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Hans Faber
Jun 9, 202420 min read
Odin’s Ravens ruled over the southern shores. Not the Hammer of Thor
image by Denyse O'Leary When re-enactors bring to life early-medieval Frisia, you regularly see them wearing a little iron hammer on a...
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Hans Faber
May 11, 202423 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...
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Hans Faber
Feb 18, 202412 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....
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Hans Faber
Jan 7, 202439 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...
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Frans Riemersma
Jan 15, 20235 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?...
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Frans Riemersma
Jan 3, 202320 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 sure...
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Hans Faber
Nov 25, 202228 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,...
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Hans Faber
Nov 12, 202213 min read
A Frisian warlord who ruled in Brittany, until his wife cheated on him
featured image: Vendel helmet, Uppland, Sweden, ca AD 600 Where the English Channel and the Celtic Sea meet, is where the ships of the...
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Hans Faber
Oct 25, 20228 min read
Late Little Prayers at the Lorelei Rock
Lorelei Rock – River Rhine On the west bank of the mighty River Rhine, halfway between the cities of Koblenz and Mainz, lies the town of...
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Hans Faber
Sep 30, 202230 min read
Don’t believe everything they say about sweet Cunera
credit De Hoefslag Imagine. One day your husband brings home a young unmarried woman. A virgin even. He simply takes her into your house,...
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Hans Faber
Apr 23, 20228 min read
Dissolute Elisabeth and Her Devil
In the Middle Age lived a once promiscuous girl named Elisabeth. She had come to repentance, found honorable employ as a maid, and had...
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Hans Faber
Apr 10, 202215 min read
Walfrid, You’ll Never Walk Alone.
This blog post isn't about Aindreas Ó CéirÃn (1840-1915), better known as Brother Walfrid from Ireland and who founded the Scottish...
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Hans Faber
Sep 10, 202113 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...
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Hans Faber
Mar 21, 202113 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...
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Hans Faber
Feb 21, 20219 min read
Frisia, a Viking graveyard
When reading about the famous deeds of great Viking warriors, not much attention is given to the moments of failure. Not much is written...
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Hans Faber
Nov 1, 20208 min read
Legend of Esonstad
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...
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Hans Faber
Jun 17, 202020 min read
Make way for the homesick dead!
High up in the Swiss Alps, in the region of Bernese Oberland, many men, women, and children have experienced the great horror of dead...
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Hans Faber
May 16, 20208 min read
Latið meg ei á FrÃsaland fordervast!
Latið meg ei á FrÃsaland fordervast! 'Do not let me perish in Friesland!' A cry-out of a Faroese young woman when she was being...
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Hans Faber
Feb 26, 20207 min read
Sailors escaped from Cyclops, but saw World's End
"Reason I'm late for class? Well, you know, there was a strange cat in our barn this morning, and I stepped in its poop. Therefore, I...
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Hans Faber
Feb 23, 202015 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...
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