Message #265052

[Dakeya]

When Iceland was first settled the Vikings threw three sorts of hardy, half-wide beasts ashore to tame the land: Norwegian sheep, Irish cattle and kidnapped Irish folk. They depended on Irish slaves for centuries, continuing to raid northern Irish communities for fresh blood well past the turn of the millennium.

The Irish brought with them (their belief in) The Little People, who haunt the wild and windy spaces of Iceland as Huldufólk, the Hidden People.

Stories and magic about Huldufólk are similar to Greek myths and magic about chthonic entities, and may be a memory of the mysterious pre-Celtic "cattle people" of Ireland, who practiced underworldly rites with royal blood, counted their wealth in cattle and spread droving roads and overland-navigation cairns throughout Ireland.

To this day the Icelandic can point to particular cairns and say they were made by Huldufólk. One mustn't cast stones idly for risk of striking the Huldufólk, and one must respect graves and crossroads or risk a comeuppance from Huldufólk. If a stone won't come easily from the ground it's because the Huldufólk mean it to stay put, a rule that explains why certain "elf rocks" are bypassed by modern construction rather than being chipped or blasted away.