Editing Elf (section)

==== Modern continuations ====

In Iceland, expressing belief in the ''huldufólk'' ("hidden people"), elves that dwell in rock formations, is still relatively common. Even when Icelanders do not explicitly express their belief, they are often reluctant to express disbelief.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.novatoadvance.com/articles/2007/10/24/novato_living/doc471fb91b8f622734769663.txt|title=Novatoadvance.com, Chasing waterfalls ... and elves|publisher=Novatoadvance.com|access-date=2012-06-14|archive-date=7 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207065640/http://www.novatoadvance.com/articles/2007/10/24/novato_living/doc471fb91b8f622734769663.txt|url-status=dead}}</ref> A 2006 and 2007 study by the University of Iceland's Faculty of Social Sciences revealed that many would not rule out the existence of elves and ghosts, a result similar to a 1974 survey by [[Erlendur Haraldsson]]. The lead researcher of the 2006–2007 study, [[Terry Gunnell]], stated: "Icelanders seem much more open to phenomena like dreaming the future, forebodings, ghosts and elves than other nations".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=40764&ew_0_a_id=290137|title=Icelandreview.com, Iceland Still Believes in Elves and Ghosts|publisher=Icelandreview.com|access-date=2012-06-14|archive-date=6 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206061839/http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=40764&ew_0_a_id=290137|url-status=dead}}</ref> Whether significant numbers of Icelandic people do believe in elves or not, elves are certainly prominent in national discourses. They occur most often in oral narratives and news reporting in which they disrupt house- and road-building. In the analysis of [[Valdimar Tr. Hafstein]], "narratives about the insurrections of elves demonstrate supernatural sanction against development and urbanization; that is to say, the supernaturals protect and enforce religious values and traditional rural culture. The elves fend off, with more or less success, the attacks, and advances of modern technology, palpable in the bulldozer."<ref name=hafstein/> Elves are also prominent, in similar roles, in contemporary Icelandic literature.{{sfnp|Hall|2015}}

Folk stories told in the nineteenth century about elves are still told in modern Denmark and Sweden. Still, they now feature ethnic minorities in place of elves in essentially racist discourse. In an ethnically fairly homogeneous medieval countryside, supernatural beings provided the [[Other (philosophy)|Other]] through which everyday people created their identities; in cosmopolitan industrial contexts, ethnic minorities or immigrants are used in storytelling to similar effect.<ref name=tangherlini/>