Hidden People

We spent a great deal of money, to visit a small town just south of Reykjavik which is home to many, many Icelandic 'hidden people' : that refers to elves, dwarves, elementals and the ever terrifying trolls.

Apparently they live 'hidden' in the lava formations and can only be seen by those with second sight.

On our tour we visited an old dwarvé´s home (a very large rock formation) in addition to a few other elve or dwarve lodgings.

Here below is Catherine by the dwarf's house. As you can see, she appears to be bowled over by it and having a very good time:

There was also a troll woman, who, while chasing someone to have them for breakfast, was caught out in the sunlight and immediately turned to stone. See the troll woman below. Actually this rock is pretty impressive:

Whiile Irish faerie mythology is oddly complex and frankly bizarre (lots of drinking and turning people into random animals with magical sticks) the Icelandic versions, at least as told in the tour, are a bit on the dull side.

A woman sees a little cup and pours some extra milk in it each day.  After two weeks it disappears and then she has a dream that an elf woman, of limited means, says that she needed it for her sickly husband, and though they are poor, they will reward her. After a year of waiting she finds that someone has left her a really nice embroydiered skirt on the bed, just before they are supposed to move.

Apparently good skirts are a common gift from grateful elves, either that or a table cloth.

Catherine wanted to know what would happen if you were crappy to an elf or hidden person. The story goes that a bad boy got three warnings from a beautiful elf lady to stop smacking a tree with his stick.

He ignored it to his peril and ended up unable to use his right hand.

Thus, the story teller cautioned, that can happen to you if you fail to heed the warnings!

If however he had been instead helpful, I assume he would have ended up with a really nice skirt.

Or maybe a tablecloth...

And the common response to: 'do hidden people live here'

'I don´t know. I haven´t seen one. But you never know. Perhaps we will see one today'