This Paranormal Life - #245 The Invisible Elves That RULE Over Iceland

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Iceland is home to an incredibly small population of only 320,000 people. The otherworldly landscape seemingly almost uninhabited. But looks can be deceiving. The huge majority of locals believe the country is full of a race of hidden, invisible elves known as the Huldufólk. Are the Huldufólk real paranormal entities or more myth than fact? Time for Rory and Kit to investigate.Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeSupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmEdited by Kami TomanResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can I get the power of invisibility? Can a spider get caught in its own web? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello! And welcome to This Paranormal Life. This is the weekly comedy podcast wherein paranormal investigators, Kit and Rory, investigate a different paranormal case and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not every Tuesday.

That's right. That was a weirdly structured sentence, but no time to... Kit, I is good. Rory, boy, across from me, how be? Fine sometime. Right, okay. Doing fine.

I hit my head. I noticed, yeah. On the way in. You're bleeding. How are you doing today? I'm doing as fine as i can be currently uh listener if you are if you're noting noticing that this week's podcast sounds a little bit different than it usually does that is because we are back home in northern ireland

recording this week hey holiday special if you will, we're on location. Not necessarily at a haunted location, but a familiar one at that, which is my childhood bedroom. Haunted by a lot of teenage emotions that live in the walls. Of course, yeah. A lot of dancing to emo pop. The ghost of Rory is still bouncing around these walls.

So yeah, this is a little bizarre. It's a little strange setup. It is strange to, after all this little strange setup it is strange to after all this time and for the podcast to only have uh kind of year on year become bigger and more successful that we are now for i think the first time recording in our literal childhood bedrooms i think you know success and failure are subjective. You know, those are terms that, they're goals that move person to person. You have hot pocket stains all over your pajamas and it's five in the afternoon.

I think being a grown man and recording an episode of your paranormal podcast in your childhood bedroom, two feet away from where you learned to masturbate is an all-time low for me personally by the way that was two weeks ago i learned about it i learned in the podcast studio in london so or even steven's brother admittedly a weird one thanks for bearing with us on the sound quality front but we hope that we can tap into some weird, youthful kitten Rory energy by being back in our childhood hometown. I will say, you should be hearing this sometime in January.

I will say today's case is kind of like Christmassy, New Year's, winter holiday adjacent, but that doesn't mean that it's fun or cute or not terrifying, Rory. I just want to make sure people take it seriously. This isn't like some... Just because it's snowy and has some pretty light-hearted characters throughout, it's not some Hallmark Disney cutesy shit, and I hope that that's clear.

Okay. It's far from a laughing matter. Today's story begins in 1930 in Iceland, the land of fire and ice. In the tiny town of Kopavogur stood an enormous rock. It had been there as long as everybody could remember. It was so well established that it had its own name. They called it Aulag, but despite it being an ancient landmark of the town, times were changing in Iceland.

They were working on a new infrastructure and some of these rural areas needed connecting up. The plan was to clear some obstacles out of the way before laying some new tarmac. When the workers arrived in Kopavoget, they came up against this giant hunk of stone. That's right, it was Aulic, the town's pet rock. Okay guys, get the big drill! We've got to get this boulder out of here! Okay, guys, get the big drill. We've got to get this boulder out of here. But as hard as they tried, they could not get this rock to shift.

Hey, boss, I'm not sure this is working. What year did you say this was? 1930. 1930, okay. So we're probably working with some prehistoric tools in terms of being able to move large objects. Probably ranges from small hammers to larger hammers. People who aren't in the construction industry won't know that things pretty much didn't change from the ancient Egyptian times until about 1987.

Yes, of course. Invented electricity and things moved along pretty rapidly. Tools basically digivolved from hammers to jackhammers, which is just a hammer you plug in and it goes buck wild people don't really invent tools anymore we kind of have something for everything that we need you know sorry this is spoken this is spoken as two people who don't do a single thing with their hands they're definitely still inventing tools by the way oh man it's like honestly aside from a freaking flashlight i

can't think of a new tool in my life all right all right that's quite crass so my mother is downstairs so watch your mouth all right let's let's she's within earshot so let's maybe stop saying and fleshlight and words like that well you okay said it sorry just be careful let me use uh let me use a different uh less crass example ever since they made these i have not needed a new tool so much worse what's worse than that uh that's a good point i i know what you mean it does feel like we are still just using uh many of the same tools of the days of yore. Why am I still using a screwdriver? Why am I still using a spanner?

Why do I need to own those things? I should have a magnetic levitating laser beam that can do my household DIY for me. I guess robots, that's the next step, is a robot. You just tell it to do those things. Got you. We'll get there eventually, I'm sure. Robot, pass me the fleshlight no that's not what he's for back to the construction crew hey boss i'm not sure this is working what the hell

their excavation machine had broken into a million tiny pieces before their very eyes well that might be a slight exaggeration, but they definitely stopped functioning. Not only that, the workers began to come down with a mystery illness. Uh-oh. The rock was proving difficult enough to unearth just with its sheer size, and now half the crew are too diarrhea-stricken to work. Okay, that doesn't sound like a mystery illness. It sounds like they know exactly what it is. Well, to be honest, they don't know that it was diarrhea. I'm just going ahead on a limb and saying that. Okay.

No equipment they used could move it an inch. It was becoming a real problem. I'm wasting a lot of money. Build around the rock, right? Did no one think of this? I realize I am interrupting a lot and I do apologize. But build around the rock, right? I mean, it's a good point. You could build around it.

But, but, that just means you've got to build more road. I'm guessing road is expensive. When a boulder gives you diarrhea, it's time to leave it alone. It's time to pay the price, build extra road, and just go around it. Hey, no one said that boulder gave them diarrhea yet. Maybe it was something Sven or Gunnar brought for lunch that day for the whole crew. Okay, I'm willing to let that slide. He brought them boulder soup.

That's right. It was wasting a lot of money. A suspicious amount, actually. It was as if their funds were disappearing by magic. So much so that the project was abandoned and they left Owledge standing firm. Rory, you might be getting the sense that this is no ordinary rock. Yeah that's right it was the f***ing rock. Because the name Owlidge in Icelandic actually translates to elf hill. This rock was long known as the ancient home to a colony of elves. No way and also don't f***ing swear i told you about this earlier oh sorry man she's literally two doors down she can hear every word we say i'm still her little angel if she hears a foul word leave my mouth you said it's game over already you told me to stop saying it

i whispered and then you did a call back to the word fleshlight and i'm keeping my voice down because i want to be respectful of course but i also feel like you maybe shouldn't have agreed to host recording the podcast if you are this sensitive about the content which by the way has been this crass for many years i do i disagree i think we have a very polite little podcast a little good you've never described i don't know what he's talking about mother i never swear this is so hopefully she heard that so strange for you to like break the fourth wall like like there's thousands and thousands of people listening to this and your mother is maybe hearing something through the wall well she's

worth a hundred thousand people to me all right so how's that fair yeah the exchange rate from stranger to mother is actually pretty high i don't like your mom makes up for the advertisers and patrons i don't owe those f**kers anything and yeah i swore there because she'd want to hear me defending her honor so you're absolutely fine with that you you visibly piped up you even looked at the door when you said it you're not trying to keep your voice down at all. I'm swearing when I need to, to prove a point. And to let her know, I love my mom. You little bastard!

Sorry, I got it wrong. I whispered the loud bit and then swore. She doesn't know that you love her and she thinks I'm a bastard. Let's just move on. This is a train wreck. So ten long years after the first attempt to remove Elf Hill, the plans for the project re-emerged and construction arrived to continue the progress they'd made a decade earlier.

Ten years! We're working with power tools now, folks. It's 1940, bitch! We got more technology. It's just a machine gun aimed at the ground. Oh, hey guys, good to see you. Boy, ten years really flew by, huh? Feels like it was 30 seconds ago.

Anyway, Gunnar, get the big drill! But just like last time, their equipment broke down immediately. But this time, it wasn't diarrhea that struck the team. Instead, there were reports that a whole bunch of tools went missing. As if somebody, or something, was trying to sabotage their efforts. This could be the work of someone else. We're not talking about magic now. We're talking about people, creatures, interfering with the works.

It could be. It honestly could be. Someone wants to protect this boulder. And you might think, as Roy says, this was almost 100 years ago. They were using old timey equipment. But the next time they tried to move this rock was 50 years later in the 1980s. And the same thing happened. In total, there have been at least four attempts to move this goddamn rock, all resulting in broken drills. Known as the Diarrhea Saga, it spanned over

80 years. Dozens of adult nappy-wearing men descended on the rock, just drilling and shitting for days on end. It was like goddamn June, they had to wear special suits that recycled the goddamn diarrhea. These suits will recycle your diarrhea into electricity for the jackhammer.

It can keep going for days. This is arguably the most crass I've ever seen in a while. I know. You had to wait till my goddamn mother's in the house as well. You just punched up the joke. So I don't know what you're angry about you you you started it you left me the bait you gave me a soft toss and i knocked it out of the park you can't expect me to not take that bait even with my mother inches

from the studio she's not inches there's no way she would have to be literally hovering listening to the podcast i can borderline feel her breath on my neck as we record it's chilling i haven't heard anything since i don't think she's even in the house she's in she's in you obviously have a very complex relationship with your mother let's move on let's move on it said that on the last and most recent attempt to destroy this rock the workers refused to even touch it because word had spread across the region if the rock could destroy a drill what could it do to a man diarrhea rip him limb from limb potentially since that day the stone has been granted protected status and they eventually just sure your first idea built the new road around it yeah i would have thought they'd come to that

conclusion a little earlier well earlier than 50 years that's true i mean 1980s is that really uh i would have thought people would have been smart enough at that point to leave a site that feels like it should be protected alone. Yeah. And yet here we are in 2021 with the rainforest. So nevermind. I take it back. This thing reminds me of a fairy circle, you know, which is some sort of paranormal or supernatural object in the real world that you do not want to cross or disturb or mess

with in any way, uh lest you suffer the paranormal consequences and like we saw in the those stories with fairy circles people would build their whole farms around them as to not disturb them and we're seeing something similar here with this giant boulder absolutely i'm glad you brought this up clearly there are parallels i mean we're not that far from iceland here in ireland and we definitely share some of this same mythology as i said this rock is supposed to be home to a colony of elves and fairy circles are supposed to be home to a colony of fairies there must be something in common here yeah rory for all our time making this podcast i'm not sure we've ever explicitly talked about elves and certainly not specifically icelandic

elves i think because you know when most people think about elves we think about their pop culture depiction we think about them making toys on the north pole with santa claus sure um you wouldn't really think of them necessarily first when you think about paranormal creatures or spirits or cryptids or we think of the sexy variety personally um oh right legolas and and his uh friends of course yes i was thinking of small elves but there are of course sexy elves sexy elves. Yeah, absolute smoke shows. 100%. That's kind of what they're known for, being either small or very sexy or small and sexy.

You're absolutely right. They somehow fall more into the world of like fiction than the real paranormal. Yeah. But as you know, on this podcast before, we've covered dragons. We've covered leprechauns, banshees, a lot of creatures that would reside more in folklore than they would in the traditional world of the paranormal. And a lot of them have pretty gritty, real stories behind them as well. And the backstory is gritty and it's a supervillain backstory. Absolutely. First off, before we go any further, Rory, would you like to see some pictures of the type of rocks we're describing here such as elf hill yeah i really would because i want to

see why they couldn't just build around it the only reason this thing could have caused and should have caused any amount of headache is if this freaking thing is the size of a mountain. It would have to have been enormous for it to be this much of an issue. So full disclosure, I find it actually pretty hard to find a picture of the rock we just told the story about. But in this here Guardian article called Respect the Elves or Else, if you scroll down down there is a variety of examples of such elf rocks okay i'll take a little peek at these thank you very much uh it's pretty telling that the first image is it literally a construction crew attempting to remove one doing a pretty good job by the way this thing is airborne um They learned to stop drilling. Don't fight it.

That's a good point. You know, are the elves becoming upset because of disturbances to the rock or its location? I mean, if you were to move the thing intact to a different location, would that be something that they'd be upset about? It looks like they're about to find out. Oh, here we have a big one that... Wow, that one is pretty cool. That looks like a that looks like a dragon skull it does actually yeah i didn't even notice that it is about the size of a tractor um pretty huge you know with our modern day machines yes we could move it but i could see

how this could be a problem to the olden day folks you know short of dynamite i don't think there's going to be a good way to move these rocks nuclear rocks that is less of a rock and more of a hill that one is enormous it's huge it's worth saying that these rocks there's no consistency in them they're not even made of the same material one of them is is a perfectly kind of spherical boulder the other one is a craggly hill with grass patches on it. It'd be interesting to know who gets to dictate which one of

these hills is worth protecting and which ones are just garbage. It just comes down to do elves live in it? Do you got diarrhea or not, brother? Pass me some TP and

a drill and let's get to work. So Rory, we've seen their homes, but what are these elves? In Icelandic lore, elves are very specific creatures. It's not a catch-all term at all. They're called huldufork, which basically translates to hidden people. Because maybe the most important piece of information you'll learn today about these elves is that they're invisible.

WHOA! They're supernatural beings that live in nature and even though you can't see them, I still managed to find some physical descriptions. In Iceland, people seem to be split right down the middle in opinion. One source I found said, The elves are of royal lineage, tall, graceful and amazing, adorned in fine garments. What I'm hearing is sexy elves. Of course. What others say is that they more closely resemble regular people. In Faroese folklore, hidden people are said to be large in build, their clothes are all gray,

and their hair black. Interesting. So a lot more just like regular humans. Yeah, maybe there could be some different classes at work here. Maybe there's a hierarchy, some sort of royalty. That's maybe the ones that were discovered with jewels and crowns and royal gowns. And then you've got your regular working ones who just look like normal people. Absolutely. Interesting that they have these accurate descriptions, but they're also allegedly 100% invisible. Well, we'll get to it.

Okay. If you lick the rock, you can see them for 15 minutes. As you say, Roy, all of this doesn't matter because they're invisible. They live inside rocks and stones and are most often found along cliff tops and steep mountain sides. I even found a list of 18 places most important to the elves in Iceland, and it goes way beyond just different looking rocks. There's geothermal hot springs and pools to entire islands that the elves live on.

Wow, these little f***ers are eco-terrorists. What? Protecting their land with the wrath of IBS. You're an oil prospector. I can't live with the diarrhea anymore. The elves must be stopped. We must drill for oil on the island. So you're saying that there's a number of different locations

allegedly protected by these creatures. Dozens of the things. I think, to be honest, we're on the elves' land. They were there first. The elves existence has been documented all the way back to the invasion of the Vikings in 872 BC, which is crazy because I do feel like the Vikings were pretty hardcore and they were too busy fighting and pillaging to just make up something like elves. So they must really have had some evidence of these things. on the other hand i don't know

if vikings had clean drinking water so they literally had to constantly drink beer to survive so who knows what they were seeing paroi the hidden folk origin story goes like this it's believed they are direct descendants of adam and eve i did not see that coming the first two people on earth the story goes that Eve had some children that she hid from God. He found out and commanded, What man hides from God, God will hide from man. And thus an invisible race of people was born. Whoa. Which, alright, we were raised Christian. That story is new to me.

Sure, they let that one out. But it does sound remarkably on character for the Old Testament God that he would get angry and make the people invisible. This feels like nowadays when they're releasing a standalone movie about Buzz Lightyear, where he was really a spaceman. This feels like they've gone back to the bible and they're writing chapters in between the chapters we know where god was turning little people invisible right it's like i didn't know this happened in between part one part two this is kind of nuts and in this chapter adam got really into speed walking

uh for a couple months just just random fan fiction i will point out there is one other theory that the elves are fallen angels condemned by god that one is slightly more worrying it's strange that these all have quite deep religious roots because you would think that the same people who believe that the elves are real are maybe not the same people who believe in Christianity. Because Christianity then and the Bible would have mentioned the existence of these creatures explicitly, probably, right? You might think, but I don't know, man. Like a couple episodes ago, I banged on about like demons, like leviathans. And the Bible mentioned some of these these things alludes to other things

yeah uh there is quite a rich lore there that i wouldn't be surprised if there's some connection or some reference somewhere in the bible for something resembling this i guess you're right i mean we covered uh the banshee for example uh only a few months ago. And you gotta believe that a lot of the elderly residents of Cork are quite religious and also truly believe in the Banshee. Oh, absolutely. Since I've been back in Northern Ireland, I've been talking to quite a lot of family relatives

and on my wife's side and on my side about this old Irish tradition of the cure. And I hope we talk more about it in future. But if people don't know, here in Ireland and in Northern Ireland, there is a long tradition, older than Christianity or anything like that, where if you are the seventh son or the seventh son of a seventh son born in ireland okay you have the cure and you have a miraculous magical ability to cure one illness just one yeah so it could be a ringworm or it could be arthritis or some specific ailment how do you choose how do you pick do you

just is it someone you touch i don't think you do i think it just happens oh you just find out when you're a child or you know someone else who has the cure tells you is like by the way you've got the cure you should use it uh it's kind of crazy it's kind of nuts and i guarantee as you say your mother is listening inches from this door yeah uh if you ask her she will definitely know about it and potentially even know someone who has it that's crazy can you imagine if you were like the seventh son with the cure and you come back home to ireland to the bedside of your uncle who's dying from a mysterious illness and you're like all right I gotta I gotta get this right I only get one shot at this and you're approaching the bed and you're like uncle close your eyes and let the powers of Ireland wash over

the and right before you put your hands on his his sick little body your cousin comes in he's like hey billy how's it going man slaps you on the back did i tell you about the hemorrhoids that i got in my magical beams shoot out of your hands right up his ass oh you saved me billy uncle flatlining in the bed beside you is he all right should someone be checking on him somebody better have seven kids real fast that is crazy wait so set you have to have seven children or is it like uh you know the father is a child and he has a son who's also number two. You know, can it get passed down or is it like big family? No, that's a good question because people might not know.

But traditionally in Ireland, we have enormous families. Not the case in the modern day anymore. But 12 kids over here, you know, you don't have to tell me. Maybe one of those little bastards is magical. Doubt it, though. The seventh one. F***ing cursed, more like. Do you even know the name of the seventh child you had number seven number seven ben benjamin schmidt schmitty schmitty junior schmitty schmidt junior schmitty i have to stop

you sorry i was almost at seven the schmidt schmitty schmitty junior yeah how could how could your name isn't schmidt how could it possibly be schmitty junior because we already have a schmitty no he's the junior to schmitty i regret asking continue not how junior works but fine erica scarica is that not the set who's the seventh oh yeah we've actually run up run on a path here we've gone over a little bit scarica must be schmitty junior i reckon all right number seven has and his hands have only inflicted pain on his old man so i wouldn't say that he has the cure he has the disease unless you're the disease and he's trying to end you he tries to strangle me. I have the cure.

I have the cure to the worst father in the world. I mean, that's it. To be fair, there's a DC comic in there somewhere about an Irish Punisher-style vigilante guy called The Cure. He rides around taking out scumbags yeah that's pretty cool or or a villain who uh wants the world to be everyone on even playing grounds so he goes around irish families and killing the cure like hunting down the seventh son that's pretty cool that's copyright again i know we've said that on a few podcasts that's copyright uh to be honest now that i mentioned they might be fallen angels they are starting to sound more like villains than

heroes and to be honest more i read i'm starting to think they're the ones running society like an elf illuminati one survey made in 2007 found that 80 percent of icelanders refuse to deny the existence of elves okay the people of iceland basically live in fear of these elves all the folklore says you have to treat them with respect people leave out offerings of food for them all the time and there are stories of people who disrespected the elves land and then got severely ill had accidents happen suffered financial ruin lost loved ones or even died themselves wow so this is a big thing over there they really believe in this 80 that's crazy said they refused to deny not believe in them yeah there's even a taboo in iceland against throwing stones in case you accidentally hit a hidden person is that true

you can't throw a stone in case it just midair stops and you hear a little scream they're basically the mafia let me get this straight you can't talk shit about them you can't disrespect them you have to pay them protection money or gifts so they don't kill your family and they're also invisible they work in the shadows. They're the Yakuza. But this is one of the coolest stories. It said that on midsummer night, if you stand at a crossroads in the early hours, a hidden person might arrive and shower you with gifts. However, accepting these gifts will only bring misfortune. It's said that there are grave consequences for being seduced by their offers, but great rewards for resisting.

More than the treasure? More than the treasure that they were going to offer you? What the f*** are they offering? Class A drugs? Like, what could be so bad about these gifts? Yeah. Well, maybe it's like they give you the gifts and they're like, oh, here's a gold coin. And you're like, oh, wicked.

And then a truck hits you or something. It's like, all right, that was the punishment for taking the coin. Well, sure. It was a chocolate gold coin. Yeah, right. Here's a Rolex. And you're like, oh, dope. And then they chop off your wrist.

Yeah. But if they're like, here is a treasure chest filled with diamonds and jewels and rubies, fortunes from foreign mystical lands. And you're like, no like no thanks i know about the story i know that good things will happen if i decline it and these guys go well done you understand our tricks and ways the closest to chest and he's like now because of that good fortune will come to you very shortly all right could i get some detail i mean better than the chest full of jewels and gold and riches?

Not necessarily. Right. Well, so then I could have just taken the chest full of gold and jewels and riches. Oh, here's a good fortune now. He pulls out a coin from behind your ear. You are a single gold coin. That's a button.

I don't know if that's money or currency in your world, but to us, that is a button from a code goodbye now diarrhea for you no i didn't take the coins too many questions you pissed me off i'm gonna tell people you took the coins what technically you took the button i mean coins it's crazy uh yeah i think it's less that the good fortune is better than the treasure and more that if you take the treasure what do they say grave consequences if you take the treasure okay uh it's it's these people live in fear they do all right i can sense i'm slightly losing the

audience here and we need some evidence uh if belief in elves is so common there must be hundreds of first-hand stories from the people of Iceland. Here is just one posted to Reddit by user Kuzinets. They were relaxing and visiting the hot springs of Iceland one day and they write, when we finished using the hot springs, I entered our cabin and heard a noise like running with little legs. Maybe a mouse? But I didn't care too much, because I knew my bag was closed. After I changed, I felt a bit hungry, and knew I had a Snickers bar and an apple in my bag. When I looked into my bag, I saw that the chocolate was opened, the package was ripped

apart like I've never done, and somebody bit it. I was like, oh, I must have forgot I opened it earlier. Then I saw the apple was the same. Unfortunately, I only have a photo of the apple. Okay, okay, well, a photo is better than nothing. Um, all right. Yeah, it's a little bite mark. It's not how a grown human would bite an apple. Suspiciously small, you might say?

Yeah, well, it looks like it's been kind of gnawed on. You know when you bite an apple and you get a clean crunch and you kind of pull it out and it's like a smooth bit of apple? This is like mash. It looks like mashed potatoes. My friends didn't believe me. They just laughed, but I'm still confused. Even if it was a mouse, how did it know that it should open the chocolate? And as I said, my bag was zipped. All in all, there is no rational answer. It must be an elf. There's a huge, huge gap between elf or rat. I quite agree. I quite agree.

A man? A man opened his backpack and bit his apple? What would motivate a man to open a backpack and tear open a Snickers bar with his teeth, take a bite and leave the rest? I don't know. That is bizarre. There's weird people out there, man. I don't know. But maybe the best evidence for the existence of hidden people is the absolute gymnastics and lengths people in Iceland go to to protect them. People protest to protect elf land. Like in 1982, 150 Icelanders went to the NATO base in Keflavik in defence of, and these are their words, elves who could be endangered by American phantom jets and reconnaissance planes.

Love this. Love this. I'm gonna go ahead and guess that the guy who was commissioned to look for elf homes sat on his ass at home watching Netflix, and then the next day turned up and went, yeah, man, scarred it scarred the land for hours last night didn't fight a single elf house so i think we're good to go mate good to go boys burn it down there's tons of uh there's tons of pristine wildlife habitats on the land look you know even if i don't necessarily believe in in elves myself i'll take any excuse in the world to protect the environment and wildlife so whatever these

people want to say to make sure that these parts of iceland are untouched by the ravages of of corporations that's a big thumbs up from me couldn't agree more brother i will say the paranormal commune was built on a giant elf graveyard and sure we have been suffering the consequences yeah we don't talk about it much because you know i don't want to say they don't exist because that makes the luck get worse and it does get worse every time we say something bad happens big time um so you know it is what it is you know we take the good luck like we take the bad luck which is poorly because we got no good luck but you know rory maybe the closest we'll get to being there in iceland and seeing all this stuff firsthand is hearing from

someone who claims to be able to see the hidden people oh here we go now i'm interested in the process behind this is it some sort of goggles you could wear like the the magic goggles we covered last week the disanine cyanide goggles uh is it some sort of spell is it some sort is it training i'm gonna say it's unfortunately like maybelline you got to be born with it. Okay. The ad poses a question. Silence! Okay. This is an interview with a woman who claims to be an elf whisperer. That's right, half. And Iceland's elves even have their very own park,

located just outside of Reykjavik. Wow. Obviously, I had to go. Let's go try to meet some elves. But, as I am not an elf seer, I brought Raga, the park's elf whisperer. How many elves live in the city? I have no idea. There are

many, many types of elves. At least two types of Hildufolk. They're hiding pretty well, because I don't see any. That's maybe the main difference. They're in different dimensions. Oh. She's not up for nonsense or banter.

So she sees elves, trolls, and hoodoo folk all the time. Do they ever come out so people can see them? Yes. There are lots of people that see them. But, you know, not everyone. Clearly, I am not one of those people. So there was one thing I was still dying to know. So the elves, do they look like Orlando Bloom in Lord of the Rings?

She wants to know it too. Yeah, I think that's more like the Huldufolk. Oh, okay. I'm totally down with the Huldufolk. Sadly for me, the hot Huldufolk were nowhere to be found. Instead, I met Raga's elf friends. That's my childhood friend. Oh, hi, Pulte.

Sorry, she just said, that's my childhood friend, and the camera... It was an empty shot. Which, of course, it would be. It would be. Yeah, we laugh, but that makes more sense

than showing anything else. Interestingly, we know they are hidden and invisible. Does that mean they have to stay silent? That's true. Yeah. Are they? Yeah.

Are they muted to us? She said they were from a different dimension. She's like, there's my childhood friend. She's like, cool. All right. Hi. Nice to meet you. Yo, what's good?

Oh, my God. I do like that this host is in there like like oh so these elves are they sexy do they look like orlando bloom or you know what do these guys look like and this woman who takes her job incredibly seriously is like get the f**k out you are not taking this seriously leave immediately things didn't turn out so well for the last lady who didn't think take things too seriously there's like a corpse strung up oh my god get him childhood friend elf guard that uh lives in this house here oh really he doesn't allow any bad spirits or dark elves inside here just in case dark elves we didn't talk about that yeah i kind of missed that bit, to be honest.

Because it seems like we've only been talking about dark elves. Because none of these guys are the good spirits. I think these ones are the good ones. I don't even want to know what dark elves are. What is this? This is what I call the elf church. Okay. Are they Protestant?

The elf church is a hill. Sure. Yeah, let's not dance around that. For people who live in rocks, that... That checks out. They're not going to be in a f***ing 7-Eleven, are they? Wow. And whilst that lady seemed absolutely out of pocket,

I will say the top comment on this video from uh missy moon willow was i encountered elves and fairies as a child in the redwood forest of california it's too bad that so many of us dismiss them for a fantasy wow so these guys aren't even stuck to just one location as well they're making it out as far as california hey we all dream of going on a beach holiday to california it's true elves Even f***ing elves from Iceland. You know, whether my conclusion today is a yes or a no, that was a really nice video. That showed me a really,

that was a really nice representation of the relationship that these people in Iceland have with the elves, which is, you know, whether or not people truly believe that they exist or whether or not they think it's like a part of folklore and myth and legend that's still a fun location to have in your town and a and like culturally it's quite a cool thing that people can come and visit i mean it would be so hypocritical for us to laugh at that video and then go we also up the street have the giant's causeway that has a whole building that

claims that the site was built by a giant sure it's the exact same thing and i think you can have that experience um and enjoy it whether or not you believe a giant really did build it or not and whilst it does seem like the average icelanders belief in the elves is slightly more than any other culture around the world and how much they believe in the paranormal. It's absolutely true. If you look at the kind of animism or pantheism expressed by, let's say, different Native American tribes, you look at Shinto in Japan, it all kind of touches upon the same principle kind of idea

that we don't just have complete ownership over the land. There is a kind of spirit and life in all of these kind of lands and rocks and rivers and creeks that we should respect and not just tear down. Yeah, that's very, very, very, very true. Something which, as I said, if that's your excuse to protect the environment, I am a-okay with that. If Finn McCool said protect the rocks or i will batter you you best believe i'm not gonna say he doesn't exist it's so true and yet rory we can respect these traditions all we want but at the end of the day we have to disrespect them by glibly summing up the entire tradition in a yes or no of whether it's real or not so under the topic of icelandic elves the huldufolk do you think it's

real or not first off i think we disrespected the topic a long time ago i think when we said the words diarrhea boulder that pretty much sealed the deal all right but just in case any huldufolk are listening we didn't say it was a diarrhea boulder we just said that boulder gives you diarrhea of course of course um cut it though with the diarrhea talk because as i said my mother is here she's present in the house and even that even that okay it's crass but it's not like it's not even it's not bad doesn't fly in this house you're the one who's now swearing so let's just get to the conclusions um what a case that was a fun case i knew very little uh surprisingly about um iceland and their relationship with elves and that was surprisingly informative and well researched

so thank you to you and thank you to amy grizzdale our researcher let's be honest thanks amy grizzdale for researching this one um even though i had a blast today, I wasn't really presented with any evidence that would lead me to believe definitively that elves are real. Even when we have evidence such as an apple being chewed funny and a Mars bar that was kind of tussled about. Anyone could chew a Mars bar, sir,

but a Snickers? You need some tough nuts to chew those tough nuts. I'm still going to say, unfortunately, this week, it is a no. It is a no from me. I think I have to agree. I have not been to Iceland. I would love to go. I would love to live the experience of learning all about the Huldufolk.

But I agree. It seems like, to me, as a complete outsider, you might have to be an Icelander to really understand this one yeah because we don't have any physical evidence so i guess it's gonna have to be a no today a double no unfortunately rats we gotta get some yeses this year 2022 should be the year we really push for some yeses oh yeah couldn't agree more and if you think that you have a case that is a guaranteed double yes you can email it in this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com except there's still got to be paranormal guys sometimes i get the subject line guaranteed double yes and it's an axe murder uh so yes please keep it paranormal

uh it's like you guys are gonna love this one 9 11 no absolutely not it definitely happened it's a double yes for sure uh well we do appreciate all emails this partner life podcast at gmail.com like rory says yes if you've experienced hold of folk i would love to hear that story please send it through if you if your mars bar has been nibbled i didn't even think to check our analytics to see if anyone listens to iceland on the podcast surely they do we must have even a few listeners out there. Let's hope. I would like to hear that story.

Get in touch. That could be fun to tackle on a bonus episode. If we're like, hey, well, here's some people who actually listen to the podcast, who live out there, who got in touch with their stories. They're like, no, you called it diarrhea rock. F*** you.

Forever. You know, I can't promise you an instant double yes, because sure, you've got to wait till Tuesday for a regular episode of this paranormal life but there are almost 50 full-length investigations that if you're not a member of patreon you won't have heard before over on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life you can get access to a ton of some of the best episodes of this paranormal life for just five dollars patreon is the number one way to support this paranormal life meaning we will continue to make regular episodes and bonus episodes and to get something in return this has been a great episode

and i have enjoyed it very much i want you to know that okay uh but earlier this week i um you know christmas is a time we have a couple extra calories so i was like why don't i put some of that to good use and uh you know go to the gym start pumping some weights putting those calories to work 10 minutes in i blew out my back so hard wow you didn't mention this at all it didn't mention it all I've been suffering in silence for some reason I thought it would be a good idea today to podcast on the worst chair of all time

I don't know if you noticed this chair has no back there's no back to this chair it's an office stool I'm sitting on a nugget with wheels and I've been sitting here for an hour and a half now.

My lower back feels like it's going to explode. That's borderline paranormal. You want to feel old, folks? Try being a grown man with a bad back in your childhood bedroom. Now that's sad. You were sitting on a borderline unicycle. You look like a clown that's been hit by a truck but still has to keep working that basically sums up my whole life my whole professional career wow well thank you to rory

for holding in the pain uh somehow for that whole episode i feel like it did seep out in kind of unusual ways when you started getting very riled up about your mother being in the house for a recording she is and she was and you're go you're going quiet now as soon as i mentioned it even though you're just being normal a second keep it down all right keep it down all right i think she's she could be outside and i don't think she appreciates us talking about her on the podcast it's been like an hour and a half she isn't there well we don't know that because she's a polite woman all right she knows if we're recording a podcast to not interrupt she's actually pretty good when it comes to that kind of stuff and you're in her house by the way

so you play by her rules all right are there rules are there podcast recording rules there's rules about politeness and swearing all right you have swore at least as much as i have there's no absolutely not i was just following i was following in your footsteps i whispered i whispered it she can't hear it you little bastard all right well thank you to roy for keeping this on the down low thank you to amy grizzville for researching this week's episode thank you to cami toman for editing this week's episode thanks to mrs powers for hosting us in this wonderful venue sure yeah show some goddamn respect normally i would just say it on the way out of the house not like on the podcast to thousands and thousands of people

she doesn't listen by the way can we get a thank you to all the listeners out there just follow us on uh social media um we are on twitter at this part of life we're on instagram just send us a message and say hey just want to say thanks to mrs powers for another great podcast this week i i borderline supporting the boys i borderline because she's not going to see it i'll show her the messages she has a big ipad that she can read all right so weird with her glasses it's fine i didn't infer she couldn't read so just watch your mouth dude i think you're a thin ice because you're you're starting to stand up off the stool i think i'm about to get physical violence i'll take you with this back i'll take you with this bad back thank you to everyone

for tuning in this week we'll be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale and until then remember to live fast investigate and die she doesn't like

talking about death either no