Interesting that you mention Iceland, New Chapter. It's perhaps my favourite country outside the UK. Full of the nicest, most reasonable, most hospitable people I've ever met, as well as being geologically totally fascinating. I know it very well indeed.
jjst for the sake of accuracy, no, most of them are not Catholic. They're Lutheran. Their Christianity goes back fairly early in the life of the nation. Iceland wasn't settled till the late 800's, and right from the beginning they developed a kind of outdoor Parliament, the Thing, in the big cleft between continental plates called Thingvellir. In the eleventh century they decided that the whole nation would be Christian. Everyone was to convert, but, and this is the bit that I and definitely elderelite would like, they would be allowed to continue to worship the old Norse gods in private. So, tolerance is built in to the national spirit, plus, and a very important plus, a deep respect and reverence for the old ways.
So, this is a highly socially-evolved, highly educated people, very technological, and extremely modern in their lifestyle, who yet proudly and fiercely retain their nationhood and national pride. You think they are mostly Catholic. No, hardly any are Catholic. They adopted The Lutheran church very early on in the Reformation. There are Catholics there, but not many of those are Icelanders.
you say they believe in fairies. Yes and no. They actually believe in elves, and about a half of all Icelanders will tell you they believe in them, and more will be accommodating the elves in some way in their habits and lives. Elves are everywhere. There are little houses built for them at road junctions. Little model elves, brightly dressed, stand at corners. Elf houses can be seen out in the country. And when they were building a new road, and were trying to move a huge rock, the elves, they will tell you, kept sabotaging the work. They road company called in a local medium who consulted the elves. The rock, it appeared, was sacred to the elves. The road company re-routed the road to go around the huge rock. This was comparatively recently, I think within the last 25 years.
There are many other stories like this, of the old woman up in the north in a valley near Akureyri who saw elves and followed them into the mountain, and who later described in detail their homes and their furniture. Icelandic elves are a bit similar, it seems to me, to Irish leprechauns, but very much less mischievous and less inclined to play tricks and to use magic against humans.
You see what I am doing here? I am showing you how a perfectly modern and highly civilised society nonetheless still retain a serious belief in a magical or spiritual dimension. No-one ridicules it or them, and they are very f ar from being the only nation like this. You mention them, and it just so happens that I know both country and people very well indeed.
No double standard from me. I do not disbelieve in fairies, as I think I've said elsewhere. I view such beliefs with very great respect. Certainly, they are not to be ridiculed or scorned, so don't assume that people who have a firm belief in God will scorn as ridiculous a magic, elemental or spiritual world existing alongside our own.
