Icelandic Folk Legends

While this is the first time the book appears in electronic form, 12 of the stories were previously published in physical form on two separate occasions. The book has been out of print for about four years. In the digital edition, an introduction has been added, as well as a "field guide" to the various apparitions that appear in the book, and three more stories.

What you will read about in Icelandic Folk Legends:
- The kvöldvaka-effectively a national institution, responsible for the full literacy of an impoverished nation
- Icelandic folk stories and the world: how various well-known folk tales became "Icelandicized"
- Apparitions in Icelandic folk stories: elves, trolls, outlaws, and hidden people
- How you knew you were dealing with a ghost, and the one word ghosts absolutely could not say
- The wrath of the hidden folk (how to piss off an elf
>Icelandic Folk Legends is a vivid portrait of pre-20th century Iceland-as much in terms of living conditions and landscape as of imagination, values, and belief. ... Each tale speaks to deep psychological issues-whether it be the lust for power (in þorgeir's Bull), loss and humiliation (The Vanished Bride), betrayal (Hagridden), the trickeries of the Devil (Satan Takes a Wife), fear of ghosts (The Deacon of Myrká Church), or the benevolence of the supernatural (The Outlaw on Kiduvallafjall Mountain)-but at the heart of each of these adventures lie the human choices that dictate outcomes. - Tobias Munthe, The Reykjavík Grapevine