Frisia Coast Trail.com

Imagine a time unlike ours. When there were no engines, amplifiers, and speakers, and the sounds you heard were made by the actions of men, beasts, or the elements of nature. Be quiet and listen. Can you hear the chatter of children and vendors, and the hooves of horses on the streets? Can you hear the loose sails of docked ships flapping, drying in the wind? A time when communities, villages, and towns were of manageable size. This soundscape was a world where the sound of t

On 28 August 1944, a desperate Hitler ordered the construction of a massive defensive line in northern Germany, stretching from the...

The much-celebrated Frisian Freedom refers to the period roughly between 1250 and 1500, when the Frisian terrae  (‘lands’)—bearing...

There are theories suggesting that the tribal name 'Frisians' originates from the Old Frisian word frisle , meaning ‘lock of hair’—a term that may itself derive from Latin (Van Renswoude 2012). Compare, for instance, the French verb friser , meaning ‘to curl’. While this etymology is incorrect—the true origin relates more to hauling earth and manure (see our blog post A Severe Case of Inattentional Blindness: The Frisian Tribe’s Name )—it is still intriguing how many early-me

Man-made hills to dwell upon. Long thought of as typically Frisian, but they are anything but unique. Consider the Kincaid Mounds of the Mississippian people along the Cumberland and Mississippi rivers in the United States. Or the lomas (‘hills’) deep in Bolivia’s Beni district, raised above the Amazon’s seasonal floodwaters to provide ground for living and farming. Think too of the chinampas , the ingenious ‘floating gardens’ of the Aztec in Central America. And closer to ou

Like everywhere along the Wadden Sea shores in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the small republics of the tidal marshlands fought battle after battle against foreign aggressors seeking to subdue them. Counts, bishops, and cities alike tried to lay their hands on these fertile and strategically located lands. And if the threat was not from outside, it came from local headmen striving to establish dominion over a republic. The region of Butjadingen and Stadland, at the

When re-enactors bring early-medieval Frisia to life, they are often seen wearing a small iron hammer on a leather cord around their...

It is at the inn The Prancing Pony in the village of Bree that the Hobbits find refuge from the screeching Nazgûl on their coal-black horses. It is also here that they encounter Strider, the mysterious wanderer who is later revealed to be Aragorn—future king of the Reunited Kingdom. Horses, wanderers, fugitive royalty, shifting alliances, the forging of armies, and the rise of kings—these are also the hallmarks of the epic North Sea saga of Hengist and Horsa. A tale set 1,600

The fate of tribes and their names in the age of the Great Migration, between the fourth and sixth centuries, was anything but certain....

What is the use of celebrating only the battles you have won? Feeling proud and superior as a nation over others, with the differences emphasized in the process. Why not follow the example of the Scots? Every year, they commemorate their defeat at the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746—fought between the Jacobite Army and the British Army. An estimated 1,350 soldiers died that day. Women, children, and (elderly) men from nearby villages are not included in that count, as th

Katniss Everdeen, portrayed by American actress Jennifer Lawrence, is both a survivor and victor of The Hunger Games . She comes from District 12, the impoverished mining region of the country called Panem. In fact, Katniss was never meant to be a tribute in the games. Her younger sister was originally chosen, but Katniss volunteered to take her place. Each year, twenty-four residents—known as tributes—were selected by lottery from the twelve districts of Panem to fight to th

For many turbulent centuries, the town of Stavoren was a tightrope walker before it finally settled as a small harbour at the Lake...

lighthouse Kleine Preuße 'little Prussian' at the marsh near Wremem, Land Wursten Near a terp called Fallward, close to the village of Wremen in the region of Land Wursten, archaeologists uncovered a remarkable site that opens a rare window onto life during the Migration Period—the world of the so-called ‘Old Saxons’ who once inhabited the tidal marshes of the Wadden Sea at the mouth of the River Weser. Excavations at the Fallward terp revealed two burial grounds dating from

Despite the fact that some Frisian forenames still find their way into modern name-giving, like Bente, Dirk, Doutzen, Eske, Femke/Famke,...

Carving runes into combs and stones is basically the same as spraying tags on subway cars and bicycle tunnels. Those who create runes or graffiti are called writers. More precisely, rune writers and graffiti writers. The word graffiti stems from the Italian word graffio , which means 'scratch' and invented in the context of the Pompeii excavations. That is why we speak of runic graphs . Just as graffiti pieces are made in the dead of night, much of the history of runes is cov

Beauty is the best guarantee for quality and success. At least, this is how farmers in the province of Friesland thought of dairy cattle for (too) long. The better the exterieur ‘exterior’ of a cow, the better its milk yield. Velvety hide, size, expressive head, straight back, strong legs, sharply defined black and white spotted markings, fine horns, clear teats, etc. All features considered signs of good productive cattle. Even when evidence was piling up that the black-pie

To understand the ‘greatness’ of Great Pier, we decided to look into his ‘achievements’. As a freedom fighter (or pirate, if you like) his core business was to ransack ships and towns. If you listen or read about the places Great Pier sacked the area and number are quite impressive. Considering Great Pier was only active for some four years, his ‘productivity’ is huge or deceiving. To name a few examples of anecdotal places Great Pier ‘paid a visit’. Recently, a friend inform

In our recent blog post Barbarians Riding to the Capital to Claim Rights on Farmland , we recounted the famous story of the two Frisian kings who travelled to Rome 2,000 years ago to seek an audience with Emperor Nero. In this blog post, the roles are reversed. Nearly two centuries ago, a delegate from Rome journeyed to the barbarians in the north to parley with their king in the city of The Hague. “ Je suis Frison, et je suis plus têtu que vous! ” (I am Frisian, and I am mor

This is not a blog post about the current agriculture and nitrogen debates between the government in Brussels and farmers in Flanders,...

Haubargs . Cathedral-like farmsteads with hipped roofs soaring up to twenty meters high, icons of the Eiderstedt peninsula in the region of Nordfriesland. These monumental farms embody the peak of the friesische Großhäuser  building tradition—yet also its end. This tradition, characteristic of the marshlands along the southern North Sea coast from Amsterdam to Husum, flourished from the mid-sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Haubargs , with the wealth they signified, so sti