Hey, welcome to Alfaborg, the mystical city of the elves in Borgarfjörðar Estri. The Borg in the west, was the city of men. Here, completely across the country, live the elves, in their own Borg.
Except, until the twelfth century, there were no álfar, or elves. That was an idea imported from France, which was laid on folk experience of all the varied people who came to Iceland and made up its founding lines. This would have been home to the bergbúar, the rock dwellers. East
Not dwarves, exactly. That is a different folk lineage, into which several lines were folded over time, under the effects of European modernization and a half millenium of the consolidation of folk tale into unified stories onto which national narratives could be written. What became known as elves, in a process of consolidation, also originally held the landvættir, or nature spirits. They lived on the land itself. So, this is likely a home of rock dwellers.
East
And here?
Why, landvættir. And here. West
And here, a mixed population, perhaps. No doubt, a host of others who tagged along in the heads of people in the long boats. West
No doubt, a lot from Ireland. Experiences of what was later solidified, in the same nationalizing process, as nature. North
Luckily, there is more to history than the history of nationalism, and more to living on earth than the consolidation of diverse encounters and traditions with abstraction and consolidation.
We are still bodies on earth.North
We are still the earth dreaming.
It’s quite something how tales change over time, and sometimes merge into a unifying mythology.
It’s a powerful narrative of its own, yes, nicely put.