In December, 2012, I reviewed a wonderful illustrated book of Icelandic folktales, Tales of the Elves.  I’d brought a copy back from our trip to Iceland in the fall, but was unable to find ordering information.

At the end of the post, I invited anyone who discovered that information to pass it along, and a reader named Kimberly just did!  Here’s a link to page for this book at Eymundsson, the premier Icelandic bookseller.  This page, in English, gives a price of 2,499 kronur – at about 100 kronur per dollar, that’s $24.99, what I paid in-country.  If you’re still interested, read on, because now the fun begins:

When you add the book to your cart and move on, the next pages are in Icelandic.  With the aid of an online Icelandic to English dictionary, I came up with translations of these questions you’re asked:

Nafn: name
Heimilisfang: address
Postnumer: zip code
Baer: town
Land: That’s country, and there’s a pulldown
Netfang: email address
Simi: phone

Kodi gjafabrefs: Kodi is code, and I couldn’t find the second term. I’m guessing they mean country codes, which from Iceland to the US is 00 + 1 + area code + number.  Here is a look-up table if you live elsewhere.

Okay, fine!  No one ever said navigating through faerie was easy!  Eymundsson says they’re working to bring their international pages online, so one option is to check back with them in six months.

Would I order this book from them if I didn’t have it?

I have a collection of half a dozen illustrated fairytale books I’ve collected over the course of many years and they have an honored place on the bookshelf.  Each one reminds me of some special moment or place when I found it.  Tales of the Elves is the only souvenir I brought back from Iceland, as the sweaters were too warm for this part of California.

The illustrations inside are as fine as the one on the cover, so if you like this kind of illustrated book and have read this far, you won’t be disappointed.