One of the things you’ve probably heard about Iceland is that all the people believe in elves. Well… it isn’t quite as simple as that.
In Iceland, the beings in question are called the huldufólk, the Hidden People. Some say that it’s a euphemism for elves or that you shouldn’t call elves by their real name, some say the two words are synonyms and some think they differ. I’m not Icelandic, I can’t tell you which of these is correct but I’m going with Hidden People – yes, with capitals – because it sounds less “foreigners laughing at Icelanders for believing in elves.”
Elves to me sound like tiny creatures a foot high but I’ve always been under the impression the Hidden People are human-sized and either invisible or selectively visible. Or maybe it comes down to an individual whether they can see the Hidden People or not. Maybe it even comes down to an individual Hidden Person to allow humans to see them or not.
Traditionally, they live in large rocks. This is where my brain scrambles a little bit because rocks are solid, you can’t live inside them, no matter your state of corporeality. Or maybe they live underneath them, but there’s no room physically underneath and very few rocks are shaped so the boulder offers any kind of tent-like shelter near the base. But anyway, however it works, Hidden People live in boulders. This is where the trouble starts. Sometimes there’s a building project – a new road, a new school, something like that – which needs to go right through a rock that’s home to the Hidden People. Icelanders know which rocks are homes and which are just plain rocks. So sometimes the project is diverted to not disturb the rock in question. Sometimes the rock is moved. Occasionally, the Hidden People are moved. And sometimes, they plough straight through the rock and that means sometimes the Hidden People cause trouble, like breaking the bulldozer that tried to move their rock or showering the locals with boulders.
Shall we deal with the part of the sentence that says “Icelanders believe…”? Only a small percentage say they definitely believe in the Hidden People but a bigger percentage cautiously say they believe it’s “possible” they exist. That’s not a majority by any means. Are they a story for children? We have plenty of supernatural beings in the Anglosphere that exist more or less entirely in the imaginations of childhood – Father Christmas, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy. The Hidden People are likely to be the same, except that they don’t appear to have any characteristics relevant to children. They live in rocks and get upset when people interfere with them. They exist for tourists, or they’re emphasised in this century for tourists. Now, that’s more likely. Tourists like to chuckle at the child-like naivety of these foreigners believing in elves. Tourists like to gaze at these wise spiritual people who see the beings that guided their ancestors. Tourists like to discover new things they don’t experience at home. Lots of reasons to tell tourists that people believe in the Hidden People. Selling tours to visit places where Hidden People live, that’s another good reason. If you’re into that, go to Hafnarfjörður, the Town in the Lava. It’s full of Hidden People. If you’ve been to Iceland, you’ve already seen Hafnarfjörður. It’s the town you come through between the airport and Reykjavik, just past that half-mile long green aluminium smelting factory. It’s built in and around a lava field and it’s a great place for Hidden People tourism.
Do I believe in the Hidden People? Well, there’s a question. Let’s start by saying that I don’t believe in ghosts but I would die of terror if you locked me in a haunted house alone overnight. In some way, yes, I do believe in the Hidden People. Do I believe there are literally invisible human-sized beings living inside solid rocks? No, not literally but I think I believe in these creatures that make up the fabric of Iceland that I know I can’t see because they’re not in my personal cultural psyche. (What creatures are in my personal cultural psyche? Dragons? The Loch Ness Monster? The Mer-Chicken? England’s mixed bag of invaders and settlers mean I could have a veritable menagerie from all over half the world waiting for me to wonder if I believe in them).
I have a book on my shelf called A Travellers Guide to Icelandic Folk Tales* by Jón R. Hjálmarsson, if you’re interested in all things Icelandic supernatural. It’s grouped by location rather than being, to make it easier to drive around visiting them all. I highly recommend it. Contains Hidden People, trolls, wizards, whales and who knows what else. Well, I do. I have the book in my hand right now.
* Affiliate link – if you click here & buy something (even if it’s not this particular book), Amazon will throw me a few pennies.