Country Believes in Magical Elves

Like, the fudge cookie-making kind? People of Iceland are protesting the construction of a new road development that would disrupt the countryside because it would displace supernatural forces, including an “elf garden.” A fortune teller of sorts believes that the field is inhabited by elves, huldufolk (hidden people), and dwarves. The new road would get in the way of “a very important elf church,” the seer said. This comes as no surprise to the Icelandic government—a chief spokesman told The Atlantic: “We value the heritage of our ancestors and if oral tradition passed on from one generation to the other tells us that a certain location is cursed, or that supernatural beings inhabit a certain rock, then this must be considered a cultural treasure.”