Only on the Buðarhaun lava field. Only on Midsummer Night’s Eve.
Don’t look too closely. Walk quickly on. Be careful not to trip.
A View into Fairyland
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: Elves
The Elves’ Horses Are On the Battlefield Still
We climbed Orrustuhóll, or Battle Hill, west of the convent and east of the Black Falls…
… and there in the lush green full of spirits ….
…in the midst of a harsh lava field …
… we found the elves’ horses.
This is another hiking site in Iceland that was popular in the Golden Age of the 1950s, one of the ones that made a trip on the new Ring Road a trip through national pride. Now there is room for one car to park off the road. A million tourists a year (well, maybe not this year or last) drive past, just as the elves would like it. I am honoured to have been invited and let in.
An Elvish Embrace: Sex in 4D
I count four elves caught in the act, two in the present, and two in the future, the child of this union peeking over the top elf’s back, and an old soul at the left.
The Alfaborg and Einstein: an East Icelandic Tale
For the capital city of the queen of the elves in downtown Bakkagerði, it’s a bit of a lump. Still, humans look up to it.
Meanwhile, elves look down.
This change in perspective seems to be species specific. Here’s a view of another one of the elf hills in the fjord.
Same rule applies. Humans look up. Elves look down. And yet, if you climb the Alfaborg, you’ll meet many images of elves cast by your mind and stone at the same time, so you can’t really tell the difference. Here’s one.
Not really looking down or up at the one-to-one level. I think this is called the theory of relativity, invented by Icelanders long before Einstein got to it.
Iceland’s Elves Are Scarcely Hiding at Midsummer
It’s one of the things about the height of summer in Iceland: everything comes alive. Lichens give elvish faces to every rock, water moves more mysteriously, and the faces that peer from nearly every rock are more intense. You should have no difficulty spotting many faces in the rocks round this little waterfall on the Stapavík Trail.
Thing is, some of them are more intense than others and hit somewhere very deep inside one’s spirit.
See that yet? maybe? Maybe not? Let’s look again, then:
The elves are never far.
Bakkagerðiskirkja in Black and White and Green
In 1914, local boy Johannes Kjarval was starving. Ladies in town asked him to paint an altar for the Bakkagerðiskirkja, the Bakkagerthi Church. He’d spent his childhood herding sheep on the mountain and dreaming of elves, so he painted Christ giving the Sermon on the Mount on the Alfaborg, the elf city behind the church, with all the townsfolk listening, elves and humans.
It has yet to be consecrated by any bishop! But if you go to visit it today, you can see his Iceland still. The elves have been replaced by tourists in campers, and the church remains in darkness, as all good Icelandic interiors are, with 1,000 years of turf houses in their memory.
The Icelandic subconscious lives in a darkness warmed by human presence and looks out through small windows into the light, which is the Earth and not the sun. It’s simply the way it is.
City of Elves
70 metres north of the old island, Petersey, one of Iceland’s main elf cities faces the old sea coast on the South Iceland shore. The elves aren’t shy. Interestingly enough, though, Highway 1 runs north of the city, and no road signs point the way. Fair enough. They are the hidden people, after all.
Spiritual Petersey
It’s so easy to drive past the elf city to get to the Black Sand Beach.
It’s also so easy to stop by.
A Seaside Cottage in Vopnafjörður
For elves. Very modern elves.
Big Things Come from an Elvish Cat
In elf country, off in Borgarfjörður Eystri, you can never be sure. Is it a cat? A mouse? A cat and a mouse? Elves playing at both? Or a whole elvish family, complete with cat and mouse, all sharing a long tail?
It was in these dells that the boy Johannes Kjarval herded sheep and slowly became a painter.
Kjarval at Work and Play
No wonder.
A Farm in Iceland 