“Why am I late to class? Oh, you’re gonna love this — there was this random cat in our barn this morning, right? Total stranger. And guess what? I stepped right in its poop. Yep. So bef…

How do Frisians spend their time off? Frisians in the Netherlands must have plenty of it, given that job prospects are among the poorest in the country. And those who do have a job are spared the p…

In August 2016, on the Dutch late-night talk show Pauw, former game show host Hans van der Togt — best known for presenting Rad van Fortuin (Wheel of Fortune) — spoke candidly about his harsh and m…

By the middle of the ninth century, the Vikings had carved out a more or less permanent foothold in Frisia, in the pagus ‘territory’ of Nordendi, also known as Norditi. But by the year …

It was a Yankee, Mary Mapes Dodge, who wrote Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland. The book was published in New York in 1865. It tells the story of Hans, a poor fifteen-y…

YouTube video by Scottish Society for Northern Studies

High in the majestic Alps, in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, many men, women, and children have witnessed the dreadful sight of dead Frisians marching home under the cover of darkness. The path th…

Latið meg ei á Frísaland fordervast! This is the Faroese language, and its translation is: ‘Do not let me perish in Friesland!’ It is a cry of a Faroese young woman when she was being k…

When you enter the province of Friesland from the west by car, crossing the Afsluitdijk (‘closure dam’) and continuing along the A7 motorway, you will pass a viaduct named Okkehel. If your destinat…

‘In the Navy,’ a song by the American disco-pop group Village People, seems an unlikely anthem for the small villages along the southern coast of the North Sea. Yet these villages belon…

This is your DIY manual for enlarging or creating your own terp — an artificial settlement mound or house platform designed to protect against sea or river floods, depending on where it is built. A…

“Is the seaport Maasvlakte the gateway to north-western Europe? No? How about Europoort? Still no? What about the Botlek port area? Or the town of Vlaardingen? No again? Surely it must be the…

It was not the city of Parisius (‘Paris’). Nor that of Londinium (‘London’). Believe it or not, the early-medieval center for expensive cloth and chic clothing in the northw…

In the year 1500, when the people of the farmers’ republic of Dithmarschen achieved a stunning victory over a large professional Danish–Holstein army of Landsknechts at the Battle of Dusenddüwelswa…

The Hague, 29 June 2013. On this day, Zwaantje Vink-Brouwer, widow of Piet Vink, together with a delegation of local government officials, re-opened the monument ‘The Terp’ in honour of her late hu…

At the intersection of land and sea — where it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins — life is harsh. The corrosive salt of the sea is ruinous to most land species, which explains the…

Being out on the grasslands may bring you face to face with farmers, fellow wanderers, or — of course — ‘birdwatchers’; see the note at the end of this blog post. Encounters with these …

When thru-hiking, special encounters are part of the experience. One such encounter happened when one of the Frisian bastards completed the GR20 on the island of Corsica in the months of September …

Pagare il fio is Italian for ‘paying the penalty,’ though literally it means ‘paying the fee,’ a phrase inherited from the northern peoples — the so-called Barbarians — who …

After the Roman Empire had incorporated a big chunk of the British Isles in the first century, the empire needed a military force to defend their northern limes (‘border’). Like elsewhe…

In contrast to today’s Sunday rest, for centuries the island of Walcheren was a pagan stronghold and a safe haven for Vikings with their slightly aggressive business model. Heathen beliefs were dee…

From 2012 onward, about 5,000 foreign fighters from various European countries travelled to the Levant to join the fighting. Six years later, roughly fifteen percent had died in combat. Others rema…

If you want to track down who killed the whale, the Frisia Coast Trail region is the place to start. Stop people on the streets along this southern North Sea littoral and ask whether they know anyt…

Wie de berichten over de Waddenzee volgt, leest vaak over zorgen. Over klimaatverandering, natuurherstel en de dreiging de werelderfgoedstatus te verliezen. Maar als visser Barbara Geertsema-Rodenburg deze zomer het Wad op gaat, ziet ze ook iets anders: nieuwe soorten en veel jong leven.

Lighthouses and beacons along the Frisia Coast Trail

Despite the fact that some Frisian forenames still find their way into modern name-giving, like Bente, Dirk, Doutzen, Eske, Femke/Famke, Fenna, Finn, Froukje, Gemma, Hauk, Hiske, Jildou, Jitske, Sj…

The monk Ecgberht of Ripon was the driving force behind the Christianization of the defiant heathens of Frisia. From the influential monastery of Rath Melsigi in Ireland, he launched wave after wav…

Ever heart of Aldgisl? Even if you did, you probably have a hard time separating fact from fiction. For a fact it is the first king of the Dutch lowlands known to have lived. But is Redbad his real…

According to medieval legend, around the year 800, Charlemagne and Pope Leo clashed with the citizens of Rome. The Pope was attacked and forced to flee the city. It was an army of ‘naked&#821…

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&#8…

Let’s go to the omega. To the end of the Frisia Coast Trail. To Ribe in southern Jutland, Denmark. The oldest town in Scandinavia. A town located on the banks of the Ribe Å, a modest river th…

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. C…

Carving runes into combs and stones is basically the same as spraying tags on subway cars and bicycle tunnels, including the Bansky Tunnel (see featured image above) in London. Those who create run…

“Why am I late to class? Oh, you’re gonna love this — there was this random cat in our barn this morning, right? Total stranger. And guess what? I stepped right in its poop. Yep. So bef…

Late in the afternoon of December 28, 2018, one of the Frisian bastards arrived in the village of Anjum after a 30-kilometre hike along the coast from the seaside town of Holwerd. It had been exact…

This is your DIY manual for enlarging or creating your own terp — an artificial settlement mound or house platform designed to protect against sea or river floods, depending on where it is built. A…

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 Frieze…

Your mother-in-law lived to a respectable old age and has now, one hopes peacefully, departed this world. That, you might reasonably assume, is the end of your relationship. Old believes, however, …

When modern re-enactors bring early medieval Frisia to life, they are often seen wearing a small iron hammer on a leather cord across their bare chests, symbolizing Mjölnir, the mighty weapon of th…

This blog post is not about the Westfrisian writer Hendrik Jan Marsman (1937–2012), better known by his pen name Bernlef. Nor is it about the student association F.F.J. Bernlef in the town of Groninge...