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THE OERA LINDA BOOK Thet Oera Linda Bok Translated from the Frisian by Frank H. Pierce IV Copyright 198) by Frank H. Pierce IV 206 Franklin Ave. Silver Spring, Md. 20901 r , asta Preface When THE OERA LINDA BOOK first came to light, around the middle of the nineteenth century, it was attacked forthwith from all quarters and denounced as a fraud. These detrac tors among the scholarly and journalistic establishment feared the implication of this history, namely that the Teutonic or Northern nations did not consist of quaint, back ward savages who so remained until their contact with the so called high civilizations of the South and East, but rather an enlightened, seafaring people whose ethical philosophy and metaphysics show an advanced level of thinking, who were, moreover, the basis of much classical mythology. In the year 1848, Cornelius over de Linden, master ship wright at the Royal Netherlands Dockyards at Helder, near the West Frisian island of Texel came, through his Aunt Aafjie Meylhof, into possession of a text or collection of several writings which had been in the care of his departed grandfather, Andries over ae Linden. The works were written in an unusual script and Cornelius may have studied runes in hopes of understanding it. Not being himself a scholar and thus unaware of the possible import of his possession, he waited nineteen years to present it to a Dr. Elco Verwijs, Archivist of the Province Friesland, who, seeing that it was written in an ancient Frisian, asked the Frisian Society, FRIESCH GENOOTSCHAP for support in the translation and pub lication of the writings; this was not granted. Finally, the cause of THE OERA LINDA BOOK was taken up by a Dr. J. G. Ottema who edited, translated the works into Netherlands and published them in two editions, one in 1872 and another in 1876 which is used in this English translation. One factor which weighs heavily in favour of the text's authenticity is that the knowledge that the West Frisian Islands were once part of the mainland is only 80 to 90 years old; Cornelius over de Linden, therefore, could not have had access to this information when he first brought i the writings to public attention. Moreover, investigation into the amount of C in the l 4 growth rings of the ancient bristlecone pine has revealed that the decrease in the amount of the radioactive carbon is not constant as once thought, for some very old tree rings show more C than one had expected of them. l 4 This has caused a revolution in thinking about early history. The so-called megalithic tombs of Northern and Western Europe can no longer be understood as imitations of Mediterranean or Near Eastern designs such as those of Mycenae or Egypt simply because they are older. Further more, it has been demonstrated that there was considerable use of metalurgy on the Danube by at least 4000 B.C. In other words, the North-West rather than the South-East was the cradle of civilization, if indeed there were such a thing. If, after reading THE OERA LINDA BOOK, one examines the concentrations of ancient monuments and tombs in Europe, one shall find that they occur in those lands which are men tioned as once belonging to Frya, and, indeed, in modern • Friesland as well. One must also notice the abrupt gaps, in the continuity, of these most ancient finds, in eastern Britain and in the Low Countries. It seems highly unlikely that people mysteriously chose not to build any tombs or monuments in those areas. It is rather more likely that there were once tombs and monuments there but that one of the natural disasters mentioned in THE OERA LINDA BOOK, such as the sinking of Aldland, overwhelmed the structures in floods, for these sudden absences of tombs and monuments are noticeable mainly in coastal lowl~nds near or on the southern North Sea. It is clear that there was some connection between the builders of Stonehenge and the Ring of Brogar in the Orkney Islands and the people upon whom THE OERA LINDA BOOK is based. Their age bears witness to the truth of this book, ii but they have yet had little else to tell. From the time of Martin Luther, it has been the intention of translators not to produce the greatest possible likeness of the original text, but rather to create new literature based on the original work. While this may allow the trans lator to write better, more readable prose, it keeps one from a truer understanding of the work at hand. One has in deed little more than secondary literature. This is a great fault of the other translation, of THE OERA LINDA BOOK, by William R. Sandbach, published in 1876. In an attempt to render the text in good, standard-modern English, Mr. Sandbach has diluted and well has lost the character of these writings, and therewith some of their meaning. Furthermore, there are a number of mistakes in the Sandbach rendering which I, though not undertaking a criti que of his work, have noticed. The following is a list of some of these mistakes: Book or Chapter Frisian Sandbach Pierce -Adela followers storsta cleverest stoutest How the bad time drivande kwik drift driven animals came -Konered manniska creatures people juttar trawlers beachcombers throughout the heinde heathenish near book Tale of Jon Umb that Kalta missing Because Kalta hira selva herself trusted naut to fiil not too many, bitroada, -Frethorik and Tha us missing from When our king Wiliow kening that Wm. Sandbach's understood that, understande, and Dr. he led us back. led-er us Ottema's to bek. translations iii The text speaks of Frisians or FRYAS in both a broad and a narrow sense. At first, it is a general name for all those mNorthern European stock or Frya's children, who were con federated under the authority of the Folksmother at Texalnd. But then, as they became false to the teaching of Frya and thus to the ideas of their own race, the definition of FRYAS shrank until it applied only to those regions which are yet known as Frisian. When the Frisians themselves became cor rupt, their name became only a vestige. So as not to impose my own sense upon the writings, and thereby risk making the collection a thing of my own creation, I have not tampered with Dr. Ottema's punctuation and capital ization save to keep the text from complete obscurity. The reader might note, for example, that I capitalize "earth" only when speaking of the Earth Mother. The grammar might well offend the modern sensibilities with its run-on sen tences and compound negatives. Such irregularities are attributed to the fact that, in 1256, when Hiddo oera Linda produced the last translation of his books, at least the Northern European languages were in a state of flux. There was, during the time of Hiddo oera Linda, a confluence of dialects and even language; there were no hard, fast standards of grammar and spelling to distinguish proper from improper usage. This resulted in the quickness of linguistic evolution which was experienced in those days. This is further com plicated by the wont of scribes, of that period, to modify older texts so that they might be better understood by the public; hence, mixed texts, those which contain elements of more than one period. Therefore is the relative modernity of many of the references made in this book no cause to doubt the antiquity of its sources. iv A Short Glossary burgh: a citadel or the city associated with a citadel foddik: the perpetually burning lamp grave: in this text, a man of high rank in a burgh Kroder: the point which turns around the yule-wheel roundeal: a piece of land which completely encircles a building thorp. small town, village wit, wost, have wost, I wot, thou wost, he, she, it wot, we, you, they wit: verb to know, properly intransitive but also used as a transitive verb in this text yule: the year-cycle as represented by a six spoked wheel Some Major Events from THE OERA LINDA BOOK Listed by their Christian Dates B.C. 2193 the sinking of Aldland 2092 Finns and Magyar in East Skenland 2000 Tunis landed on the Phoenician coast 1630 war of the burghmaids, Kalta and Minerva 1188 records made of Ulysus at Frya's burgh 591 loss of the Denmarks circa 320 Alexander the Great brought some Fryas back from the Punjab. v