The Icelandic Hidden Folk

If I were one of the Hidden Folk, I would want to live here!

http://msnvideo.msn.com/?channelind...d#/video/d68aecd9-4ed8-473e-9509-d9dfc98078eb

Beautiful, thanks for that GD - it made my morning! I've wanted to visit Iceland for a long time and seeing this has made me want to go even more. It is certainly an incentive to get saving....

You've got to respect a country that takes its land-spirits seriously.

greatdane said:

Since this is the place for all things spiritual, magical and mystical, I wanted to post this here.
This is not the first I have heard of this. Do I know if this is true? No. But I don't know that it isn't either ;-). There are things science can't explain, doesn't mean they aren't there. So I choose to entertain the possibility that maybe there is something we don't understand here. http://news.msn.com/world/icelands-hidden-elves-delay-road-projects
Anyone else see this film? It is worth it for the photography alone, no matter what you choose to believe. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308224/

Click to expand...

never saw the film. Would love to watch it. But, yes, in this family we DO believe in the little people.

I can remember my maternal grandparents telling us stories about "the little people". My grandfather was from Ireland, and he looked like a leprechaun to me--I fully believed he was one. My grandmother, also Irish, often told us to respect and be good to them and we'd be blessed in return.

My husband and I have a variety of the little people living with us, a pair of cloth North Pole elves climbing the lamp pole in our living room, while another delightful Christmas elf sits in his chair in the bedroom upstairs. A pair of ceramic Swedish Tomte sit proudly on our coffee table and warm their hands at the candle that sits between them, burning brightly. Other elves scattered through out the home and in the workshop in our barn- you never know where you'll find one!

While the above are obviously store bought, they add a bit of whimsy to our lives and we do believe in the "little people". Like you said, do we know for sure it's true? No, we don't. But we also do not know for sure it is not true! So, we'll follow our grandparents and other ancestors lead and believe in them and do our best to show them the respect they deserve.

Lets hope that Iceland listens and does not go ahead with that highway. It would be a great loss for the country as a whole.

To quote a famous line in a famous Christmas movie about a big jolly elf....

I believe. I believe. I know it may be silly, but I believe.

will mention, the hubby & I are headed to Iceland and then off to Sweden in a few months. I'll have to keep my eyes open to see one of these delightful elves.

Harpur cites an interesting('historical' ) story in 'Daemonic Reality' ; a visitor from an another country is in some (cant remember) Gaelic country walking down the road at night in the countryside with his local friends. A clatter and clamour comes towards them in the darkness, and in a bit of a panic they bolt off the road and into a field. A strange procession of spectral people on horses and carriages rush by and off the road , across a field and INTO a near by hill.

Then the local relax and go "Oh ... its all right, its just the fairies coming back to their 'fort'. "

The original teller of the tale, as well as being stunned at witnessing the event is also stunned about how casually the locals viewed it . To them it seemed more natural and less startling than what they originaly thought; that there was a band of (human) strangers travelling at night through their country.

My great uncle in Sweden saw a Tomte (with an .. or umlat, over the o) when he was young, stopping the water wheel to their farm.
My great grandmother was awoken by one, who told her the barn was burning, when the barn was just starting to burn, so was able to save it.

Cool, Kaarma!

Love that Karrma!

I think it is only when humankind got so full of itself and stopped believing in things we didn't understand or that were different, we stopped...seeing.

Yes ... I think it happens when we culturally 'loose soul' . Traditionally here, indigenous people have NO separation between soul and place ... even 'private subjective' soul seems indistinct to ' collective objective soul -or Anima Mundi with them . The more we are dispossessed with our connection to environment ... the more we disrupt and clear the environment, the more soul we loose and the less habitation we have for the 'other world'.

Soul has been under attack since Aristotle, the 3rd century Church rulings, the Industrial Revolution, certain philosophers, scientists and power trippers ... poor soul ... it has been as ravaged as the environment

Maybe, but the same "soul" can, and did, lead to the Inquisition, and worse. Where is the line drawn? Why are "colorful" or "quaint" (condescension deliberate) local traditions such as these or fairies alright, but organized religion, which may hold much the same views, is bad? Not that I an deliberately trying to be a Scrooge, but I don't like double standards.

Be nice to the hidden folk and you will get luck, or love the Savior and be accepted into Heaven? You ought to listen to me, I am right, as fairies talk to me regularly, as does the Son of God.

I believe that the greater power of mythology is what it can teach us about ourselves, myths teach us how to be heroes. Why relinquish that power in favor of some deity, especially local deities belonging to completely different cultures and that have simply been appropriated and sold as a commodity?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprQGmZ3Imw