Leave the Calving to the Elves!

Near the Eyjafjöll mountains in an area called Drangshlíð, there is a big rock in a field, almost the height of 20 men. On one side of it, there are caves and big spaces beneath it, and the farmers kept there all of their hay and their cowsheds.  In the cowsheds, no candles or lanterns would stay lit, no matter how hard people would try to keep the flame alive. 

The distance from the farm to the cowsheds in the rock was a long one, and on cold, dark, stormy winter nights it was not easy walking to the cowsheds. But the elves in the rock would take care of the cows in the cowsheds while they were giving birth to their calves.   It was tradition in this area that one of the stalls always had to be kept vacant for elf-cows.  Human beings were not allowed to sit by the cows while they were giving birth. If the farmer could see that a cow was about to give birth that night he would leave the milking bucket, filled with good hay, by the window above the door of the cowshed.  The elves would then attend to the cow; they milked it after it gave birth, fed the calf and the cow. And the milking bucket was in the same position where the farmer had left it, filled!

Any time the farm would change hands, if the new owner would follow tradition, he would have his assistants stay with the cow while it was giving birth.  If they did this, something would inevitably go wrong.  They would hear and see strange things.  In all cases, the assistants would not be able to stay inside in the dark cowsheds and fled.  The farmers learned it was best to let the elves tend to the cows.

Edited from

Drangshlíð rock and the elves!

By Regína Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir