[2] In Faroese folk tales,[5] hidden people are said to be "large in build, their clothes are all grey, and their hair black.

"[17] Other Christian folktales claim that hidden people originate from Lilith, or are fallen angels condemned to live between heaven and hell.

One folktale shows the elves siding with the common people and taking revenge on a sheriff who banned dance parties.

"[21] According to Árni Björnsson, belief in hidden people grew during the 17th and 18th centuries when Iceland was facing tough times.

Benedikz, in his discussion of Jón Árnason's grouping of folktales about elves, water-dwellers, and trolls together, writes: "The reason is of course perfectly clear.

When one's life is conditioned by a landscape dominated by rocks twisted by volcanic action, wind and water into ferocious and alarming shapes... the imagination fastens on these natural phenomena.

"[32] Ólina Thorvarðardóttir writes: "Oral tales concerning Icelandic elves and trolls no doubt served as warning fables.

They prevented many children from wandering away from human habitations, taught Iceland's topographical history, and instilled fear and respect for the harsh powers of nature.

"[33] Michael Strmiska writes: "The Huldufólk are... not so much supernatural as ultranatural, representing not an overcoming of nature in the hope of a better deal beyond but a deep reverence for the land and the mysterious powers able to cause fertility or famine.

"[35] Alan Boucher writes: "Thus the Icelander's ambivalent attitude towards nature, the enemy and the provider, is clearly expressed in these stories, which preserve a good deal of popular—and in some cases probably pre-christian—belief.

"[37] Terry Gunnell notes that hidden people legends recorded in the 18th and 19th centuries showed them to be "near mirror-images of those humans who told stories about them—except they were beautiful, powerful, alluring, and free from care, while the Icelanders were often starving and struggling for existence.

"[38] Anthropologist Jón Haukur Ingimundarson claimed that hidden people tales told by 19th-century Icelandic women were a reflection of how only 47% of women were married, and "sisters often found themselves relegated to very different functions and levels of status in society... the vast majority of Icelandic girls were shunted into supporting roles in the household."

He goes on to say that these stories justified the differences in role and status between sisters, and "inculcated in young girls the... stoic adage never to despair, which was a psychological preparedness many would need as they found themselves reduced in status and denied the proper outlet for their sexuality in marriage, thereby sometimes having to rely on infanticide to take care of the unsolicited and insupportable effects of their occasional amours, an element... related in huldufólk stories.

"[39] Anna Pietrzkiewicz contends that the hidden people symbolize idealized Icelandic identity and society, the key elements of which are seeing the "past as a source of pride and nature as unique and pure.

The elf maiden finally tells her husband that she will eventually disappear, permanently, and that the only way to prevent it is by hammering a nail into a threshold[45] According to Scandinavian Author Ármann Jakobsson, "In the Eyrbyggja saga", we find the familiar idea that people are expected to relieve themselves at a safe distance from a sacred spot, and the word used (dlfrek) indicates that the alfar be expected to get angry.

[53] Árni Björnsson claims the beliefs are simplified and exaggerated for the entertainment of children and tourists, and that it is a somewhat misrepresentative yet harmless trick used by the tourism industry to entice visitors.

[4] In 1982, 150 Icelanders went to the NATO base in Keflavík to look for "elves who might be endangered by American Phantom jets and AWACS reconnaissance planes.

"[47] In Snorri Sturluson's The Prose Edda, the story of "The Beluiling of Gylfi," Elves are described as being either Dark or Light, both in manner and appearance: "That which is called Alfheimer is one, where dwell the peoples called Light Elves; but the Dark-Elves dwell down in the earth, and they are unlike in appearance, but are far more unlike in nature.

Within the video, Storyteller, Sigurbjörg Karlsdóttir argues that "whether you believe it or not, these stories about the elves and these creatures, they teach us to respect nature."

Student, Helga Osterby Thordardottir, argues similarly, saying that "Maybe the Huldifolk is giving Nature a voice"[67] In a Youtube film by Julia Laird titled, "Hidden People," politician and resident of the Icelandic town of Hafnarfjörður, Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, claims that she can speak to the Huldufolk.