How Icelanders' belief in elves is helping win environmental battles

"In Iceland there are places so quiet that you do not even hear the birds. You hear nothing but your breathing and the breathing of the earth. Listen to the silence, if you can listen to the silence, you can connect with the elves." This is how Ragnhildur Jonsdottir, a well known psychic ('seer') in Reykjavik, narrates the beginning of award-winning documentary, The Seer and the Unseen.

The film follows Jonsdottir as she speaks of the very real threat the ecology of her homeland is under, via her 'communication' with the magical realm of elves or 'huldofolk' (hidden people). It focuses on the planned destruction of the lava fields in Galgahraun (just south of Reykjavik) to make way for the construction of a new road towards the tip of the Alftanes peninsula. While communicating with elves may sound bizarre to some, Jonsdottir is no oddball outlier — some Icelandic government officials call on her 'mediumship' when debating environmental issues, and protection of areas considered 'elvish locations' is a hot topic issue in the country.

She's also not alone in her conviction that elves are more than just fairytales. A 2007 study by the University of Iceland found that some 62 per cent of the Icelandic population still believe in the presence of elves, who have been part of Icelandic folklore since before the Viking invasion of the 9th century.

So how has faith in these 'spirits of nature' endured? And how has it become such an important tool for environmentalism?

Magnus Skarphedinsson is the founder of The Elfschool, a Friday school opened in Reykjavik in 1988 to offer education in all things elvish. For him, the answer as to why people still believe in elves is simple: 'because the elves have been seen.'

The school's programme covers both old folklore and modern tales (some 900 Icelanders and 500 tourists have related elf sightings to the school). One such story is that of the 'Hidden Priest,' which warns landowners in the district of Slettuhreppur against farming around a giant rock in the fields for fear of 'natural disasters.' The message still carries weight today.

Storytelling has long been an important part of Icelandic culture and The Elfschool is dedicated to ensuring these tales are passed down between generations. "They reflect the harsh and distinct natural environment in which Icelander's struggle to survive," says Skarphedinsson. "These allegorical accounts teach younger generations to respect the natural environment in which they reside, these wild landscapes, where earthquakes, volcanoes, geothermal energy, extreme weather conditions constantly pose a very real threat."

In an 'age of anxiety', where communities are searching for a higher consciousness or belief system, the interest in Icelandic 'huldofolk' is on the rise. The Elfschool reports an increase in the number of attendees in recent years as elves enter the mainstream. Icelandic elves have even penetrated pop culture, for example in Björk's video for 'Human Behaviour'.

Icelandic elves are believed to have an anthropomorphic form, and are considered very alike to their human neighbours. Crucially, believers consider elves to be the caretakers of nature: they may live in a parallel realm, but if humans are to violate the boundaries of nature and the invisible world, the people of the land will suffer bad luck.

This is another key factor in the reemergence of interest in elves in Iceland. Against the backdrop of our catastrophic global climate crisis, Iceland's surge in tourism since its 2008 economic downturn has propelled a sharp rise in road construction and industrialisation. In 2019, Iceland marked the loss of the once 15 sq km Okjökull glacier, the first of its 400 ice sheets to succumb to the earth's rising temperatures. As humans continue to wreck the environment, many believe that the conflict between the visible and invisible worlds is intensifying.

While some of the population, including the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (INCA), are quick to establish that they don't want 'protecting elvish locations' to become the focal point of the nation's environmental fight, it's undeniably an important factor in bringing worldwide attention and support to such causes. Environmentalists and activists regularly challenge the government, but the protest in the Galgahraun lava fields, which began in 2014, has caught the eye of international media thanks to the elvish angle.

Many Icelanders also think that believing in elves, a practice so rooted to their cultural heritage, is a positive way to believe in something 'bigger than oneself,' and to nurture the unselfishness needed amid a shared climate crisis.

'I thought elves were a powerful cultural language for expressing life force and the connectedness of people to the natural world,' says Sara Dosa, who spent four years in Galgahraun, filming Ragnhildur Jonsdottir and others for The Seer and the Unseen. 'But when I got to Iceland, I felt something, an energy I hadn't ever felt before — the power of nature.'

And if belief in elves can help more people to discover that power, and do more to protect it, then believers and non-believers alike will benefit.