Snow buntings on beach, video

This 23 October 2019 video shows snow buntings in winter plumage on a beach near Moddergat in Friesland province in the Netherlands.

Martien van Beekveld made this video.

Slaughterhouse becomes vegetarian food business

This 26 July 2018 video says about itself:

We transform plant-based ingredients into super ‘meaty’ dishes that are 100% vegan.

These are our Top 10 vegan meat alternatives to wow your carnivore friends and to scratch any of those itches you may have for something ‘meaty’.

These vegan meat dishes are fun to whip up every now and then and are incredibly delicious. Our favourites are the cheeseburger doughballs, vegan steak and the vegan fried chicken.

These dishes are super tasty and can be made easily at home. Let us know which one is your favourite!

Get the full recipes on our website.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Vion, one of the largest meat companies in the country, will only make vegetarian products at its slaughterhouse in Leeuwarden [in Friesland province]. The company wants to respond to the increasing demand for meat substitutes.

In the slaughterhouse in Leeuwarden, beef products were made, but from next spring on, only vegetarian schnitzels and sausages will have to roll off the line.

Flexitarians

Vion already made vegetarian products in Groenlo, but that location has become too small.

With the conversion of the slaughterhouse in Leeuwarden, Vion hopes to profit from the growth in the number of so-called flexitarians; people who deliberately do not eat meat for a few days a week.

Meat companies in Holten and Enschede, eg, have previously decided to become (partially) vegetarian.

Western sandpiper, first ever in the Netherlands

On 15 August, for the first time ever, a western sandpiper was seen in the Netherlands.

This species nests in Alaska. Usually, they migrate to Mexico.

Now, however, a bird that had flown all the way across the Atlantic Ocean landed near Westhoek village in Dutch Friesland province. It attracted hundreds of birdwatchers.

The Alaskan vagrant sandpiper is there in the company of hundreds of sandpipers of other species; like the dunlin in the background of the photo.

Dutch government forcing fossil fuel down throats

This ANP photo shows people from Friesland province in the Netherlands demonstrating in the Hague against gas extraction by Vermilion corporation, with a Frisian flag and arguing against Minister Wiebes of of Economic Affairs and Climate, member of the right-wing VVD party.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

The Dutch [right-wing] government and the municipality of Smallingerland are facing each other in court today. The Frisian municipality has amended a zoning plan to prevent new gas extraction in the outlying area, but the government believes that Smallingerland is thereby going against national rules.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate

Minister: Wiebes, of the pro-Big Business VVD party

went to the Council of State to challenge the zoning plan. This is unique: never before has the government dragged a municipality before the highest administrative court in connection with gas extraction.

Renewable energy

Several small gas fields can be found in the Smallingerland municipality (56,000 inhabitants). That gas is already being extracted in a number of places, but now that the gas extraction in Groningen is being diminished,

because of the enormous earthquake damage by Shell and Exxon gas extraction there

such small fields are getting more and more into the spotlight.

The local council is afraid of subsidence

and maybe also earthquakes like in Groningen

and therefore does not want to give permission for preparatory research for the drilling of new wells. In addition, the municipality believes that more gas extraction is not necessary.

“We want to make the transition to sustainable energy. We need gas for that for the time being, but that is being produced sufficiently in the Netherlands. I cannot explain to my residents that we need to get rid of the gas, but that at the same time there is drilling for extra gas at new locations”, says GroenLinks party alderman Piet de Ruiter.

Surprise

De Ruiter says that the decision of the municipality follows the line of the national government. “The national government coalition agreement states that there will be no new permits for gas extraction. In our opinion, we are acting neatly in line with government policy.” The fact that the government went to the Council of State came as a surprise to De Ruiter.

The multinational gas corporation which the national government helps against the Smallingerland people is Vermilion from Canada. Also in the Dutch Utrecht province and in North Brabant province there are protests against them.

See also here:

Smallingerland’s provisional zoning plan was available to the public for six weeks last year. Everyone, including the national government, could have objected then, but that did not happen.

Smallingerland is close to the beauty spot, national park De Alde Feanen.

When it comes to groundwater quality, fracking receives much of the public attention but misses most of the picture, according to hydrogeologists Jennifer McIntosh from the University of Arizona and Grant Ferguson from the University of Saskatchewan (USask). “There’s a critical need for long-term — years to decades — monitoring for potential contamination of drinking water resources not only from fracking, but also from conventional oil and gas production,” McIntosh said: here.

Black-tailed godwits, mating and nesting video

This May 2019 video from Friesland province in the Netherlands is about black-tailed godwits, including mating and hatching of the young birds.

Alma Tadema drawing discovery on flea market

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Drawing by Frisian artist Alma Tadema found at flea market

The Fries Museum in Leeuwarden has bought a drawing by Alma Tadema that has been found at a flea market. It is probably a portrait that the Frisian artist made of his niece Sientsje Tadema.

The work was presented to the museum by a Belgian who found it at the flea market in Brussels. He then contacted the Fries Museum.

Curator Marlies Stoter investigated the work and recognized Alma Tadema by the combination of the fine lines and strong pencil lines in the dark parts of the drawing.

Longing women

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema (1836-1912) is an artist from Dronrijp who emigrated to England after his studies at the art academy in Antwerp. During his studies he regularly made portraits of people from his immediate environment.

In 2016 there was a large exhibition about the artist in the Fries Museum. It mainly showed his images of ancient Roman scenes with longing beautiful women. That was a great success: 158,000 visitors came to it.

The drawing can be seen from April 20 on at the exhibition Collected Work: the rich collection of Friesland, writes regional broadcasting organisation Omrop Fryslân. The museum now has 18 paintings and around 90 works on paper by the artist.

Otter in a stream, video

This 8 March 2019 video shows an otter in a stream in a nature reserve in Friesland province in the Netherlands.

John van de Veen made this video.

First northern lapwing egg, earliest ever

This 2014 video is about a northern lapwing at its nest in Friesland province in the Netherlands. Lapwing eggs used to be sought there for eating; now, not for eating any more.

Translated from regional broadcaster Omrop Fryslân in the Netherlands today:

The first northern lapwing egg of Fryslân was found at Vegelinsoord village. Eduard van der Hoek (34) from Grou found the egg on Thursday morning at 11.45 am in a plot of farmer Henk Hosper. According to tradition Van der Hoek gets the Sulveren Ljip [silver northern lapwing in Frisian; a sculpture] for his discovery.

The Sulveren Ljip was presented at 3 pm by the provincial commissioner Arno Brok. This dod not happen in the meadow, but in Hospers’ farmyard in order to disturb the nest as little as possible.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

It is the earliest date ever that such an egg (in Frisian ljipaai) was found. There are records of finding the first egg ever since 121 years ago. It was always found in March until now.

This 17 March 2018 video in Frisian is about the awarding of last year’s Sulveren Ljip sculpture.

Redbad, my unusual film review

This 2017 video is a scene from the new film Redbad, recorded at the Alde Feanen nature reserve in Friesland province in the Netherlands.

A film recorded not only in Alde Feanen nature reserve, but also on Ameland island and elsewhere.

A film sold to 14 countries.

This will be a very unusual film review by me. I have written all my other film reviews on this blog after seeing the films. However, when the film Redbad arrived in the cinemas, I was busy. I thought: ‘Many media expect it to become a big commercial success. So, I can wait a bit and then I will still be able to see it in the cinema’. However, after I had waited a bit, the success turned out to be not that big.

I had already gathered information on the film to write a review later. Well, I thought, it is a pity to waste that. So, I prepared to write a strange review of this movie; strange, as I read quite a lot about it, but did not see it myself. Meaning that I would not be able to say 100% certainly whether the film company’s publicity and/or the reviews were correct.

This is the trailer of the film.

Redbad film with Arabic subtitles

Then, however, I found out that someone had put Redbad, with Arabic subtitles, on YouTube. So, after all, this did not become my first film review ever without having seen the film. Though I saw it on my small computer screen; meaning I may have missed some details which I would have noticed on a big cinema screen.

One day after I saw the movie on my computer, it turned out that YouTube had deleted it.

Some reviews of Redbad are sharply critical.

The film is accused of historical inaccuracies. Also here. And here.

The film makers did have a historical adviser: Nathalie Scheenstra. However, Ms Scheenstra is a specialist in Dutch medieval clothes and jewelry. Not in other aspects.

The film depicts conflict in the Dutch Dark Ages, about 700 AD, between the Frisians, living in the north west of the present Netherlands; and the Frankish kingdom, of the south-east of what is now the Netherlands, of present Belgium and parts of present France and Germany.

Who was King Redbad?

King Redbad, the protagonist of the film, probably only ruled what is now North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht provinces; not Friesland province, as the film claims. Franks and later historians saw ‘Frisia’ from the Zwin estuary on the present Dutch-Belgian border to Denmark as an unity which it was not.

The film is mainly about Redbad’s youth, the time before he became king. However, about Redbad’s youth nothing is known. Was he a son of Aldgisl, an earlier Frisian king? Unknown. Redbad’s daughter Theudesinda, aka Thiadsvind, married Frankish royal prime minister (mayor of the palace) Grimoald the Younger, son of Frankish prime minister Pepin of Herstal. The film wrongly calls Pepin of Herstal ‘king’. And in the film, not Redbad’s daughter, but his sister marries a Frankish leader. She marries not Grimoald the Younger, but Charles Martel, who would become prime minister, and is better known to many people than that other Frankish mayor of the palace Grimoald. Charles Martel is the villain of the film, depicted as, apart from atrocities against Frisian civilians, murdering his father Pepin of Herstal and his little child nephew who might have become a rival for the mayor of the palace office.

This video shows an interview with US American actor Jonathan Banks (Mike in Breaking Bad) who plays Pepin of Herstal.

No uncle, no cousin of Redbad is known in history; though these are major roles in the film.

Both according to Christian hagiography and the film, a missionary tried to baptize Redbad. In the film, that missionary is Saint Willibrord. In historic sources, it is Saint Wulfram of Sens. In the film, the baptism attempt is while Redbad was not yet king. In Christian tradition it was while he was already king; which makes sense from the early medieval church’s viewpoint that converting a ruler makes its easier to convert his subjects (Cuius regio, eius religio …); which is less probable if the convert is a non-ruling royal family member.

Both according to tradition and in the film, Redbad then asked whether, if he would die and go to heaven being a Christian, he would then meet his deceased ancestors again. No, was the answer: it turns out that his pagan ancestors are in hell, while his Frankish enemies will be in heaven. Then, Redbad refused baptism; a bit like the 16th century native Cuban who refused baptism as he did not want to meet the Christian Spanish conquistador killers of his people in heaven.

This picture shows the expansion of the Franks’ realm.

Who were the Frisians and the Franks?

Who were ‘Frisians’? Were they Germanic or Celtic? Was Frisia maybe Celtic speaking in the Roman age, and became Germanic speaking only later? We are not sure.

In Friesland province, people object that there is no Frisian language in the film. In the movie, the Frisians speak Dutch. The Anglo-Saxon missionaries Willibrord and Boniface speak English, not Anglo-Saxon. Early medieval Anglo-Saxon was rather similar to Frisian, that is why the church sent Anglo-Saxons as missionaries. While in the film there is a language barrier which hardly existed in the early middle ages. Franks and Danes also speak English in the film. Though it would have been logical to have the Franks speak Dutch, derived from the Frankish language.

In the film, houses of the Frisian upper class look too much like primitive barbarian dwellings. According to archaeological research, they were more comfortable than that.

This Dutch language video is about the cast of the film in a reconstructed prehistoric village in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. One should not wonder that the ‘Frisian houses’ in the film look so primitive: as they are really Eindhoven prehistoric houses.

While the Frankish aristocrats are depicted as living in castles: which look like they belong in the late Middle Ages, not the early Middle Ages (the film was recorded partly in Bouillon castle in Belgium, in its present form mainly from the 16th-17th century).

Even Frankish Emperor Charlemagne, of about 100 years after the time depicted in the film, did not live in castles like Bouillon castle, but in not so palatial farmhouses, though a bit more luxurious than usually then.

The Frankish knights in the movie are depicted wearing chain mail; not in use about 700 AD.

According to the medieval Christian Saint Wulfram hagiography, Frisians practiced human sacrifices. The film’s opening scene is a young woman burned to death as a sacrifice to the goddess Freyja. We know that later polytheist Scandinavians worshiped Freyja. But we know nothing about Frisians about 700 AD worshiping Freyja; let alone sacrificing humans to her. In fact, we know very little about Frisian polytheism then.

The Saint Wulfram hagiography mentions Frisians sacrificing humans by tying them on rafts pushed into the North Sea. That happens to Redbad early in the film. He miraculously survives, the raft taking him all the way to Denmark.

There were no invading Vikings yet in the 8th century Netherlands, as the film says wrongly.

However, the film is accurate about depicting the kingdom of the Franks as using Christianity as a tool in violently subjecting Frisians and others. The point on which Google corporation tried to censor the film for supposedly ‘insulting Christianity’ by criticizing Frankish rulers of 1300 years ago.

Franks, Frisians and xenophobic propaganda

Both the 8th century Frankish and Frisian kingdoms play a role today in right-wing nationalist propaganda.

The French neofascist National Front, now called National Rally, claims Charles Martel is a Christian hero as he waged war on the Muslim Umayyad caliphate. Marine Le Pen‘s party equates present day immigrant workers and refugees from wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere with 8th century armed Muslim soldiers.

On the other hand, Dutch neopagan neonazis see King Redbad as a hero, supposedly saving the ‘Germanic race’ from supposedly ‘Jewish’ Christianity. Ancient Germanic religion did not know ‘race’. It glorified war in its Viking age Scandinavian form. But we cannot say whether 8th century Frisian polytheism also glorified war. We know so little about early medieval Frisian religion.

The film might be interpreted as saying opposing ‘foreign intruders’, like Redbad did, is a good thing; some spectators might draw unpleasant parallels between Redbad stopping Frankish soldiers and stopping unarmed 21st century refugees from coming to the Netherlands. Historian Sven Meeder says that the film might be used by the Dutch extreme right.

However, Redbad’s fights against the Franks, in history and in the film are not really useful for chauvinist Dutch nationalism. The people of the southeastern half of what is now the Netherlands were Frankish in Redbad’s time. The present Dutch language is derived from Frankish.

Also, the real Redbad, though he fought the Franks, and did not want to convert, often had diplomatic negotiations with Franks. Like Queen Cleopatra used more diplomacy than war to keep Egypt as independent of the Roman empire as possible.

Redbad offered Christians some religious tolerance. Missionary Willibrord (depicted as a bigoted enemy of the Frisians in the film) was allowed to preach in Redbad’s kingdom.

Redbad was a pagan, but not a fanatical pagan, as the Frankish Carolingian dynasty wrongly claimed, Meeder says.

Communist Frisian author Theun de Vries wrote ‘Redbald and [Saint] Wulfram’ and ‘Odin’s City’ about Redbad.

Roman Catholic and Celtic Christianity

The film asks the question why in 754 AD Christian bishop Saint Boniface was killed near Dokkum town in Friesland. Was it murder, maybe with the vile motive of robbery; as medieval hagiographies claim? Or did Boniface rather go to Friesland with a Frankish kingdom armed force to forcibly convert Frisians, and did Frisian polytheists therefore kill him in battle, as 21st century historians think?

Historian Han Nijdam criticized the film (eg, about its depiction of Willibrord as a hardliner, and of Saint Boniface as mild; while it was the other way).

In the film, when Willibrord forcibly baptizes a woman or a man, it looks more like waterboarding torture than a religious ceremony. While in history, Boniface may have been more likely to baptize people in that violent way than Willibrord.

The historical Willibrord originally had Celtic Christian influences, which may have made him less dogmatically authoritarian. Boniface had persecuted Celtic Christianity in England. Willibrord and Boniface did not like each other.

Historians point out that the forced conversions by Saint Boniface and similar preachers basing themselves on Frankish weapons, were at least as much against Irish ‘Celtic’ Christianity as against Germanic paganism. Roman Christians accused Celtic Christians of mixing their religion with Judaism, claiming the Celts did not like to eat pork etc.

This 2014 video says about itself:

Is This the Reason Ireland Converted to Christianity?

Many attribute the spread of Christianity in Ireland to St. Patrick. But medieval history and scientific evidence dating back to 540 A.D. hint at a more cosmic reason.

‘Celtic’ Christianity originated in Ireland. It differed much from continental European Roman Catholic Christianity; due to social differences. Irish 5th-century society had never been occupied by the Roman empire. It still had many leftovers from ‘primitive communism’; though there were kings, and some slaves. Saint Patrick, usually seen as the originator of Irish Christianity, used to be a slave. ‘Saint Patrick Christianity’ used to be much less top-down than Frankish and other continental religion; based on collectives of monks, rather than on hierarchies of bishops with the bishop of Rome, the pope, at the top. A difference with ‘Roman’ monasteries, where monks and nuns took vows supposedly for life, was the greater flexibility in Irish convents, where people could move in and out; a bit like in Buddhist monasticism. Women had a bigger role in churches than they had in the Frankish kingdom. Celibacy was not universal among Celtic clerics.

Irish preachers managed to convert many people in Britain and also in Germany and elsewhere on the continent to their brand of Christianity. This caused conflicts with Roman Catholics. At clerics’ meetings, that might take the form of quarrelling about what was the proper time to celebrate Easter (Roman clergy thought Celtic Easter was too much like Jewish Passover). However, behind that were much deeper, social, differences.

In the Frankish kingdom and elsewhere, there were many fewer leftovers from ‘primitive communism’. These were countries in transition from Roman empire-days slave-owning societies to medieval feudalism. In religion, that led to hierarchical, Vatican-centred Christianity.

The Celtic and Frankish monastic ideals differed. The Celtic ideal was ‘peregrinatio’. Literally, that means ‘pilgrimage’, a concept known throughout Christianity and other religions. Specifically to the Saint Patrick monks, it meant travelling far away, without Frankish soldiers to help you, to tell people wanting to listen voluntarily about the Christian religion. Peregrinatio had a link with rests of ‘primitive communist’ nomadic hunter-gatherer societies in ancient Ireland and Scotland, never conquered by the Roman empire.

The Frankish ideal for monks was ‘stabilitas loci’. Monks should in principle stay in one place, at their monastery in territory controlled by the Frankish kingdom or other Roman Catholic states. Eg, the Frankish king, later emperor, Charlemagne was against Christian missionaries going to areas not subjected by Francia; like Celtic missionaries did. There is a parallel with peasant serfs in continental European feudal society: they were not allowed to travel unless their masters permitted it.

In England, Saint Boniface managed to defeat Saint Patrick Christianity, with a little help of coercion by Anglo-Saxon kings. In Germany, he also had successes against Celtic style Christians, with a little, or rather much, help from Frankish rulers. Celtic Christians, to become Roman Catholics in good standing, had to be re-baptised; equating them with pagans who had never been baptised. We are not sure about Celtic Christianity in early medieval Frisia. Often, Boniface converted kings and other nobles first; usually then, he could leave coercion to convert their peasant subjects to the newly Christianized nobility. The slogan ‘Cuius regio, eius religio’ is best known from 16th century conflicts in Germany between Protestants and Roman Catholics. However, it also seems to have worked about 800 years earlier. That conversion strategy did not work for Boniface in Friesland: decentralized, hardly ever been occupied by Roman empire armies. So, Frankish invasive armies had to do the work that local kings did not.

This 13 July 2018 video is called Why did the Carolingian/Frankish Empire Collapse?

In the 11th century, after Saint Patrick Christianity had been defeated in Britain and on the continent, newly Christianized Normans conquered England and made themselves kings there. After that, the Normans invaded Ireland, bringing feudalism and destroying Celtic Christianity to replace it with Roman episcopal hierarchy.

The people of Ireland paid a bloody price for that forced conversion to Vatican-centric religion. Eg, when in 1689 the Protestant king of England, William III, supported by the pope, defeated Irish forces in the battle of the Boyne.

Eg, when in the 19th century Protestant Anglo-Irish landlords obstructed Home Rule for Ireland, claiming it would be ‘Rome rule’. Untrue, but not 100% incredible.

And in the 20th century, when the Roman Catholic hierarchy subjected Irish women to slave labour, and Roman Catholic children’s homes massively dumped dead Irish babies in septic tanks and other mass graves.

And why was the missionary Saint Boniface killed in Friesland province, as the film’s publicity material asks? According to historians, because of converting people forcibly, accompanied by Frankish soldiers. While the film depicts the not-so-hardline Saint Willibrord as a hardliner; and Boniface as a moderate. It is more logical for Boniface to have been killed for being as historians depict him than for being as the film depicts him.

Great egret catches tench, video

This 4 September 2018 video is about a great egret which has caught a tench.

Koos Polak made this video in nature reserve Easterskar in Friesland province in the Netherlands.