You Couldn't Make It Up !

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27907358

I have read this twice and I am still not sure if I believe it ! You might expect this sort of thing in a backward, third-world country, but Iceland ? No wonder all their banks got into trouble...it was all the elves fault !

[Svejk]

their banks failed for ecognomic reasons.

[Frank97]

It's just a matter of Elfin safety!

[B00]

I love it!

So what if it's mad and mental? It's a bit of whimsy in a hard and cynical world, leave 'em to it :-)

[RandyMarsh]

charming story.

[Svejk]

it is improbable

[Old_Geezer]

Well be fair, there are gnomes in Zürich. Why not elves in Gardabaer ?

[Sqad]

The Isle of Man have always had "elves and fairies" and in the UK we also have our fair share if "fairies."

[paddywak]

No different to diverting a motorway because it would destroy the breeding ground of an endangered animal or plant,and anyway we all know what happens if you upset elves and fairies,look what happened to Sleeping Beauty.

[mikey4444]

My grandmother used to say that we had fairies at the bottom of her garden, back in the 60's. although, to be fair, she did live very close to Hampstead Heath in those days.

[kvalidir]

I love Iceland, the people are fabulous and it's one of my favourite places- even more so now :)

[belrec]

This cheered me up no end thank you Mikey. And a quick search on a well known website came up with this:

Álfhóll in Kópavogur. Since the elves are believed to live here, the road narrows.
Álfhóll (Elf Hill) is the most famous home of elves in Kópavogur, and Álfhólsvegur (Elf Hill Road) is named after it. Late in the 1930s, road construction began on Álfhólsvegur, which was supposed to go through Álfhóll, which meant that Álfhóll would have to be demolished. Nothing seemed to go well, and construction was stopped due to money problems. A decade later road construction through Álfhóll was to be continued, but when work resumed machines started breaking and tools got damaged and lost. The road remained routed around the hill, not through it as originally planned. In the late 1980s, the road was to be raised and paved. Construction went as planned until it came time to demolish part of Álfhóll. A rock drill was used, but it broke. Another drill was fetched, but that one broke, as well. After both drills broke to pieces, the workers refused to go near the hill with any tools. Álfhóll is now protected by the city as a cultural heritage, and remains much as it was after the last Ice Age.[75] Kópavogur has remained one of the most prominent sites of stories about elves disrupting road-building,[76] and this is the subject of the 2010 film Sumarlandið, which depicts the Kópavogur stone Grásteinn as an elf-home.

In 2013, proposed road construction from the Álftanes peninsula to the Reykjavík suburb of Garðabær, undertaken by the Icelandic Road and Coastal Commission, was stopped because elf supporters and environmental groups protested, stating that the road would destroy the habitat of elves and local cultural beliefs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulduf%C3%B3lk

if you look at the page there is a pic of where the road narrows to go around the Álfhóll hill!