In one 1998 survey, 54.4 percent of Icelanders said they believed in the existence of elves. That poll is fairly consistent with other findings and with qualitative fieldwork, according to an academic paper published in 2000 titled The Elves Point of View" by Valdimar Hafstein, who now is a folkloristics professor at the University of Iceland. If this was just one crazy lady talking about invisible friends, it's really easy to laugh about that, Jnsdttir said. But to have people through hundreds of years talking about the same things, its beyond one or two crazy ladies. It is part of the nation.