it would appear that Eve had many children(???) and one day God announced he was about to pay her a visit. Eve wanted her children to look clean and presentable in His presence and scrubbed some of them. Some of the other children did not manage to get clean because God arrived much sooner than Eve had expected. In her haste she decided to hide these poor children instead of presenting them. The story continues that God was pleased with the children that he saw and asked Eve if she had any more. Of course Eve was dishonest about the existence of the others and thus cemented these hidden children’s fate who were destined to remain hidden forever.
They can make themselves seen apparently and are generally benign, but they can make terrible things happen to people who have deliberately disturbed or destroyed their dwellings.
My guide told me the story of a large boulder outside of Reykjavik which was reported to be the home of some huldufolk. In 1999 building constructors had great difficulty in building the new connecting road to the tunnel under the Whale Fjord to the town of Akranes. The construction equipment repeatedly broke down when it approached the boulder, which was scheduled to be moved. Apparently this story was reported in the local newspaper at the time.
I think that if a taxi driver were to start talking to me about elves and trolls whilst driving me through the English countryside, I would have jumped from the moving vehicle. Yet somehow it seemed perfectly natural to hear about these creatures whilst being enveloped in the swirling mists and the sparsely populated areas of Iceland and I hope one day that you will experience it for yourself.
Stuart Cheese is the UK Director of Operations for One World Tours and, having visited over 110 countries, has a wealth of travel experience. One World Tours / The Holidays in Iceland Specialists