I SAT REGALLY BESIDE A HUGE PILE OF ROCKS,

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAN FEDUCK

awestruck at the vast, treeless Icelandic vista. This was not just any pile of rocks, I was told, but the throne of the Elf King.

I spoke to the Elf King kindly, just in case, and continued hiking across a land of snow-touched mountains that left me smitten.

It was the elf throne that brought me back two years later, to explore the dynamic landscape of Iceland and how it intertwines with the sagas, folk tales and history. Iceland’s landscape had spoken to me of another world.

Four longtime friends, Jan Beveridge, JoAnn Hayter, Lynn Green and myself, set off to explore Iceland in spring, “between hay and grass,” from a legendary perspective.

Jan, the Elora author of Children into Swans, travelled Iceland with the sagas and tales at the tip of her tongue and learned some new ones along the way. She woke us with a tale, read us to sleep with another and led the search for landmarks of otherworldly significance along the way.

Children into Swans is filled with stories of otherworldly characters and of ancient Iceland. Trolls, active at night, turn to stone if touched by sunlight; elves live in the rocky landscapes. Giants and “hidden folk” appear alongside human Icelanders in sagas and folk tales from all over the country.

From the time Iceland was settled by the Vikings, this land has been inhabited by storytellers. Long winter days of 24-hour Ice breaking off of the Vatnajokull Glacier form icebergs that drift in the Jokulsarlon Lagoon in southern Iceland. Hundreds of shades of blue appear in the icebergs in this magical lagoon.