By Sverrir Sigurdsson
It was late September 1953. The days were getting shorter and the nights darker. During the past six summers, I had been working as a farm hand at the Hryggir farm in Mýrdalur. I was 14 years old, and it would be time for me to find a different job next summer. During the past summers, I had forged a strong friendship with Eyþór, the young farmer at the next farm, Skeiðflöt. He was three years older than me but treated me as an equal. He trekked with me in the mountains, taught me how to shoot a rifle, showed me how to reverse his tractor-trailer into a shed. And he gave me unfettered access to his stash of books.
Now that I was no longer coming back every summer, I thought we should do something special. I was well aware of the superstition that permeated the country. Everyone knew of some supernatural event that they, or someone close to them, had experienced. Certain hills, cliffs and other landmarks were off-limits to humans.
‘’Let’s give our neighbors something interesting to observe.’’ I said to Eyþór on one of my last days before departure. ‘’You know the old raven’s nest in the cliffs past the church?’’ He nodded, his eyes sparkling with glee. He understood where this conversation was going.
The next day was perfect for our prank. The evening was pitch-dark; the moonless sky was overcast, and the wind was still. Armed with a flashlight, a fishing pole, a tin can filled with kerosene and a rag stuck in a hole of the lid, we clambered up the hill near the church until we were above the raven’s nest. There we lit the kerosene-soaked rag, used the fishing pole to swing the home-made torch over the edge of the cliff, and guided it into a crevice behind the nest. Perfect! The flame itself could not easily be seen from the road, but the shimmering light that bathed the upper part of the cliff was visible for miles.
I rarely visited Mýrdalur after this event. On one visit as a grown man, Solla the mistress of Hryggir, asked me with a knowing grin on her face: “It was Eyþór and you who planted the light in the cliff on that occasion, wasn’t it”?’ When I ruefully confessed, she told me that a group of women had been attending choir practice at the nearby church that evening. On their way home, the ghostly light in the cliff struck them with so much fear that they ran back to the church and spent the night at the farm next door. Locals cited this event as another proof that supernatural beings, either hidden people or elves, dwelled in the cliff. Looking back, I am not particularly proud of my achievement, but I still have to chuckle at the memory.
That cliff is not the only local abode for hidden people. During my time I was warned not to disturb a little knoll in the fields between Skeiðflöt and Hryggir. An aerial photo of the two farms on Eyþór's page on Icelandic Roots (IR#I427253) shows a band of untouched grass surrounding that small knoll. Everywhere else the grass has been mown and the hay harvested. The picture also shows how the national highway curves gently around the knoll without touching it. Evidently the human race still respects the hidden people in the area and gives them space to live peacefully.