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“Ich mag Ihre Pelzer- und Schustertöchter nicht!” – a kiss of death
Like everywhere along the Wadden Sea shores in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the small republics of the tidal marshlands had to...
Hans Faber
Jul 28, 202410 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, 202412 min read


Guerrilla in the Polder. The Battle of Vroonen in 1297
What is the use of celebrating only the battles you have won? Feeling proud and superior as a nation above that of another, and the...
Hans Faber
Feb 4, 202424 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, 202440 min read

How great was Great Pier? (the sequel II)
To understand the ‘greatness’ of Great Pier, we decided to look into his ‘achievements’. As a freedom fighter (or pirate, if you like)...
Frans Riemersma
Aug 28, 20238 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


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 the region of Land Wursten on the eastern...
Hans Faber
May 28, 202211 min read


Walfrid, You’ll Never Walk Alone.
This blog post is not about Aindreas Ó Céirín (1840-1915), better known as Brother Walfrid from Ireland and who founded the Scottish...
Hans Faber
Apr 10, 202216 min read


Pagare il fio
Pagare il fio is Italian for ‘paying the penalty’. More literally, it means ‘paying the fee’. It is an expression the Italian language...
Hans Faber
Dec 10, 202115 min read


♫ They want you as a new recruit ♫
'In the navy', is a song of village people. Of the small villages along the southern coast of the North Sea. A water people once united...
Hans Faber
Oct 31, 202110 min read


Latið meg ei á Frísaland fordervast! And the murder of a bishop
Latið meg ei á Frísaland fordervast! 'Do not let me perish in Friesland!' A cry-out of a Faroese young woman when she was being...
Hans Faber
May 16, 20209 min read


A Theel-Acht. What a great idea!
Halfway through the ninth century, Vikings had established a more or less permanent presence in Frisia, in the pagus 'territory' called...
Hans Faber
Feb 23, 202015 min read


Magnus’ Choice. The Origins of the Frisian Freedom
According to medieval legends, around the year 800, Charlemagne and Pope Leo came into conflict with the citizens of Rome. The Pope was...
Hans Faber
Sep 23, 201932 min read


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...
Hans Faber
Jul 27, 201916 min read


The Abbey of Egmond and the rise of the Gerulfings
Monk Ecgberht of Ripon was the driving force behind the Christianization of the headstrong heathens of Frisia. From the influential...
Hans Faber
Jul 19, 201945 min read


The Treaty of the Upstalsboom. Why solidarity is not the core of a collective
At the time of writing this blog post (2018), many supranational organizations, whether governmental or judicial, are struggling with...
Hans Faber
Jun 24, 201828 min read


Frisian mercenaries in the Roman Army
After the Roman Empire had incorporated a big chunck of the British Isles in the first century AD, the empire needed a military force to def
Hans Faber
Mar 2, 201818 min read


Why was Redbad skinny dipping in eau de Cologne?
In March 714, Redbad's army reached the shores of Cologne. That is deep in the Frankish heartlands and way out of the traditional Frisian...
Frans Riemersma
Jan 6, 20186 min read


The battles of Redbad, unplugged
King Redbad died in 719. Some 1300 years later, as a tribute a movie about this Frisian king will hit the silver screen in the Dutch...
Frans Riemersma
Jan 3, 20187 min read
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