Sigvard said No, lest by assenting he should be proved to be the father. The infant then was left where it was, untouched and unbaptised. The mother, filled with rage, snatched up her babe and the cup, but left the vestment, the remains of which may still be seen in Haga. That woman foretold and inflicted a singular disease on Sigvard and his posterity till the ninth generation, and several of his descendants are to this day afflicted with it. The fullest account we have of the Icelandic Elves or Dwarfs is contained in the following passage of the Ecclesiastical History of Iceland of the learned Finnus Johannaeus.
Authors vary respecting their essence and origin.
According to the old wives tales that are related about this race of genii who inhabit Iceland and its vicinity, they have a political form of government modelled after the same pattern as that which the inhabitants themselves are under. If these are convicted of crime or injustice, they are forthwith stript of their office, and others are appointed in their place. The new-born infants of Christians are, before baptism, believed to be exposed to great peril of being stolen by them, and their own, which they foresee likely to be feeble in mind, in body, in beauty, or other gifts, being substituted for them. Hence it comes, that the vulgar use to call fools, deformed people, and those who act rudely and uncivilly, Umskiptinga eins og hann sie ko minnaf Alfum, i.e. changelings, and come of the Alfs. They use rocks, bills, and even the seas, for their habitations, which withinside are neat, and all their domestic utensils extremely clean and orderly.