of what the legislation consisted in. Also among the Gods of Mythology there existed no system of laws. The only law was unchangable Destiny and the will of the supreme Zeus.

With regard to Mythology, this writing, which bears no mythical character, is not less remarkable than with regard to history. Notwithstanding the frequent and various relations with Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, we do not find any traces of acquaintance with the Northern or Scandinavian Mythology. Only Wodin appears in the person of Wodan, a chief of the Frisians, who became the son-in-law of one Magy, King of the Finns, and after his death was deified.

The Frisian religion is extremely simple, and pure Monotheism. Wr-alda or Wr-alda’s spirit is the only eternal, unchangeable, perfect, and almighty being. Wr-alda has created everything. Out of him proceeds everything—first the beginning, then time, and afterwards Irtha, the Earth. Irtha bore three daughters—Lyda, Finda, and Frya—the mothers of the three distinct races, black, yellow, and white—Africa, Asia, and Europe. As such, Frya is the mother of Frya’s people, the Frieslanders. She is the representative of Wr-alda, and is reverenced accordingly. Frya has established her “Tex,” the first law, and has established the religion of the eternal light. The worship consists in the maintenance of a perpetually-burning lamp, foddik, by priestesses, virgins. At the head of the virgins in every town was a Burgtmaagd, and the chief of the Burgtmaagden was the Eeremoeder of the Fryasburgt of Texland. The Eeremoeder governs the whole country. The kings can do nothing, nor can anything happen without her advice and approval. The first Eeremoeder was appointed by Frya herself, and was called Fâsta. In fact, we find here the prototype of the Roman Vestal Virgins.

We are reminded here of Velleda (Welda) and Aurinia in Tacitus (“Germania,” 8. Hist., iv. 61, 65; v. 22, 24. “Annals,” i. 54), and of Gauna, the successor of Velleda, in Dio Cassius (Fragments, 49). Tacitus speaks of the town of Velleda as “edita turris,” page 146. It was the town Mannagarda forda (Munster).

In the county of the Marsians he speaks of the temple Tanfane (Tanfanc), so called from the sign of the Juul. (See plate I.)

The last of these towns was Fâstaburgt in Ameland, temple Foste, destroyed, according to Occa Scarlensis, in 806.

If we find among the Frisians a belief in a Godhead and ideas of religion entirely different from the Mythology of other nations, we are the more surprised to find in some points the closest connection with the Greek and Roman Mythology, and even with the origin of two deities of the highest rank, Min-erva and Neptune. Min-erva (Athénè) was originally a Burgtmaagd, priestess of Frya, at the town Walhallagara, Middelburg, or Domburg, in Walcheren. And this Min-erva is at the same time the mysterious enigmatical goddess of whose worship scarcely any traces remain beyond the votive stones at Domburg, in Walcheren, Nehallenia, of whom no mythology knows anything more than the name, which etymology has used for all sorts of fantastical derivations.2

The other, Neptune, called by the Etrurians Nethunus, the God of the Mediterranean Sea, appears here to have been, when living, a Friesland Viking, or sea-king, whose home was Alderga (Ouddorp, not far from Alkmaar). His name was Teunis, called familiarly by his followers Neef Teunis, or Cousin Teunis, who had chosen the Mediterranean as the destination of his expeditions, and must have been deified by the Tyrians at the time when the Phenician navigators began to extend their voyages so remarkably, sailing to Friesland in order to obtain British tin, northern iron, and amber from the Baltic, about 2000 years before Christ.

Besides these two we meet with a third mythological person—Minos, the lawgiver of Crete, who likewise appears to have been a Friesland sea-king, Minno, born at Lindaoord, between Wieringen and Kreyl, who imparted to the Cretans an “Asagaboek.” He is that Minos who, with his brother Rhadamanthus and Æacus, presided as judges over the fates of the ghosts in Hades, and must not be confounded with the later Minos, the contemporary of Ægeus and Theseus, who appears in the Athenian fables.

The reader may perhaps be inclined to laugh at these statements, and apply to me the words that I myself have lately used, fantastic and improbable. Indeed at first I could not believe my own eyes, and yet after further consideration I arrived at the discovery of extraordinary conformities which render the case much less improbable than the birth of Min-erva from the head of Jupiter by a blow from the axe of Hephæstus, for instance.

In the Greek Mythology all the gods and goddesses have a youthful period. Pallas alone has no youth. She is not otherwise known than adult. Min-erva appears in Attica as high priestess from a foreign country, a country unknown to the Greeks. Pallas is a virgin goddess, Min-erva is a Burgtmaagd. The fair, blue-eyed Pallas, differing thus in type from the rest of the gods and goddesses, evidently belonged to Frya’s people. The character for wisdom and the emblematical attributes, especially the owl, are the same for both. Pallas gives to the new town her own name, Athènai, which has no meaning in Greek. Min-erva gives to the town built by her the name Athene, which has an important meaning in Fries, namely, that they came there as friends—“Âthen.”

Min-erva came to Attica about 1600 years before Christ, the period at which the Grecian Mythology was beginning to be formed. Min-erva landed with the fleet of Jon at the head of a colony in Attica. In later times we find her on the Roman votive stones in Walcheren, under the name of Nehallenia, worshipped as a goddess of navigation; and Pallas is worshipped by the Athenians as the protecting goddess of shipbuilding and navigation.

Time is the carrier who must eternally turn the “Jol” (wheel) and carry the sun along his course through the firmament from winter to winter, thus forming the year, every turn of the wheel being a day. In midwinter the “Jolfeest” is celebrated on Frya’s Day. Then cakes are baked in the form of the sun’s wheel, because with the Jol Frya formed the letters when she wrote her “Tex.” The Jolfeest is therefore also in honour of Frya as inventor of writing.

Just as this Jolfeest has been changed by Christianity into Christmas throughout Denmark and Germany, and into St Nicholas’ Day in Holland; so, certainly, our St Nicholas’ dolls—the lover and his sweetheart—are a memorial of Frya, and the St Nicholas letters a memorial of Frya’s invention of letters formed from the wheel.

I cannot analyse the whole contents of this writing, and must content myself with the remarks that I have made. They will give an idea of the richness and importance of the contents. If some of it is fabulous, even as fabulous it must have an interest for us, since so little of the traditions of our forefathers remains to us.

An internal evidence of the antiquity of these writings may be found in the fact that the name Batavians had not yet been used. The inhabitants of the whole country as far as the Scheldt are Frya’s people—Frieslanders. The Batavians are not a separate people. The name Batavi is of Roman origin. The Romans gave it to the inhabitants of the banks of the Waal, which river bears the name Patabus in the “Tabula Pentingeriana.” The name Batavi does not appear earlier than Tacitus and Pliny, and is interpolated in Cæsar’s “Bello Gallico,” iv. 10. (See my treatise on the course of the rivers through the