Álfhóll — the elf hill on Álfhólsvegur

OVERVIEW

Álfhóll — elf hill — is a rocky knoll in the town of Kópavogur, immediately south of Reykjavík, in an ordinary residential street named Álfhólsvegur, Elf Hill Road, after it. Kópavogur is one of Iceland's best-known places for urban legends about the huldufólk, the hidden people; the stone Grásteinn in the municipality features as an elf house in the 2010 film Sumarlandið.

HISTORY

The accounts given locally are that in the 1930s work to put a road through the hill was abandoned after machinery repeatedly broke down and accidents multiplied; that a second attempt a decade later failed the same way; and that a third attempt in the 1990s to take part of the hill for road repairs ended when powerful drills broke without marking the rock. The road was moved and left the hill alone.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

What can be verified is the road and the hill. The street narrows abruptly and bends around the knoll, which is now protected as a site of cultural heritage. Whether the machinery broke for the reason the tradition gives is not something the record settles, and the entry does not claim it does. What it records is the most-cited case in the world of a public road being built around a belief — and a municipality that formally protected the rock.

VISITING

A roadside rock on Álfhólsvegur in a residential area of Kópavogur, freely visible from the pavement. People live here; look, and leave it at that.