Ravens are curious creatures. They hunt for food as we do, they solve problems as we do, and they entertain themselves as we do. But some are unlike the others. Some just watch. They observe, they learn, they wait, sometimes for centuries, just to be human once more…

I moved to Ísafjörður from London in August for a postgrad – being unsure of what I wanted in life, but knowing I would hang myself working at a 9-to-5 desk job. It’s a small town in the Westfjords of Iceland that's so far hidden that even the ring road, which goes around most of the country’s perimeter, was at least a 200-mile drive away. But it truly is the country’s hidden gem. Being that far north, however, the sun never sets in the summer, so midnights are as bright as middays. But the winters are quite the opposite.

I started guiding for a local tour company. Mostly, I would be on the bus tours for cruise ship tourists. I would talk on the microphone as the driver took us all around the valleys and over the mountain passes, sometimes to Friða’s farm to play with her sheep. My favourite tour was to the Dynjandi waterfall, where we would always pass by the Mjólkárvirkjun hydroelectric power station run entirely by waterfalls. Green energy plus a limitless water supply means that every household comes with a washing machine, dryer and a dishwasher – a luxury every student dreams of.

There’s only one set of power lines in the entire Westfjords, which run along and over the mountains, providing power to all seven thousand of us scattered about in villages and other small towns of barely a thousand people. Often the winter storms do some damage, so we get our fair share of blackouts until the lines can be fixed, or until someone starts up the backup diesel generators.

My favourite story to tell would be about the Útburður. In the olden days, if a mother could not care for her newborn, she would abandon it in the lava fields. The child would return as an Útburður – a lost spirit taking the form of a raven, lingering in the lava fields, waiting for unsuspecting travellers. There is a sad truth to the legend. Ravens are clever and curious creatures, and they often like to mimic the sounds they hear - like water drops, car horns or even mimicking someone shouting. So when they would find a baby abandoned in the empty fields crying for their mother, the ravens would mimic those cries as they flew all the way back to the villages. Perhaps to summon the villagers to the baby’s aid. Sadly, there wouldn’t be anyone to care.

Most of them seemed to be more interested in the contents of the bins or bullying the seagulls. But there was one that was different. One sat on the roof ominously still, keeping its gaze firmly on us. Even when we turned onto a different road, I noticed it flew up to a higher vantage point and kept its eyes locked onto us.