“Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save the Earth “

with Nancy Marie Brown

Thursday,  July 9, 2026 at 3 PM Eastern Time  

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In the summer of 2016, on her 21st trip to Iceland, author Nancy Marie Brown took a walk with an elf-seer: Ragnhildur Jonsdottir. 

“We walked in a lava field she and her elf friends had protected from destruction when a new road was built nearby,” Brown writes in her book Looking for the Hidden Folk. “We didn’t talk much about elves or the Hidden Folk as we walked. Instead, we photographed lava crags and stacks and pillars, pillows of silver-green moss, caves and clefts and individual lichen-splashed rocks. We wandered about pointing out plants. We talked about art and inspiration. What is inspiration? Why do some places attract artists and spark creative thought? Why are some places beautiful—and how do you define beauty? And we shared an experience I still can’t explain. Said Ragnhildur, as we left the lava field, ‘Now do you believe in elves?’”

 Reflecting on her own encounters with Iceland’s Otherworld, Brown reveals how the stories we tell shape the world we see. She argues that our beliefs about the Earth will preserve, or destroy, it. In this time of climate crisis, Iceland and its elf lore suggest a different way of thinking about the Earth, one that offers hope. Author of nine highly praised books about Iceland and the Viking Age, Brown “makes a strong case for everyday wonder,” says the New York Times.

 

Nancy Marie Brown is the author of Looking for the Hidden Folk, The Far Traveler, Song of the Vikings, Ivory Vikings, The Real Valkyrie, and other highly praised books of nonfiction. As a writer she asks, What have we overlooked? Whose stories must not be forgotten? For twenty years, she worked as a university science writer and editor; now she writes from a farm in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Icelandic horses graze outside her window, and every summer she travels to Iceland in search of inspiration.

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Upcoming Summer Salon

Scholar Salon 100

Thursday, July 23, 2026 at 12 NOON Eastern Time

“Living Goddess Traditions in Land Salzburg and the Salzkammergut”

with Krista Rodin

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event. 

 

“Zoroastrian Mythologies of Women Angels “

with Feroza Jussawalla

Thursday,  June 25, 2026 at 12 NOON Eastern Time  

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Zoroastrianism, especially as practiced by the Parsis of India, is indeed the first religion to recognize the importance of both of women’s equality. And of not polluting the environment.

Zoroastrianism is perhaps the world’s oldest religion dating back to almost 4,000 BCE. Zoroastrianism flourished in what is now Iran, until the Arab conquerors came in the 6th CE, and converted to and imposed Islam on the Persian peoples. Persian women were independent, warriors, workers and Queens.

Zoroastrianism reveres the waters, the earth, the moon and stars, and has angels assigned to the protection of each as well as angels of every gender delegated with the task of caring for these parts of the universe. Avan, the angel designated to care for the waters, asks us not to pollute waters, oceans, rivers, streams, and wells. Similarly, there is a female Yazata presiding over the earth. They are equal with the male Yazatas, such Tir Yazad who controls the rains and the stars, and those like Behram Ijad, the protective spirit, immortalized as the great warrior in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khhayyam.

From its very beginnings, Zoroastrianism advocated the equality of all genders. When Zoroastrians were compelled to move to India, they also took on the Indian strictures that honored the rivers, such as Mother Ganga and the female goddesses equal in strength and importance, from the Hindu religion. When they fled the Arab persecution and arrived in India they promised  to mix with the South Asian Indian peoples like “milk mixes with sugar,” Zoroastrianism, embodies the spirit co-operation, across all faiths, countries and religions, as also the idea of peace: “swords into ploughshares.”

Dr. Feroza Jussawalla is Professor Emerita at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Her recent work in women’s studies includes, Emerging South Asian Women’s Writing, (Peter Lang, 2017), Memory, Voice and Identity: Muslim Women’s Writing from Across the Middle East, (Routledge, 2020), Muslim Women’s Writing from South and South East Asia, (Routledge, 2021). Her collection of poems, Chiffon Saris (2002) was published by Kolkotta, Writer’s Workshop and Toronto South of Asian Review.

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Upcoming Summer Salons

Scholar Salon 99: 

Thursday, July 9, 2026  3:00 PM Eastern Time

“Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save the Earth”

with Nancy Marie Brown

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Scholar Salon 100:

Thursday, July 23, 2026 at 12 NOON Eastern Time

“Living Goddess Traditions in Land Salzburg and the Salzkammergut”

with Krista Rodin

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event.