Imagine. One day your husband brings home a young and unmarried woman. A virgin even. He simply takes her into your house, openly shows affection for her, and who knows what else. That’s not all. He also gives the young maiden full access to your pantry and savings account, which she, for crying out loud,Continue reading “Don’t believe everything they say about sweet Cunera”
Tag Archives: women
Joan of Arc an inspiration for Land Wursten
In the year 1500 a girl by the name Tjede Peckes was born in the hamlet of Padingbüttel in Land Wursten, on the eastern banks of the River Weser. A salt marsh area the Wurstfriesen ‘Wurst-Frisians’ had managed to embank and cultivate. For centuries they had enjoyed living in a lord-free farmers republic. Toward theContinue reading “Joan of Arc an inspiration for Land Wursten”
Dissolute Elisabeth and her devil
In the Middle Age lived a once promiscuous girl named Elisabeth. She had come to repentance, found honourable employ as a maid, and had established herself at the hamlet of Vrieswijc, modern Friezenwijk. Hamlet Friezenwijk is located near the scenic village of Heukelum in the region Batavia (viz. region Betuwe) in province Gelderland, the Netherlands.Continue reading “Dissolute Elisabeth and her devil”
Harbours, Hookers, Heroines and Women in Masquerade
Dockyards, quays, terminals, pilots, warehouses, wharves, anchorages, lighthouses and beacons, craftsmen, shipping companies, customs and other port authorities, fish auctions, boarding houses, lodgings, packing facilities etc. Indeed, seaports respond to the needs of everything that arrives from the sea, or that leaves for it. Besides the demands of commerce, ports traditionally cater the demand forContinue reading “Harbours, Hookers, Heroines and Women in Masquerade”
Yet another wayward archipelago
The peoples of islands and archipelagos don’t let others dictate how to live their life. One of those archipelagos that meets these criteria as well, is the Wadden Sea. For centuries it’s from here where sea explorers, tax evaders, sturdy Arctic whalers, self-righteous women, pirates, privateers, and other vagabonds came from. An archipelago which theContinue reading “Yet another wayward archipelago”
Ornament of the Gods found in a mound of clay
In the year 516, king Hygelac of the Geats, a tribe in (probably) the southeast of Sweden, raided Frisia. Back then, this part of the Netherlands was impenetrable land with big rivers, little streams, swamps, peat, bog and damping forests covered with moss. Hygelac’s expedition into Frisia was less fortunate, since he was killed andContinue reading “Ornament of the Gods found in a mound of clay”
One of history’s enlightening hikes, that of Bernlef
This post isn’t about the West-Frisian writer Hendrik Jan Marsman (1937-2012), whose pen-name was Bernlef. Nor is this post about student corporation Bernlef in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. No, this is all about the original. Bard and harp player Bernlef, who lived in Frisia somewhere between 760 and 840. And if youContinue reading “One of history’s enlightening hikes, that of Bernlef”
Haute couture from the salt marshes
It was not the city of Parisius. Nor that of Lundenwic. Believe or not, the early-medieval center for expensive cloth and chique clothing in the northwest of Europe was the Wadden-Sea coast. Here the highly sought-after pallia Fresonica ‘Frisian cloth’ was fabricated and distributed over the wider world. It possessed a quality good enough forContinue reading “Haute couture from the salt marshes”
Women of Frisia: free and unbound?
Below Saskia Holleman. The reincarnation of Mata Hari, her fellow-citizen. Saskia, born in 1945 in the city of Leeuwarden in province Friesland. Standing naked in milky grasslands with a Holstein-Friesian cow. In every detail the scenery you will be immersed into when hiking the Frisian Coast Trail. It’s a pamphlet of the former Dutch PacifistContinue reading “Women of Frisia: free and unbound?”
How a town drowned overnight
Rungholt. A thriving and wealthy town that disappeared overnight in the year 1362. For six centuries only legends told us about what happened to Rungholt: a town submerged in the sea as a punishment of God. According to medieval legends, you could still hear the sound of its bell tower rising from the dark depthContinue reading “How a town drowned overnight”
Frisia Coast Trail 