EN00a.01 Hidde
Ott 2025
Letters of Instruction
A. Hidde Oera Linda, 1255 CE
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, the twelve hundred and fifty-sixth year.[6]
Hidde, surnamed Oera Linda.[7]
Watch![8]
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’.
- ↑ If the Christian year 1256th corresponds to year 3449th ‘after Atland sank’, the sinking of Atland would have occurred in 3449 - 1256 - 1st (year zero) = 2192 BCE. The 1256th year would have been the year 1255 AD or CE.
- ↑ ‘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