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One day all the sunken church bells will surface and speak to us, sternly
Imagine a time unlike ours. When there were no engines, amplifiers, and speakers, and the sounds you heard were made by the actions of...
Hans Faber
Jun 232 min read


The Waugal, protector of fresh water and new life—hiking the Bibbulmun Track
The last two weeks of December 2024, one of the bastards of the Frisian Coast Trail solo hiked the coastal section of the Bibbulmun...
Hans Faber
Mar 2910 min read


Odin’s Ravens ruled over the southern shores. Not the Hammer of Thor
When re-enactors bring to life early-medieval Frisia, you regularly see them wearing a little iron hammer on a leather cord around their...
Hans Faber
Jun 9, 202422 min read


Hengist and Horsa—Frisian horses from overseas that founded the Kentish Kingdom
It is at the inn The Prancing Pony in the village of Bree that the Hobbits hope to be safe from the screeching Nazgûl on their coal-black...
Hans Faber
May 11, 202423 min read


The Chronicles of Warnia. When history seems a fantasy story
The fate of tribes and tribe names during the age of the Wandering of Peoples, between the fourth and the sixth centuries, was uncertain....
Hans Faber
Feb 18, 202415 min read


Stavoren. A balancer on a slack rope of religion, trade, land, water, Holland, and Frisia
For many turbulent centuries, the town of Stavoren was a tightrope walker before it finally settled as a small harbour at the Lake...
Hans Faber
Jan 7, 202442 min read


How great was Great Pier? (the sequel)
Breaking! Great Pier measured around 2.30 meters in height! This question has been bugging the Frisians for centuries. Now we know. How?...

Frans Riemersma
Jan 15, 20236 min read


How great was Great Pier?
Most Frisians know the name of Great Pier, or ‘ Grutte Pier ’ in Frisian. But what do we really know about him? Well, all we know for...

Frans Riemersma
Jan 3, 202321 min read


Who's Afraid of Voracious Woolf?—the Dread Beast is Back
Who's afraid of Jóða Fenris , ‘the offspring of Fenrir’? Afraid of hund hrynsævar hræva , ‘the hound of the roaring sea corpses’? Who,...
Hans Faber
Nov 25, 202228 min read


A Frisian warlord who ruled in Brittany, until his wife cheated on him
Where the English Channel and the Celtic Sea meet is where the ships of the Frisian brothers Corsold and Coarchion roamed, raided, and...
Hans Faber
Nov 12, 202214 min read


Late Little Prayers at the Lorelei Rock. Reckless Rhine Skippers in Distress
On the west bank of the mighty River Rhine, halfway between the cities of Koblenz and Mainz, lies the town of Sankt Goar. Named after...
Hans Faber
Oct 25, 202211 min read


Don’t believe everything they say about sweet Cunera
Imagine. One day your husband brings home a young unmarried woman. A virgin even. He simply takes her into your house, openly shows...
Hans Faber
Sep 30, 202231 min read


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...
Hans Faber
Apr 23, 20229 min read


Walfrid, You’ll Never Walk Alone.
This blog post is not about Aindreas Ó CéirÃn (1840-1915), better known as Brother Walfrid from Ireland and who founded the Scottish...
Hans Faber
Apr 10, 202217 min read


Like Father, Unlike Son—un saint frison en France
The Battle of Tours in 732 was a turning point in the wars against the Umayyad Caliphate. The Caliphate was one of the biggest empires in...
Hans Faber
Sep 10, 202114 min read


With a Noose through the Norsemen’s Door
Although the conversion of the Woden-devoted Frisians  was a slow and cumbersome process that only succeeded in depth in the tenth...
Hans Faber
Mar 21, 202114 min read


Frisia, a Viking graveyard
Hjoggum vér með hjörvi  'we swung our swords', as all the stanzas of the twelfth-century Lay of Kraka begin. When reading about the...
Hans Faber
Feb 21, 20219 min read


Legend of Esonstad. One of the many sunken towns
When, on a moon-clear night, on top of the dyke at Lake Lauwersmeer, you look out over the water, you just might see in the distance the...
Hans Faber
Nov 1, 20208 min read


Make way for the homesick dead! A saga from the Swiss Alps
High up in the majestic Alps, in the region of Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, many men, women, and children have experienced the great...
Hans Faber
Jun 17, 202020 min read


Latið meg ei á FrÃsaland fordervast! And the murder of a bishop
Latið meg ei á FrÃsaland fordervast!  This is the Faroese language, and its translation is: 'Do not let me perish in Friesland!' It is a...
Hans Faber
May 16, 20209 min read
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