I remember hearing about Iceland's "hidden people" a while back, on NPR, and the interviewer was trying to get people to admit that it was all a bit of fun, a cheeky way of embracing their cultural heritage. However, much to the interviewer's chagrin, everyone he talked to sounded quite serious about it, about the necessary precautions, etc.

So either everyone in Iceland is in on the joke or they do believe in it. It sounds bizarre to us but lots of people believe far sillier stuff in this country. However, since we're far less homoginized those beliefs aren't as widespread or culturally universal.

If the Icelanders are so highly-educated, and if there are no suitable jobs on their island, I'd expect out-migration to be pretty high. Hmm.

Oh, it's for real. The people of Iceland take their fae very seriously. I guess it sounds crazy to you all, but I grew up in a very witchy environment and am Pagan myself and to me, this is normal. Of course you check for fairies and ghosts when, for example, moving into a new house.

It's kind of like believing in angels, I guess, except the fae are way crankier about being messed with.

"I wondered, though: could the bit about the elves be true?"

This could only be written by someone who has failed to visit this country and really talk to it's people before positing such a question.

Having visited Iceland twice, I can say that yes it is true. I respect the Icelanders and their beliefs, and the close relationship that they have to their environment.

It is something that we could use a bit more of here.

Sounds exactly like America on two counts.

Believing in our financial system is no different than believing in elves and fairies.

We also believe that no one really needs to perform productive activity---fish, smelt steel, make cars---and we can somehow still have a functional economy.

We are Icelanders.

The elf-certification process sounds like the one legitimate exercise we need to adopt here. It seems to be a decent mechanism for securing good-faith cooperation with existing regulations.

If ConEd or Monsanto has to certify the site for their next nuke plant, suburb or factory farm is elf-free, they'll be much less likely to fvck around with marsh-dozing, PCB-dumping or ESA-fixing.

this is the greatest article in the history of the universe.

For the sake of variety, I'm wondering if we could arrange a swap of our fundamentalist believers for Iceland's.

It's an odd little pocket of human credulity, isn't it? and a nice scam for the elf finders.

But that's nothing. I know some really nutty people who believe in gods, devils, and angels. They're really serious about it, too, if you ask them about it.

This article goes quite a ways toward helping to explain Bjork.

(OT: http://www.virose.net/bjork-pdiddy.gif )

Belief in elves is no more ridiculous than praying to an invisible cloud being. It is on TeeVee here in the U.S. every day.

I thought the gnomes lived in Zurich.

We also believe that no one really needs to perform productive activity---fish, smelt steel, make cars---and we can somehow still have a functional economy.

That's not really true. What is true, is that we've let our income dispersion grow so large, that "making things" doesn't pay nearly as well as "not making things". Some PhDs, at least, know how to do house wiring, know how to do plumbing, repair cars, cut trees, etc. (Some of us also know when it's time to call a professional, although at least once I was sorely disappointed.)

You beat me Charles Pierce...

"Tales abound of broken limbs, busted equipment and other woes befalling builders daring to go where elves and hidden people traditionally tread."

Tony Soprano lives.

The whole article is fantastic. The stories of Icelanders buying up foreign banks just to resell them to each other is laughable except for the part where the whole country goes bankrupt. The elves are almost boring compared to the ego of the bankers.

The elf prohibition is roughly similar to the de facto prohibition on paving over abandoned cemeteries in the United States, which has required rerouting proposed highways at the cost of millions on numerous occasions.

Yeah, elves. Pretty funny. And yet ...

Bear with me here for a moment.

An ancient dwarf human skeleton was found on the Indonesian island of Flores a few years back. Scientists theorized that you're more likely to find dwarf people evolving on an island, since there are fewer resources around so it's more efficient to be small, and they're isolated from the big people who might otherwise have beat them up and taken their food. (They also found other dwarf animal species on Flores.)

Ireland, like Iceland an island that's close enough to a big continent to be visited by intrepid (or simply lost) voyagers, but far enough to be left alone most of the time, also has a folk tradition of little people hiding in forests. Maybe, just maybe ...

Maybe stories of little people hiding in the woods in places like Ireland and Iceland reflects an ancient, ancient folk memory that there REALLY WERE dwarf people living there, many many years ago, when the first modern full-sized humans showed up?

Don't know if this makes any sense. But fun to think about.

No, no it clearly has to do with countries starting the the vowel "I".

Personally I don't believe that the little people are in Iceland, my grandmother told me that they are all in Ireland and that there are many kinds almost none of which are all that friendly.

I respect the Icelanders and their beliefs

I don't respect their belief in elves.

I wondered, though: could the bit about the elves possibly be true? According to Iceland's Tourist Bureau, the answer is basically: yes, although they make the part about making sure that construction sites are elf-free sound more voluntary, and the 'hidden people' include not just elves but gnomes, trolls, fairies, and others:

Icelanders believe in elves. Americans believe in angels and saints. Is either belief more ridiculous than the other?

So people who believe in things that don't exist have run their country into bankruptcy. Hmmm

This is nothing like US cemeteries or Indian burial grounds. They believe in something that is not there, we at least are simply wanting to leave the dead to rest in peace.

Let's get some good old American companies up their and bulldoze the whole works. We don't care if there are endangered species or virgin forests hundred of years old, hell I bet you could find someone here to do it even if they found living breathing elves.

Seems like Iceland exported more than aluminium and cod. Alan Greenspan was the Ernie Keebler of finance for well over a decade. The deference to his pronouncements and belief the magic of the markets was even more absurd than any belief in elves. While I can't say for sure that elves exist or not (I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt), I could have told you 12 years ago that our booming economy was a house of cards.

Did Icelanders' prediliction for believing in hidden people predispose them to belive in other fantastical and magical creatures, like credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations?

One of our two main political parties is in the grip of people who think they're going to be Hoovered up to heaven in the Rapture, and we're in a position to make fun of elf-believers?

Not as widespread, but still residues of similar folk beliefs in Ireland. There was a community center in my home town to be built, but it would have involved cutting down a fairy tree. (This is in the middle of an urban housing project, BTW.) None of the contractors would cut it down. So what to do?
The local Sinn Fein politicians called it part of our heritage and it was decided, at great expense, to alter the plans to build around it.

Then some guy got drunk one night and chopped it down.

Guess all those Icealandic PhDs didn't learn critical thinking in the fields of religion, mythology, metaphysics, etc.

Note to Mauro: I can make fun of BOTH.

That said, for those of us who are antitheist, Iceland should put paid to the idea that Europe is somehow a religion-free world compared to the U.S.

It may largely be Christianity-free, but has at least as much, if not more, belief than the U.S. in New Ageism of various stripes, neopaganism, some elements even of paleopaganism like in Iceland, etc.

So... who's going to own Iceland tomorrow?

Having lived in Iceland for a while and knowing a fair number of Icelanders, I can vouch for the fact that Icelanders take their Huldufolk (hidden people) quite seriously.

As to what to do with a PhD in Iceland, Icelanders have always placed a high value on education and scholarship, but have a tradition of leaving the island in order to obtain it. They also frequently emigrate if there are no jobs at home and I suspect you will see out lot of migration in the next few years.

Highly educated Icelanders, being Vikings, are not without cunning. A good illustration of that is the legend behind the statue of Sæmundur and the Seal that stands in front of the University of Iceland's administrative building. The tale also demonstrates the utility of books and high esteem Icelanders place on reading.

A brief summary:

In ancient times the priest Sæmundur (1056-1133) left Iceland to study the black arts at university in Germany. When Sæmundur finished his training and were ready to leave the Black School, he and two rivals, Kálfur and Hálfdán, each asked the King of Norway to make him the ruler of Iceland. The King knew very well what kind of men he was dealing with, so he says that the one who could get there quickest would be appointed ruler. Then Sæmundur goes off straight away and calls up the Devil and says: 'Swim with me to Iceland, and if you can get me ashore without wetting the skirts of my coat in the sea, you can have my soul.' The Devil agreed, turned himself into a seal, and went off with Saemundur on his back. But Sæmundur was deep in reading his Psalter all the way. After a very short time they drew near to the coast of Iceland. Then Sæmundur hit the seal hard over the head with his book, so that it sank, and Saemundur pitched headfirst into the water, and swam ashore. Because of this, the Devil lost his bargain, but Sæmundur got the prize.

Perhaps their investment banking was run by underpants gnomes.

I have decided to offer my services for "elf removal."

I guarantee you, when I'm finished making a sweep, you won't find any goddamned elfs or gnomes in the area.

Trolls cost extra, though. If you have to ask "how much," you can't afford it.

There are, of course, a few jobs in Iceland that any refined, educated person might like to do. Certifying the nonexistence of elves, for instance.

However, an educated Icelander- or an educated person from any other country, for that matter- would agree that it is logically impossible to prove a negative proposition. That would make proving the non-existence of elves a difficult job, indeed.

-Z

That said, for those of us who are antitheist, Iceland should put paid to the idea that Europe is somehow a religion-free world compared to the U.S.

While Iceland is technically part of Europe, the fact that it's completely isolated by itself out in the middle of the North Atlantic and had traditionally very limited contact with the outside world means that certain folk traditions were retained that otherwise would have gone by the wayside. It's a historical and cultural outlier and is in no way typical of wider European trends. (Similarly, Newfoundland and Hawai'i are not typical of Canada and the United States, respectively).

Viktor A. Ingolfsson, a spokesman for the road agency, says, "When Native Americans protest roads being built over ancient burial grounds, the U.S. listens. It's the same here. There are people who believe in elves and we don't make fun of them. We try to deal with them.""

That's a bit of a false equivalency, isnt it? I mean, I dont understand every bit of Native American folklore, but not wanting people to dig up a cemetary to build a highway isnt actually that unusual, I wouldnt think.

Side note: Iceland has an honorary position in their government called the Allsherjargodi or "Head Pagan". I dont know if I'd want to live there, but it sounds like a truly fantastic (and fantastical) place to visit.