Rhiannon
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respect the elves
Mar 27, 2015, 12:44
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/25/iceland-construction-respect-elves-or-else
"Iceland is full of álagablettir, or enchanted spots, places you don’t touch – just like the fairy forts and peat bogs in Ireland. They’re protected by stories about the bad things that will happen if you do."
Yes it's probably all a bit bonkers*. But if it makes people think twice before ploughing a road through some amazing bit of landscape then I don't mind. The road in the article had been held up for eight years!
*If any elves are listening, I don't mean this.
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Squid Tempest
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Re: respect the elves
Mar 27, 2015, 13:05
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Splendid!
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thesweetcheat
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Re: respect the elves
Mar 27, 2015, 15:20
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Splendid x 2!
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tjj
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Edited Mar 27, 2015, 18:30
Re: respect the elves
Mar 27, 2015, 18:29
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“The elves stand for living in harmony with nature,” says Kolbrún Oddsdóttir, a landscape architect who worked with a seer to produce a series of tourist maps recording sites associated with elves. “They provide a metaphor for living sustainably with the resources we have...."
Lovely article. The first time I visited the Polisher Stone near Avebury we walked through a 'fairy ring' of large field mushrooms. The visit was magical and memorable.
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carol27
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Re: respect the elves
Mar 27, 2015, 20:58
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I was walking round our local park with the kids a few years ago, when we came across a near perfect circle of fly garrett. It was wonderful, a real fairy ring, we went back every night after tea to see it till it just disappeared. I haven't seen it since. It was straight from a story book, bright red with white spots.
I've just seen a documentary about elves & trolls etc in Iceland on YouTube called the Invisible World ( I think); also The Fairy Faith. The people on these programmes all talk so matter of factly about what they've seen. My favourite tale was told by a chap who was hill walking in Scotland; he stopped for a rest & dozed off only to wake up to find two little folk cutting round his shadow with a pair of scissors!
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Rhiannon
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Re: respect the elves
Mar 28, 2015, 10:26
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excellent, I've never heard of those films. But I'm going to watch the first one right now, since it's grim outside
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRjatXe5bis
thank you!
Also, mushrooms are great aren't they. Someone brought me some of these at work the other day and they're so bright red with weird little stems
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarlet_elf_cup_%28Sarcoscypha_coccinea%29_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1170770.jpg
And, we animals are more closely related to them than either of us are to plants. That's not even a 'I read it on the internet' fact (although I did read it on the internet). It's Actual Science.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC48023/
happy hunting
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baza
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Edited Mar 28, 2015, 22:24
Re: respect the elves
Mar 28, 2015, 17:24
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Returned home yesterday from a road trip around Iceland.
It's the only place I've been to with absolutely no signs of any prehistory.
Supposedly, Irish monks arrived there between 600-800a.d., before the Vikings, and there was no one there to attempt to convert.
Passed by the area of Ofeigskirkja on Thursday but was unable to find the stone.
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Howburn Digger
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Re: respect the elves
Mar 28, 2015, 20:11
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I read this angle on it the other week.
http://www.mbl.is/english/news/2015/03/18/elves_make_compromise_with_road_administration/
As for who got there first... this is worth a read.
http://www.strangehistory.net/2014/12/16/roman-coins-iceland/
Lovely stuff.
https://www.academia.edu/6358362/Roman_coins_in_Iceland_Roman_remnants_or_Viking_exotica
Oh and I loved this album. The opening instrumental "Íslandsklukkur" is just brilliant and the album just keeps going.... The artwork is great. (the dl link and password is in the 1st comment).
http://folkyourself.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/various-artists-icelandic-folk-music.html
There's the evening sorted out.
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tjj
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Edited Mar 29, 2015, 16:57
Re: respect the elves
Mar 29, 2015, 16:55
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Sorry to hark back to Robert Macfarlane again (Landmarks). One of his chapters is about 'North-mindedness' where he talks about the work of Peter Davidson's book
'Distance and Memory' and 'Artic Dreams' by Barry Lopez. He writes "Throughout their writings recurs the idea that certain landscapes are capable of bestowing a grace upon those who pass through them or live within them. The stern curve of a mountain slope, a nest of wet stones on a beach, the bent trunk of a wind-blown tree: such forms can call out in us a goodness we might not have known we possessed."
I am sure this is what is meant when sometimes an experience of land, water and elements is described as magical.
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thesweetcheat
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Re: respect the elves
Mar 29, 2015, 17:02
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That is spot on. Nice quote.
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