When starting this website, I wanted to focus as much as possible on Dutch heathenism, witchcraft and folklore. I soon stumbled upon a problem: ‘the Netherlands’ as we now know them are only 200 years old. The borders we have now were unheard of in ancient times. What’s more, many people who lived in this area a couple of thousand years ago, are all but gone. Many people who live here now don’t stem from Germanic tribes who lived here generations before. But they still consider themselves Dutch. Basically, the construction of ‘the Netherlands’ is relatively modern, quite arbitrary, and always developing.

National identity is a fickle thing. I’m still a sucker for it. When I walk around in the area where I was born and grew up, I feel a deep connection to the land. I know that this is a personal thing – even though my family has lived in Noord-Brabant for quite some generations. But there are many people who were born here, who don’t feel a connection with their homeland at all, and even actively want to leave to go and live somewhere else.

So where does this connection come from? For me personally, it’s the experience of walking through fields and forests, the many plants growing, blooming, sleeping then awakening again. It’s experiencing the wind, seeing beautiful skies and birds flying. Noticing the life patterns of the animals living in my area. This can be noticed in practically every other land on Earth, I know. But having lived her for almost all my life makes it much more intimate, as if I’m part of this particular land.

The connection is also created through a sense of history, the realisation that the land we walk on is so much older then we are. It literally contains the knowledge of the era’s that came before us. It makes us feel part of a bigger whole. This can especially be seen in the many legends that are connected to the areas over the world. From legends about ghosts and monsters to the folklore of places being fairy mounds or kobold dwellings. No one really knows how old these stories are and where they came from, but they give us the feeling, the idea, that there is more to the land than meets the eye. And I love how we give stories to the land. Maybe it’s our gift back, because the land gives us so much.

Many of the old Dutch stories, legends and fairy tales haven’t been translated into English as far as I know. Many of them are connected to particular places. I will start (roughly) translating them and putting them on this website in the near future.