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The April issue of Vanity Fair has an article that shows us that belief in "the Hidden People" or "huldufólk" among Icelanders is alive and well. (http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/f...urrentPage=all) "The Hidden People" include elves, dwarves, and other "fairy folk." According to a 2007 poll, 54 percent of Icelanders don't deny the existence of elves and 8 percent believe in them outright, although only 3 percent claim to have encountered one personally.
The huldufólk are thought to live in another dimension, invisible to most. They build their homes inside rocks and on craggy hillsides, and they seem to favor lava formations. The port town of Hafnarfjördur, near Reykjavík, is thought to have a particularly large settlement of elves—as well as other mystical beings like dwarves (who also fit under the broad category of huldufólk). According to local clairvoyants, the huldufólk royal family lives at the base of a cliff in that town.
Belief in elves is so prevalent, that one can make money as a clairvoyant "elf-spotter" (and even be paid by the government) to make sure building projects will not be interrupted by elven chananigans.
My question is this. In light of a literal interpretation of Genesis, can the existance of elves in Iceland be disregarded?
__________________ “The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense." -Bishop John Shelby Spong
"It is not the obligation of the State to reconcile various faiths with reality. Do it yourself." -Atomweaver
"We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster."
- Carl Sagan (Demon Haunted World)
54 percent of Icelanders don't deny the existence of elves and 8 percent believe in them outright, although only 3 percent claim to have encountered one personally.
Sorry to nitpick, but I've been taking a few research methodology classes... and it seems that poll was worded in a way that's kind of biased. The questions "do you deny the existence of elves" is going to get a much different response than "do you believe in elves?" The former doesn't take "elf agnostics" into account, and these agnostics may skew the results making it look like more people believe in elves than actually do.
Although I must say, 3% of the population claiming to have encountered extradimensional elves is pretty impressive... I think I just found my new career xD
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Sorry to nitpick, but I've been taking a few research methodology classes... and it seems that poll was worded in a way that's kind of biased. The questions "do you deny the existence of elves" is going to get a much different response than "do you believe in elves?" The former doesn't take "elf agnostics" into account, and these agnostics may skew the results making it look like more people believe in elves than actually do.
Although I must say, 3% of the population claiming to have encountered extradimensional elves is pretty impressive... I think I just found my new career xD
I think the way I presented the data is fair. 8% said they believe in elves, while 54% said they don't discount them.
__________________ “The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense." -Bishop John Shelby Spong
"It is not the obligation of the State to reconcile various faiths with reality. Do it yourself." -Atomweaver
"We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one understands anything at all about science and technology. This is a clear prescription for disaster."
- Carl Sagan (Demon Haunted World)
Well I always wonder where the idea of elves and "little People" etc come from.
It seems to me that some things from mythology and such, can or do have some basis in reality, even if it's been passed down in a different form, been embellished or exagerated etc.
After all, remember those really small people they found on that island a few years ago (the name, frustratingly, has gone completely out of my head). But they (the adults) were only about 3/3 and a half foot tall if I remember rightly.
If there were people like that around anywhere, they could maybe give rise to tales about dwarves, even goblins, elves, whatever....especially if they lived in isolated communities and were rarely seen.
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