Besides these two we meet with a third mythological person—Minos, the lawgiver of Crete, who likewise appears to have been a Friesland sea-king, Minno, born at Lindaoord, between Wieringen and Kreyl, who imparted to the Cretans an “Asagaboek.” He is that Minos who, with his brother Rhadamanthus and Æacus, presided as judges over the fates of the ghosts in Hades, and must not be confounded with the later Minos, the contemporary of Ægeus and Theseus, who appears in the Athenian fables.
The reader may perhaps be inclined to laugh at these statements, and apply to me the words that I myself have lately used, fantastic and improbable. Indeed at first I could not believe my own eyes, and yet after further consideration I arrived at the discovery of extraordinary conformities which render the case much less improbable than the birth of Min-erva from the head of Jupiter by a blow from the axe of Hephæstus, for instance.
In the Greek Mythology all the gods and goddesses have a youthful period. Pallas alone has no youth. She is not otherwise known than adult. Min-erva appears in Attica as high priestess from a foreign country, a country unknown to the Greeks. Pallas is a virgin goddess, Min-erva is a Burgtmaagd. The fair, blue-eyed Pallas, differing thus in type from the rest of the gods and goddesses, evidently belonged to Frya’s people. The character for wisdom and the emblematical attributes, especially the owl, are the same for both. Pallas gives to the new town her own name, Athènai, which has no meaning in Greek. Min-erva gives to the town built by her the name Athene, which has an important meaning in Fries, namely, that they came there as friends—“Âthen.”
Min-erva came to Attica about 1600 years before Christ, the period at which the Grecian Mythology was beginning to be formed. Min-erva landed with the fleet of Jon at the head of a colony in Attica. In later times we find her on the Roman votive stones in Walcheren, under the name of Nehallenia, worshipped as a goddess of navigation; and Pallas is worshipped by the Athenians as the protecting goddess of shipbuilding and navigation.
Time is the carrier who must eternally turn the “Jol” (wheel) and carry the sun along his course through the firmament from winter to winter, thus forming the year, every turn of the wheel being a day. In midwinter the “Jolfeest” is celebrated on Frya’s Day. Then cakes are baked in the form of the sun’s wheel, because with the Jol Frya formed the letters when she wrote her “Tex.” The Jolfeest is therefore also in honour of Frya as inventor of writing.
Just as this Jolfeest has been changed by Christianity into Christmas throughout Denmark and Germany, and into St Nicholas’ Day in Holland; so, certainly, our St Nicholas’ dolls—the lover and his sweetheart—are a memorial of Frya, and the St Nicholas letters a memorial of Frya’s invention of letters formed from the wheel.
I cannot analyse the whole contents of this writing, and must content myself with the remarks that I have made. They will give an idea of the richness and importance of the contents. If some of it is fabulous, even as fabulous it must have an interest for us, since so little of the traditions of our forefathers remains to us.
An internal evidence of the antiquity of these writings may be found in the fact that the name Batavians had not yet been used. The inhabitants of the whole country as far as the Scheldt are Frya’s people—Frieslanders. The Batavians are not a separate people. The name Batavi is of Roman origin. The Romans gave it to the inhabitants of the banks of the Waal, which river bears the name Patabus in the “Tabula Pentingeriana.” The name Batavi does not appear earlier than Tacitus and Pliny, and is interpolated in Cæsar’s “Bello Gallico,” iv. 10. (See my treatise on the course of the rivers through the countries of the Frisians and Batavians, p. 49, in “De Vrije Fries,” 4th vol. 1st part, 1845.)
I will conclude with one more remark regarding the language. Those who have been able to take only a superficial view of the manuscript have been struck by the polish of the language, and its conformity with the present Friesland language and Dutch. In this they seem to find grounds for doubting the antiquity of the manuscript.
But, I ask, is, then, the language of Homer much less polished than that of Plato or Demosthenes? And does not the greatest portion of Homer’s vocabulary exist in the Greek of our day?