{"id":1165,"date":"2012-06-22T17:25:08","date_gmt":"2012-06-22T17:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2012-06-22T17:25:08","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T17:25:08","slug":"is-your-neighbour-an-elf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2012\/06\/22\/is-your-neighbour-an-elf\/","title":{"rendered":"Is your neighbour an elf?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Happy Midsummer\/Solstice everyone! Unlike many European countries, this time of the year is not celebrated very much in Iceland, at least in comparison. There’s \u00de\u00f3rl\u00e1ksmessa<\/em> (the summer version of it – one is held on 20th June and another on 23rd December) held in the memory of \u00de\u00f3rl\u00e1k hinn helga \u00de\u00f3rl\u00e1ksson<\/em>, the patron saint of Iceland, and some years ago a group of artists began to hold a J\u00f3nsvaka<\/em> where lots of new artists get a chance of showcasing their work, but there are no midsummer poles, no bonfires and no big drinking festival*.<\/p>\n

However, I’m more used to celebrating the Midsummer with a little touch of supernatural (in my homecountry this is the time of the year when people attempt to see the future or try to find lost treasures by magic). For us it’s unusual, so I thought that writing about the exact opposite – the commonness of the supernatural – would be a good topic for today.<\/p>\n

A poll done not so long ago found out that while Icelanders generally don’t believe in f.ex. elves (\u00e1lfur\/\u00e1lfar<\/em>) they’re still very reluctant to state that elves and hidden people (hulduf\u00f3lk<\/em>) would not exist at all. Considering how much the hidden world is a part of everyday life this is perhaps not as surprising as it might at first seem like. There are any number of areas called elf-something like \u00c1lfabakki<\/em> (= Elf Strand), a road that goes fairly near to where I live and probably just as many if not more folk tales of elves of these areas.<\/p>\n

However, old folk tales is not all there is. There’s also a good amount of newer stories of elves and hidden folk and people coming across them, usually because humans are trying to build something over a place where the others live. This tends to go badly for humans. Machines cease to work, freak accidents and even deaths happen at the site and sometimes this brings the whole project to a halt.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next step is often to make sure that it really is the hidden who are responsible. This is done by inviting a medium over to look at the site and possibly attempt to have talks with the original residents. I’m not trying to pull your leg or anything, this is exactly how it’s done and in all seriousness too. I suppose when people are in clear yet mysterious danger they get ready to believe in anything that might be the cause.<\/p>\n

The medium then tries to come to a some kind of a deal with the hidden. First of all the medium finds out if there’s any way of continuing the project. Can the elves move house? How much time will they need for that? Or if that’s not a possibility, how about humans help them move their house instead? As elves are believed to live in rocks this would mean that an elf rock will be identified and very carefully moved out of the way. A third option is to cease the work and to bring it back on the drawing board. It’s not unusual that whole roads have been forced to go around an area where the elves live.<\/p>\n

Einb\u00fai is one such site. There’s a sign board there with an explanation on why the place is special:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first chapter describes how here used to be a landmark of the areas called Brei\u00f0holt, B\u00fasta\u00f0ur, Digranes and F\u00edfuhvammur and that the rocks here were originally meant for a railway that would have been built where there now is Reykjanesbraut<\/em>, Reykjanes Road. Then it gets to the elves:<\/p>\n

“Talinn er a\u00f0 \u00ed h\u00f3lnum hafi b\u00fai\u00f0 \u00e1lfur e\u00f0a hulduma\u00f0ur… …\u00deegar veri\u00f0 var a\u00f0 grafa fyrir h\u00fasgrunni \u00e1 l\u00f3\u00f0 vi\u00f0 h\u00f3linn Einb\u00faa var h\u00fasbyggjandinn be\u00f0inn a\u00f0 fara ekki n\u00e1l\u00e6gt h\u00f3lnum. \u00dea\u00f0 vildi samt svo \u00f3heppnilega til a\u00f0 jar\u00f0\u00fdtustj\u00f3rinn bakka\u00f0i a\u00f0 h\u00f3lnum en \u00ed \u00fev\u00ed drapst \u00e1 v\u00e9linni. \u00dea\u00f0 var sama hva\u00f0 hann reyndi, \u00fdtan vildi ekki \u00ed gang aftur or var h\u00fan flutt \u00e1 verkst\u00e6\u00f0i. \u00dear var \u00fe\u00f3 ekkert um vi\u00f0ger\u00f0ir \u00fev\u00ed \u00fdtan rauk \u00ed gang \u00ed fyrstu tilraun<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

“It’s said that an elf or a hidden person had been living inside the hill… …When they began to dig for the foundations of a house next to the hill Einb\u00fai**, the constructor was warned against going too near to the hill. Unluckily a workman backed a bulldozer into the hill and the machine died on the spot. It didn’t matter what he tried, the bulldozer would not start again and it was therefore sent to a repairs shop. No reparations were done on it, though, because once there it started on the first try.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*The drinking habits of Icelanders considered this is probably a lucky thing.<\/p>\n

**Einb\u00fai is nefnifall***<\/em>, nominative case. It’s the preposition vi\u00f0<\/em> that here demands another case, either \u00fe\u00f3lfall<\/em> (accusative) or \u00feagufall<\/em> (dative), depending. \u00de\u00f3lfall<\/em> is more common with preposition vi\u00f0<\/em>, and even though Einb\u00fai<\/em> has the exact same form (Einb\u00faa<\/em>) in both \u00fe\u00f3lfall<\/em> and \u00feagufall<\/em>, the word h\u00f3linn<\/em> (nefnifall: h\u00f3ll<\/em>) that goes before it shows that \u00fe\u00f3lfall<\/em> indeed is what’s used here. An easy rule is that if vi\u00f0<\/em> is used to state location, as in that X is near Z, it’s followed by \u00fe\u00f3lfall<\/em>.<\/p>\n

***I’d much rather use the Icelandic word for the cases to avoid confusing those people whose languages have accusative and dative cases that work differently. I’ve found that at least for me it’s easier to use the Icelandic versions instead of trying to go by the exact terms of what f.ex. an accusative is – in Icelandic you can’t always use an accusative in every situation that would otherwise call for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Happy Midsummer\/Solstice everyone! Unlike many European countries, this time of the year is not celebrated very much in Iceland, at least in comparison. There’s \u00de\u00f3rl\u00e1ksmessa (the summer version of it – one is held on 20th June and another on 23rd December) held in the memory of \u00de\u00f3rl\u00e1k hinn helga \u00de\u00f3rl\u00e1ksson, the patron saint of…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":1169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[90791,91379,91175],"tags":[3,6,178,91387,11614,91396,6977],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-culture","category-icelandic-customs","category-icelandic-grammar","tag-culture","tag-grammar","tag-history","tag-sample-of-icelandic","tag-signs","tag-so-icelandic","tag-supernatural"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}