Iceland's secret? Belief in elves..

Bess writes: Surely Icelanders don't believe in Elves? It's a matter of earnest debate on the New York Mag where John Moody, who lives in Iceland responds to  this Vanity Fair article on the country's financial meltdown. The debate centres on this VF claim that Alcoa, Iceland's largest aluminium company had to "defer to a government expert" in 2004 while scouring a potential site for a smelting plant to "certify that no elves were on or under it." The writer, Michael Lewis reports "It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.”
At first I wondered if this were a belated April Fool joke. Moody, whose seven years on Iceland have so far not included contact with avowed believers in elves, comments: "As for Alcoa, their rep believes Lewis is likely referring to a law regarding environmental-impact assessments. The assessment includes an archaeological survey to ensure no important artifacts or ruins are destroyed, and the site’s history is also surveyed to see if it was ever named in any Icelandic folklore.…” 
Fair enough, you might think. Debate closed. But read on further and you’ll encounter this comment, part of a wide-ranging response to Moody’s piece from Vanity Fair: “A 2007 University of Iceland poll found that, while few people will go on the record to say they believe in elves, 54 percent of the Icelandic population will not deny that they exist. The information concerning Alcoa and elves was related to Lewis by an Alcoa executive. As he is quoted in the piece as saying, "We can't be in the position as a corporation..." is it any surprise that the Alcoa spokesperson Mr. Moody reached will not confirm the story?”. All this naturally begs the question – have there been sightings?