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| Reinier Zeeman (ca. 1623–1667 Dutch), Flooded |
I often wonder what thoughts they had, what they said to each other, what they felt. They were, after all, no different than you or I, touched by human emotions.
His name was Jan, nothing more. Like all the Biblical characters, like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, a first name was enough.
He was a 30 year old sailor from Husum.
Volkje was a 20 year old farm girl from Nordstrand, brought together by a terrible storm that took thousands of lives. Her parents killed in the deluge, his occupation as a sailor likely ended with the flooding of Husum, a seaport along the tidal flats and salt marshes of Wadden Sea. Like hundreds, if not thousands, of survivors, making their way to Amsterdam. Then offered a chance to settle in the New World.
Married in Amsterdam's Nieue Kirche, where for the first he took the name Jan Van Husum. They then prepared to set sail across the Atlantic to New Amsterdam and a new life. She would be his guiding life, the mother of his children, the keeper of the house. Together they would share life's journey.
What thoughts had they, we can only imagine...
Dear Lyltsen
Dear Lyltsen, when I am with theeGysbert Japicx (b. 1603)
(My light, my flame, my sun, my eye)
As dark as deep as night may be
When through the sky stars steer their course
No matter how dark it may be
It is light as the daylight sun for me.
But when your flare flares not unto me,
I have no star to steer my turning;
I move then blind as a stick, a stone,
Though mid-day sun is burning.
What use if the sun in my eyes is bright?
Lylts is all, my dark, my light.
Lyltsen (the diminutive and enduring way of referring to Lylt), possibly Lilith. In Jewish mythology, Lilith refers to a demon in the night. Volkje (Volkie and its variants) is the diminutive of the Dutch word for falcon.
Gysbert Japicx (also Japiks; 1603–66) was a 17th century Dutch poet who wrote in Latin as well as the Frisian dialect, Friesche Rymlerye (1668; “Frisian Verse”). Japicx or Japiks spoke of his beloved Lylt in several verses. Whether she was real or just a vision is uncertain.
Life in the Netherlands
Historically, it is important to know that the nation state of the Netherlands only came into being in 1596 when the kings of France and England arranged a treaty with the Republic of the United Netherlands, giving the fledgling state international recognition. The Kingdom of Spain continued to wage war on the Dutch until 1609 when they too recognized Dutch independence. The North Friesland coast where Jan Fanz Van Husum originated was for the most part a "vast swampy moor." Husum was a seaport and it is likely that Jan, who was a sailor, sailed into the North Atlantic to catch cod. Because of its remoteness from Amsterdam and the major Dutch cities, Husum and the island of Nordstrand escaped the fighting between the Spanish and the Dutch. Dutch engineers had come to the island of Nordstrand to battle the sea and reclaim the land.
It was not a battle they could win.
Go stroll along the sandy dunes and march through the muddy marshes. See the world the way they saw it. For a good article on Dutch life in the 16th and 17th century with images go to the following link:
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