The Oera Linda Book, from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century

by Unknown

This point, then, is the commencement of the isthmus, after the forming of which, the northern inlet was certainly soon filled up as far as the Gulf of Pelusium.

The map by Louis Figuier, in the “Année scientifique et industrielle” (première année), Paris, Hachette, 1857, gives a distinct illustration of the formation of this land.

Another statement, which occurs only in Strabo, finds also here a confirmation. Strabo alone of all the Greek writers relates that Nearchus, after he had landed his troops in the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Pasitigris, sailed out of the Persian Gulf by Alexander’s command, and steered round Arabia through the Arabian Gulf. As the account stands, it is not clear what Nearchus had to do there, and what the object of the further voyage was. If, as Strabo seems to think, it was only for geographical discovery, he need not have taken the whole fleet. One or two ships would have sufficed. We do not read that he returned. Where, then, did he remain with that fleet?

The answer to this question is to be found in the Frisian version of the story. Alexander had bought the ships on the Indus, or had had them built by the descendants of the Frisians who settled there—the Geertmen—and had taken into his service sailors from among them, and at the head of them was Friso. Alexander having accomplished his voyage and the transport of his troops, had no further use for the ships in the Persian Gulf, but wished to employ them in the Mediterranean. He had taken that idea into his head, and it must be carried into effect. He wished to do what no one had done before him. For this purpose Nearchus was to sail up the Red Sea, and on his arrival at Suez was to find 200 elephants, 1000 camels, workmen and materials, timber and ropes, &c., in order to haul the ships by land over the isthmus. This work was carried on and accomplished with so much zeal and energy that after three months’ labour the fleet was launched in the Mediterranean. That the fleet really came to the Mediterranean appears in Plutarch’s “Life of Alexander;” but he makes Nearchus bring the fleet round Africa, and sail through the Pillars of Hercules.

After the defeat at Actium, Cleopatra, in imitation of this example, tried to take her fleet over the isthmus in order to escape to India, but was prevented by the inhabitants of Arabia Petræa, who burnt her ships. (See Plutarch’s “Life of Antony.”) When Alexander shortly afterwards died, Friso remained in the service of Antigonus and Demetrius, until, having been grievously insulted by the latter, he resolved to seek out with his sailors their fatherland, Friesland. To India he could not, indeed, return.

Thus these accounts chime in with and clear up each other, and in that way afford a mutual confirmation of the events.

Such simple narratives and surprising results led me to conclude that we had to do here with more than mere Saga and Legends.

Since the last twenty years attention has been directed to the remains of the dwellings on piles, first observed in the Swiss lakes, and afterwards in other parts of Europe. (See Dr E. Rückert, “Die Pfahlbauten;” Würzburg, 1869. Dr T. C. Winkler, in the “Volksalmanak,” t. N. v. A. 1867.) When they were found, endeavours were made to discover, by the existing fragments of arms, tools, and household articles, by whom and when these dwellings had been inhabited. There are no accounts of them in historical writers, beyond what Herodotus writes in book v. chapter 16, of the “Paeonen.” The only trace that has been found is in one of the panels of Trajan’s Pillar, in which the destruction of a pile village in Dacia is represented.

Doubly important, therefore, is it to learn from the writing of Apollonia that she, as “Burgtmaagd” (chief of the virgins), about 540 years before Christ, made a journey up the Rhine to Switzerland, and there became acquainted with the Lake Dwellers (Marsaten). She describes their dwellings built upon piles—the people themselves—their manners and customs. She relates that they lived by fishing and hunting, and that they prepared the skins of the animals with the bark of the birch-tree in order to sell the furs to the Rhine boatmen, who brought them into commerce. This account of the pile dwellings in the Swiss lakes can only have been written in the time when these dwellings still existed and were lived in. In the second part of the writing, Konerêd oera Linda relates that Adel, the son of Friso (±250 years before Christ), visited the pile dwellings in Switzerland with his wife Ifkja.

Later than this account there is no mention by any writer whatever of the pile dwellings, and the subject has remained for twenty centuries utterly unknown until 1853, when an extraordinary low state of the water led to the discovery of these dwellings. Therefore no one could have invented this account in the intervening period. Although a great portion of the first part of the work—the book of Adela—belongs to the mythological period before the Trojan war, there is a striking difference between it and the Greek myths. The Myths have no dates, much less any chronology, nor any internal coherence of successive events. The untrammelled fancy develops itself in every poem separately and independently. The mythological stories contradict each other on every point. “Les Mythes ne se tiennent pas,” is the only key to the Greek Mythology.