Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.04.2015, Qupperneq 9

Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15 apríl 2015 • 15
ONLINE MAGAZINE: WWW. HEIMSKRINGLOG.COM
If there is one thing about the Icelanders that the foreign media loves to chew on, it is
the fact that we all supposedly
believe in elves. And if there
is one thing that irks just as
many of us here, is the way
that elf belief is misrepresented
to serve as click bait. These
endless articles have become
so tiresome and annoying that
many of us, myself included,
cannot be bothered any more to
even try to correct some of the
misinformation when it appears
in our news feeds.
The thing that I personally
find most annoying about this
sensationalism of the elf belief
is the way it turns something
that is really quite profound into
something trite and superficial.
Because, yes, most Icelanders
of old did believe in elves
and hidden people (terms that
are used interchangeably in
Icelandic folklore and mean
the same thing), and there
were reasons for those beliefs.
Those reasons had everything
to do with their desperate efforts
to survive in circumstances that
were often heartbreakingly
difficult, and nothing to do with
the innate “kookiness” of the
Icelanders.
Consider: you live a life of
abject poverty with absolutely
no luxury. You are hopelessly
oppressed by arbitrary laws
and regulations that, among
other things, prevent you
from marrying because you
don’t have enough money and
probably never will. The house
in which you live is filled with
bugs and you have open lesions
on your skin from the lice in
your bed. By the end of the
winter there is hardly enough
food to feed everyone, so you
go to bed hungry every night,
even as you have to expend
tons of energy during the day.
The Danish overlords have set
up a trade monopoly so you’re
only allowed to do business
with their merchants and buy
their wares of dubious quality,
at whatever price they set. At
any moment nature could erupt
and wreak havoc on the land. In
short, it’s a tough, tough
existence, and there is no hope
of any of that changing during
your lifetime.
So what do you do in such
circumstances, to keep yourself
from marching off the nearest
cliff? Answer: you escape into
fantasies of a world that exists
parallel to your own. In that
world there are people who are
tall, regal, poised; who live in
homes that are luxurious by
your standards, with objects
made from precious metals and
plush tapestries that you can
only dream of. These are the
hidden people, who live inside
cliffs and hillocks very close to
your own abode. Everything
about their world is better
than yours. Their clothes are
more beautiful, their sheep are
fatter and give off more wool.
They even have supernatural
powers. They are pretty much
everything you are not.
Or consider this: your life
consists of back-breaking work,
day in and day out. Perhaps
you have small children, but
because you have to work so
hard you cannot possibly watch
them all the time. Perhaps
your child disappears one day.
It may have wandered off –
fallen into a river, or a crevice,
or got lost in a sudden fog that
blew in. The loss is just too
unbearable, and grieving openly
is not a possibility when your
living quarters are a tiny room
that you share with perhaps six
or seven other people. So, you
construct a story. Your child is
not dead – it has been abducted
by the hidden people. It is living
with elves, and being raised by
them in circumstances that are
vastly better than those you
could have provided.
All this and more is the
subject of my new book: The
Little Book of the Hidden
People. I wanted to present
the real picture of Icelanders
and their elf beliefs – not some
bastardized version presented
by a foreign media that has no
context, no depth, no insight
into what those beliefs were
really all about.
The book consists of twenty
translated stories of elves and
hidden people from Icelandic
folklore and notes on their
meaning. In addition, there is
a comprehensive introduction
that portrays the milieu from
which the stories sprung,
providing insight into the soul
of a nation that used stories as
an anti-depressant, as a way to
survive psychologically.
Reprinted with permission
from The Iceland
Weather Report.
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A little book about Icelandic elves. Because I had to.
Alda Sigmundsdóttir
Reykjavík, Iceland
ARBORG PHARMACY
Store Hours: Mon. - Sat. 9 a.m. - 6 p.m.
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SHARED WISDOM • SHARED COMMITMENT • SHARED VALUES
The Little Book of the
Hidden People is currently
available as a paperback
and as a Kindle ebook, both
sold through Amazon. It
can also be purchased as an
ePub ebook from e-junkie.
com. Near the end of May,
it will also be available as
a hardcover book in shops
throughout Iceland.
Incidentally, if you are
interested in learning more
of living conditions in the
Iceland of old, you may
want to check out Alda’s
book The Little Book of the
Icelanders in the Old Days,
which is also available
through Amazon.