Ground, Singularity, Relation: Thatamanil, Indigenous Storytelling and the Hidden people of Iceland

If you forget my name

you will go astray

like a killer whale

trapped in a bay.

(Björk (Sjón), „Bachelorette“ (*Homogenic* 33 1/3, 1997)

In Icelandic folklore, cliffs and stones are inhabited by invisible people called *álfar*, or *huldufólk* (e. the hidden people). These narratives have many things in common to the cultural heritage of other Norse folklore and Sámi religious traditions. They also share some resemblance to Celtic folklore. However, each tradition has its own mutations, developments and characteristics, unique to time, context and place. Many stories are recited of the hidden people in Ieland, which tell tales of how humans betray the huldufólk, resulting in terrible curses and tragic death. The song „Bachelorette“ by Icelandic musician Björk and Icelandic poet Sjón summons up one of such stories from the folklore, where the traitor has been cursed and turned into a killer whale, which becomes a menace in the ocean. In the folklore the human who betrayed the hidden woman is cursed because he has forgotten the promises he has given, and neglected his own child, when it is brought to human baptism. In the story, otherness, and relation to the singular beings of creation become one in a perspective, which has distinct Lutheran traits, but also harkens back to its Roman-Catholic and Pre-Christian roots.

In the book *Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity* (2020), John J. Thatamanil proposes trinitarian formulations of God as ground, singularity and relation for a theology of religious diversity. The perspective of Thatamanil´s book is within comparative theology. He has particularly focused on  a pluralistic approach to the textual traditions of Christianity, Buddism and Hinduism. He argues for fluidity between the categories of "religion".For him, God a ground is the source of everything that exists within creation and he refers back to Augustine´s *vestigia trinitatis*. For Thatamanil, the expression of singularity entails an attention and worth of the diverse and particular beings of creation through the divine logos. Finally, the concept of relation connects the divine life to the life of other (*Circling the Elephant*, 213-248).

The paper ponders whether Thatamanil´s trinitarian formulations of ground, singularity and relation can be of help to analyse the connection to Christianity and its marginalized others, such as ideas of hidden beings in Icelandic stones, which serve as the guardian spirits of creation. In contemporary theology, the theme of betrayal of earth, sorrow for that which already has been lost, imbalance in the seas, and neglect of descendants is closely connected to environmental humanities. The story of a human traitor who is turned into a killer whale thus connects both to the green and blue humanities, to earth and sea. This paper explores the challenges and possibilities for using such approach to other kinds of religious diversities, such as heritage with long oral tradition on the margins of the Christian tradition, including Indigenous practices of storytelling. The paper uses narrative insights from Indigenous perspectives such as Randy Woodley and Tore Johnsen, as well as scholarship of Norse and Sámi folklore and literature to ponder the question what the stories of *álfar* can contribute to ecological theology of ground, singularity and relation, and vice versa.