English
are passionate about ghosts, Ice-
landers elves, while the Ameri-
cans seem to be the only ones who
get abducted by aliens. There isn’t
anything weird about Icelanders
experiencing their own flavor of
supernatural—every culture has it.
Bryndís also concentrates
on the fact that elf activity has
changed with the ages, adapting
itself to the intellectual conscious-
ness of each generation. Old elves
might be more physically active;
they left gifts and sneakily stole
objects. Nowadays their influ-
ence is increasingly ethereal, dis-
rupting the construction of roads
which impede on
their dwellings or
messing with the
daily activities of
farms they are not
pleased with. Bryn-
dís also dives into
the attitude of the
elves, which is dif-
ficult to articu-
late, but is perhaps
best compared
to those in Tolk-
ien—neither good-
principled nor bad-
principled beings that
command and require respect.
After this talk, the walk around
Hafnarfjörður begins. If you are
unfamiliar with Iceland, Haf-
narfjörður has a reputation as the
elf-belief capital of Iceland. It is
therefore the best place to get a
taste of them. “Hafnarfjörður is
built on a lava field, and it is quite
young, only 7,000-8,000 years
old,” Bryndís explains. So many
rocks combined with so many hu-
mans means there is a plethora
of examples of humans and the
hidden people clashing—ground
zero for this special relationship.
Take this example of elf-sab-
otaged road construction, as ex-
plained by our guide: “Look, it’s
always the same story here. The
machine starts to break down as
it gets close to the rock but once
it moves away it begins to work
again. Then the workers start to
have bad dreams or feel ill and
then they don’t want to do this,
risk their health. So in the end
they leave the rock there and
redesign to accommodate.” She
walks us to a spot on a side road
of Hafnarfjörður where a drill
bit stands erect from a large
rock, around human height.
While the road is straight com-
ing towards the boulder, it then
abruptly—almost dangerous-
ly—curves around it. It’s a bi-
zarre sight, and one you’ll prob-
ably never see anywhere else.
The creed of the
capricious
The other locations reveal many
more facets of elf lore: one lies
behind an abandoned hospital,
another next to a church, many
more in backyards, but all have
rich histories of their interfer-
ence with humanity. “On elf
dwellings you can’t cut the grass.
Children can’t play there. And
when walking by you have to be
respectful. You don’t talk too
loudly.” Bryndís pauses. “It’s like
being in a church.” This is an ac-
curate description, for even if you
are a super-skeptic, these places
naturally demand reverence.
They are so beautiful and grip-
ping that it’s easy to feel holiness.
The tour never demands the
question of whether or not Bryn-
dís believes in elves; it just seems
irrelevant. Instead it is a fasci-
nating insight into the elf lore of
Iceland, so much so that if you are
even remotely interested in the
topic, the tour will not disappoint.
I certainly left wanting more.
Bryndís’s next tour will be on June 6 at
19:00. Meet at Pallett coffee shop.
18 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09 — 2017
“This was not
a lol-look-how-
stupid-old-
Icelanders-
are tour, nor
was it a
hokey-pokey-
spiritual one.”
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