Abstract
Iceland’s landscape is vast and imposing, ruled by unpredictable, magnificent, and sometimes harrowing natural events. Drawing on the work of preeminent scholars of eco-linguistics, cultural geography, and queer ecological theory, this paper explores how Icelandic folktales, stories, and legends populate Iceland’s landscape and influence Icelandic peoples’ relationship with the environment. Using discourse analysis, this paper analyzes over 150 translated folk legends, short stories, and “modern” legends from five anthologies and from ethnographic research conducted by two renowned scholars of Icelandic folklore, as well as Icelandic scholars of geography, anthropology, folklore and the environment. In particular, the huldufólk, or Iceland’s mythological “Hidden People,” are central to Icelandic identity, culture, and social history. In the face of tensions from the forces of capitalism and globalization, industrialization and modernization that threaten changes to the Icelandic landscape, Icelanders must reconcile dominant paradigms of progress with their own understanding of the landscape and their folk history. As they negotiate the tensions between progress and traditional identity, the non-normative subculture of the huldufólk may help explore the relationship between Icelandic folklore, identity and geography.
“That kind of thing is worse said than unsaid, and anyone would think that trolls had been moving your tongues,” from the “Tale of Thornstein Staff-Struck” in Forty Old Icelandic Tales, compiled by W. Bryant Bachman, Jr.
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Acknowledgements
I’m incredibly grateful to William Leap, for his thoughtful guidance in the development of this research, and to Terry Gunnell, for providing access to his rich body of work. American University supported this effort through access to their library resources.
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Feder, S.L. (2022). “Trolls Had Been Moving Your Tongues:” Language, Landscape, and Folklore in Iceland. In: Niedt, G. (eds) New Directions in Linguistic Geography. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3663-0_9
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