Encounter Atlas
Huldufólk means 'hidden people'. In Icelandic tradition they look and live much like people, farming and fishing in a parallel world inside rocks, hills and lava fields, and they show themselves only when they choose. Many Icelanders use 'elves' and 'hidden people' for the same beings. One old story says they are the unwashed children Eve hid from God.
The tradition is still alive. Icelanders leave food out at Christmas, light candles on New Year's Eve when the hidden people move house, and hold elf bonfires on Twelfth Night. Surveys suggest most Icelanders will not rule the hidden people out, though few say they are certain. Folklorists note that the stories also teach respect for a harsh landscape.
Road works have repeatedly run into this belief. In 1971 a bulldozer kept breaking down on Álfhólsvegur ('Elf Hill Road') in Kópavogur, and newspapers blamed elves in a large rock. In 2013 protesters, some citing elves and many citing the lava itself, halted a road through the Gálgahraun lava field near Garðabær; in 2015 the road authority moved a rock said to be an elf church, Ófeigskirkja, rather than destroy it.
What witnesses report
- Machinery breaking down near a particular rock
- People in old-fashioned clothes who vanish
- Lights or voices in lava fields
- Dreams of grey- or green-clad visitors
Famous cases
- 1971Bulldozer trouble blamed on elves at Álfhólsvegur
Kópavogur, Iceland - 1982Group searches for elves at the NATO base
Keflavík, Iceland - 2011Rockfall on residential streets blamed by some on hidden people
Bolungarvík, Iceland - 2013Road through the Gálgahraun lava field halted by protests
Gálgahraun, Iceland
Seen the Huldufólk?
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