The Mundane Magick of Iceland

I’d said before that I thought Iceland was a magickal place. A place where magick hides in plain sight, and where its rich Norse/sorcerer traditions permeate nearly everything around the place if you know what you’re looking at. And then there’s that whole thing with the elves…

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Somewhere a little over half of all Icelanders report to believe in the Huldufólk (Hidden Folk) which is a catch-all term for elves, fairies, gnomes, trolls, and even men who seem to live “one dimension over” from us (here in Malkuth). Of these believers, a little over 10% have a strong belief, in the “grandma’s stories/saw them personally as a kid/still talk to them regularly” spectrum. Naturally, psychic talent also seems related to the latter, and there is even an Elf-school in Reykjavik (which caters more to the tourist no doubt, but still…) where one can go to learn about the history of the Huldufólk in Iceland…

I wanted so badly to see one, but they say if you go looking for elves you’ll never find them… but who knows, perhaps I did anyway…? More on that later…

Now while the rest of the far more “rationally minded” Icelanders don’t take the whole thing very seriously, neither are they willing to cross the Hidden Folk either. As a result, a great many building projects around the country have been altered, or even cancelled, rather than risk upsetting a special tree or rock belonging to the elves or what have you (or perhaps more to the point, risk upsetting that 10 – 50% constituency…). Regardless, I take this all as the country’s tacit acceptance of a magickal world, and as such I believe it has a lot to do with the vibe of the place. I think it may also explain the resurgence of the Asatru (Norse) tradition there, even to the point where a very modern Asatru temple is being built on the outskirts of Reykjavik right now… I’d love to visit the finished temple one day.

Now, while the Norse stuff still permeates things to an enjoyable extent, the country itself voted to convert to Christianity in the year 1000 AD, so we have to respect that for what its worth, even if it did likely give rise to the advent of folks wearing the Hammer of Thor (Mjolnir) as something of a response to the “official” crucifix that was likely becoming far most fashionable post-conversion…

As it was literally just around the corner, Jenny and I paid a few visits to the impressive Hallgrímskirkja Church. I’ve seen a few cathedrals in my day, and while I was certainly impressed (especially by the organ), Jenny became very spiritually overwhelmed every time she set foot inside the place. She started paying it daily visits while we were there, lighting a candle each time and doing her own little candle magick… and the things (big, secret things) she’d done her work for then began to manifest day after day. I can scan the headlines and I see results, but I can say no more on that…

Now, I’d mentioned how cool the Air BNB place we got was, but I didn’t really go into the synchronicity of it. Turns out Arngrímur Sigurðsson isn’t just an artist, but also a part-time cryptozoologist and researcher into the Icelandic magickal traditions. In fact, his book Museum of Hidden Beings which we picked up at a local bookstore is the result of much of his folklore gathering.

However, after picking through his shelves a bit, Jenny also discovered a book “Sorcerer’s Screed” which I became immediately taken with. Written by Jochum Magnús Eggertsson (or his magickal name Skuggi, which means “Shadow”) this is an edition of Icelandic magick that I don’t think you can (easily anyway) get in the States.

While it’ll require a lot of additional study and effort before I’m ready to attempt anything in here, I was totally taken by the vast sigil and rune work within (called “staves”), as well as the approach to attempt to blend the Norse and Christian traditions into the same working (a personal interest of mine), and so willing forked over the $40 to bring this treasure home with me as well.

But, speaking of interesting magickal accoutrements we acquired… at the flea market where we met the cool jeweler, the earrings Jenny bought from him were each made of a real raven’s talon (which she promptly named Huginn and Muninn) while I (equally inspired) picked up a Mjolnir pendant which he had carved from a sperm whale tooth. I’ve often talked about bridging the gap between the old and new aeons, and based on some of the blending of traditions expressed in Sorcerer’s Screed, the cross/hammer necklace seems an appropriate way for me to express that.

We were also sure to drop by the local occult store Gjafir jarðar where we picked up a few local stones, including a nice shard of amethyst and a really striking piece of obsidian that I picked up for a fellow magician.

Jenny also found a protection charm to be hung from a car’s rear view mirror (she’d been searching for one for ages) and so we got that as well, and it now protects our little Yaris.

Now, seeing the Northern Lights has long been on my bucket list, but the weather was less than forgiving the week we were there. One evening’s trip was cancelled due to the cloudy weather, and the other night we tried it actually rained, and so we could barely see the moon through the clouds, let alone any possible activity in the upper atmosphere. The tour we went out with took us out past the Keflavik airport to come “real country dark” near the site of an abandoned NATO base.

Windy, cold, and quite wet, Jenny and I still decided to investigate nearby, and there found a mysterious place dominated by two huge boulders, and identified by a nearby sign (next to one of those ancient man-made pile of stones) as Hanging Rock. The sign went on and on about the Norse gods, but while it did include an odd image of what looked like an illumination of a man being hanged from a tree, (I tried to snap a picture but it didn’t come out) there was no information as to why this place was actually called Hanging Rock (and neither did our somewhat clueless tour guides).

I’ve since researched and can’t find any more info on it (other than videos of people climbing it), but at the time couldn’t help making the comparison to Odin hanging from Yggdrasil and wondered if perhaps someone somehow thought it happened there… though it’s just as likely the Icelanders used to just hang criminals there or something…

Nonetheless, the place had quite a haunted vibe to it there in the dark, so we decided against approaching the huge boulders and went back to the bus. Seeing the Northern Lights was a bust this trip, but that just gives me one more reason to come back another time.

Now (since I hinted at it enough by now) I should probably explain my own possible encounter with the Huldufólk. While Jenny is definitely convinced I saw an elf while we were doing our horseback riding tour, I’m still not completely convinced of what I saw. I will do my best to explain what I experienced from my own point of view and let you decide for yourself.

While were were happily trotting along through elf country (where locals had actually built little houses in their backyards for their elf neighbors) at one point I’d looked across the way and saw another lone rider moving along down another gravel pass passing perpendicular to ours. I mention this only to give you context, that is, my brain then wouldn’t think it odd to see another rider out in those lava fields…

Fast forward a bit… now while I really wanted to claim a rock from this place to bring home, the pace we were moving didn’t allow for stopping, so when a sudden jolt of inspiration struck, I reached over and plucked a piece of pine branch from the side of the road (asking for permission/forgiveness as I did so). Just then we rounded a little bend in the road, and off to my left I saw a pile of craggy stones with a larger shape on top (back-lit by the sun). Now what my brain first thought was that I was looking a silhouette of a horse with a rider standing next to it to the right. Then suddenly (my brain) saw the figure duck behind the rear of the horse and not come out the other side…

“That’s weird” I thought, and when I looked again there was definitely no figure, and as we began to circle around the outcropping, what my brain mistook for the outline of a horse was instead a larger craggy rock. Definitely confused, my rational mind raced as I stared intently at the rocks as we passed by them. Did I really see what I thought I saw? Was it just an optical illusion created by two different back-lit rocks that “moved” behind one another as I was moving? I looked and couldn’t see anything behind the first stone that I could mistake for the moving black shape. Plus now that I was much closer and had a new sense of scale, the “figure” (if I really did see what my brain told me) wouldn’t have been taller than a foot and a half to two feet high…

Then my horse spooked…

Without warning (or any prompting from me), my mount suddenly burst into a gallop directly away from the rock. The sudden burst of speed was quite a thrill really, but I pulled heavily on the reins and after shouting a few loud “whoahs” my horse slowed up and began walking normally again. Our tour guide began laughing and said “when the horses suddenly spook like that, we say it’s because they saw an elf”.

“Funny you should mention that…” I said, but decided to keep what just happened to myself. However, I did tell Jenny all about it later, and I think I’m probably more skeptical about it than she was.

There was still much of the natural wonder of that country we didn’t get to see, as well as other places to visit, such as the Elf Church and the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft, but those just seem like must-stop places when we return one day with friends as part of a magickal pilgrimage.

Point of interest… those so-called “Necropants” that are infamously on display at the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft are created using one of the spells in Sorcerer’s Screed. Don’t worry, I would never in a billion years ever want a pair, but still…

 

On our return flight home we flew over some of the epic glacier-carved mountains of Greenland, which was something to see first hand…

During our descent into BWI, I happened to notice we were flying over Fort Carroll and the Patapsco River. I really never appreciated the scale of the island’s placement in the river before.

It’s a (long) story for another time, but a friend and I once paddled a tiny 10 foot canoe through those (then) very choppy waters from the southern bank of the river (on the left there beneath the Key Bridge) across major shipping lanes to the fort… and then landed our canoe with the full intention of breaking into the old Civil War fortress… we even brought a grappling hook to help get inside…

And we would have gotten away with it too, if the Coast Guard hadn’t “rescued” us before we could get inside…

But as I said, another time…

 

Saturday 11/26/16-

Sun: Sagittarius-

Moon: Scorpio-

For my disclosure on this or any of my post or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.