EN00a.01 Hidde
Ott 2025
Letters of Instruction
A. Hidde Oera Linda
a.01 [00a] Okke, my son,
You must guard these books with body and soul.[1] They contain the history of all our folk and of our ancestors. Last year, I rescued them from the flood, together with you and your mother. But they had become wet and began to decay. So as not to lose them, I copied them on foreign paper.[2]
When you inherit them, you too must make a copy.[3] And your children likewise, so that they shall never be lost.
Written in Liuwert,[4] in the three thousand, four hundred, and forty-ninth year after Atland sank.[5] That is in the Christian reckoning,[6] the twelve hundred and fifty-sixth year.[7]
Hidde, surnamed Oera Linda.[8]
Watch![9]
Notes
- ↑ ‘body and soul’ (LIF ÀND SÉLE) — ‘body’ (Dutch: ‘lijf’) can also be understood as ‘life’.
- ↑ ‘foreign’ (WRLANDISK) — lit.: ‘overlandish’; ‘paper’ (PAMPÍER). Accepting the possibility that the Fryas spelling, with M (‘pampier’/’pompier’), is more original than without (Dutch: ‘papier’), given that paper was also made from water-lily leaves (POMPA.BLÉDAR; see 64.21), then the word ‘papyrus’, “a loanword of unknown origin” (wikipedia), may have been derived from it.
- ↑ ‘make a copy’ (WRSKRÍVA) — lit.: ‘overscribe’.
- ↑ ‘Liuwert’ — elsewhere different varieties are used (LJUD.WERD, LJUD.WARDJA). In this and similar cases, a spelling close to the original is used in the translation. Current Frisian spelling: Ljouwert (Dutch: Leeuwarden); the older Fryas place names may have been located elsewhere (compare: Lutjeswaard, a sandbank southeast of Texel).
- ↑ ‘Atland’ — original spelling is maintained; elsewhere also spelled ‘Aldland’.
- ↑ ‘Christian’ (KERSTEN) — or: ‘Kersten-’.
- ↑ The 1256th year would have been the year 1255. If the Kersten year 1256th corresponds to year 3449th ‘after Atland sank’, the sinking of Atland would have occurred in 3449 - 1256 - 1st (year zero) = 2192 before the beginning of the Kersten timeline. However, since Liko did not refer to the Atland timeline ca. 450 years earlier and it does not appear in the most recent texts (ch. Z), the correctness of Hidde's calculation is questionable. He may have calculated the year in which Aldland sank himself based on a year of the biblical flood proposed by Christians. Since various medieval timeline traditions seem to have existed before our (Scaligerian) chronology was established, Hidde’s year 1255 may have been (much) less than 345 years before 1600 AD. Likewise, Liko — dating his letter ‘803’ — may have lived only a few generations before Hidde.
- ↑ ‘Oera Linda’ (OERA LINDA) — short for ‘over the Linden Regions’ (OVIRA LINDA.WRDA); see 90.01 and 113.23.
- ↑ ‘Watch!’ (WÁK) — or: ‘keep watch’, ‘(stay) awake’.
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Chapters A and B: Sandbach 1876