Icelandic elves are not small people in pointy caps. They are as big as normal people, but transparent. Usually peaceful, they can be upset when their habitat is disturbed, for example by blasting dynamite through their houses under the rocks.

This is why the works for the building of a secondary road in Reykjavik was stopped.

The project had been approved, the excavators were in place, ready to start. But everything had to stop.

A lady living in the neighbourhood acted as a mediator. Claiming she can talk to them, she said that they agreed to the road as long as their "chapel", a 12-foot-high rock, was respected and moved elsewhere.

As Professor of Folklore Adalheidur Gudmundsdottir said, "You can't live in this landscape and not believe in a force greater than you".

And since elves seem the keenest protector of Icelandic nature and beauty, maybe we ought to respect and thank them.