Back in 1998, I think it was, a friend of mine started emailing and following the work of a very interesting poet and artist named Birgitta Jónsdóttir.  Back then she had not yet become famous as an activist and no one ever thought there would ever be nor be a need for Wikileaks.  And back then, Iceland had the rest of the world had not anticipated another global financial crisis.  So, we were able, instead, to chat away about elves and faeries and music and folklore and artwork and poems.

Back then we were able to admire poems and songs about the Huldufólk never imagining that our innocent friendship based on art and music and dance would get our phones tapped because we were friends with a friend who had rocked the international boat.  I find it ironic, that had we been friends with an advocate for FAERIES say as late as 1840 in a strict Protestant town or strict Catholic one, we would have been outcasts and have been viewed with suspicion as well.

But back in the late 90s and for several years, I was happily reading about a SCHOOL where you could learn everything you ever wanted to know about ELVES!

The Boston National Public Radio station WBUR promoted the school in 2019 with a story that quotes Headmaster Magnus Skarphéðinsson

“I’ve met more than 900 Icelanders and 500 foreigners from 40 countries that have seen elves. Three hundred and eighty have talked to them; 170 have talked with them more than once; 65 or 70 have had a lifetime friendship with them …; and 15 or 16 have been invited into their houses in another dimension“.

It’s pretty hard to discount the personal accounts – again NOT STORIES – of so many people! It wasn’t until the United States military started admitting that pilots and seamen and ground forces had seen UFOs that most people stopped scoffing. So putting aside anyone’s disbelief that there are highly intelligent beings or entities who appear to possess magical abilities or one or more siddhis –

There are a few videos on YouTube about a lovely lady that gives tours of the Elf Garden in Hafnarfjordur less than 6 miles from the Reykjavik International Airport.

One such video is done by Paula Froelich. I made this clip. I hope to extract a few more but the program that I found that actually worked (after trying several and reading several articles and blogs about extracting clips) is down awaiting an upgrade. Sigh!

The comments are very unkind – not about Ragga thankfully. You can watch the entire video by clicking on the comment. I suggest possibly reading all the comments first.

I find extremely useful information in comment sections. Those that also can see elves posted their accounts. Although the video is professionally filmed, I found Paula’s attitude to ruin the interview – especially the divination scene at the end.

A much better interview with Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir (Ragga) allows her to just talk and walk around the park. It’s not a commercially produced video but it lets Ragga explain just what she and others see and hear.

A lively travelogue by Joan Jetsetter, a travel expert and producer, was quite good.

In yet another interview, Poppy Koronka writes that while speaking, Ragga began to describe several beings currently in her sight. 

‘I’m looking across a fjord”, she said, looking out the window at the Mountain Devas Ragga said she could see on the peaks in the distance.  “They’re huge. Like guardian angels of the area, they are constantly sending and transmitting energy between each other all over the place, it’s like a net of light all over the world”.’

So why DO I believe Ragga and all the other people from around the world who have seen elves, dwarfs, gnomes, devas, angels,and/or nature spirits of various sorts? Because, and this will be a topic for a different post, I walked into my mother’s nursing home room back in 1999 I looked right at and heard (in my mind’s eyes not with my eyes) what I can only describe as a demon standing next to my mom’s roommate as she lay dying.

Okay, so that sounds crazy EXCEPT that the floor nurse and one of the CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistant) told me the woman died shortly after I left the room and that THEY both had seen it. In fact, it had shown up precisely 3 days before the old lady died. From all accounts, unseen beings have a habit of showing up exactly 3 days before someone dies.

Thanks to Alice Hurst, this section has now been re-written to make the timeline of what happened a lot clearer. It still creeps me out writing about it all these years later.

I had gone to the nursing home to pick up my mom’s laundry which I did every week. I’ll write about this in another post. The point I want to make here is that when I returned to the room, the floor nurse and the CNA came running towards me to warn me that the woman had died. When they saw the look on my face they both stopped short and said “OMG YOU saw it!”. And that’s when my account of what I had seen and heard came blurting out in a fit of hysteria. And that is when they both told me how, although they were used to seeing (WITH THEIR EYES) all kinds of beings arrive at the bedside of the dying – they had NEVER seen anything like this thing. What shook them to the core was they were afraid to look at it and it never spoke to either of them.

ME – it told me to get the FUCK out of the room. And that’s when I got pissed off. But, like I said, that’s a whole blog post for another time. Have I seen nature spirits? No! But I can tell when there is, what the Buddhists call, a sentient being in a room or garden near me or in some cases tugging on me. But, unlike Ragga, I have not seen them. I hope she never sees what I saw. I would not wish that on anyone – well, not intentionally.