The Saeftinghe Legend is an
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aro ...
folk tale that explains the sunken city of
Saeftinghe
Saeftinghe or Saaftinge was a town in the southwest Netherlands, located in eastern Zeelandic Flanders, near Nieuw-Namen. It existed until 1584. It is now a swamp known as the ( nl, Verdronken Land van Saeftinghe) and an official nature rese ...
in eastern
Zeelandic Flanders
Zeelandic Flanders ( ; zea, Zeêuws-Vlaonderen; vls, Zêeuws-Vloandern)''Vlaanderen'' in isolation: . is the southernmost region of the province of Zeeland in the south-western Netherlands. It lies south of the Western Scheldt that separates ...
near
Nieuw-Namen,
The Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Nether ...
, that existed until it was entirely flooded by sea waters in 1584. The legends says the city grew to be the most prosperous city on the fertile lands of the Scheldts but the inhabitants grew vain and proud. The farmers dressed in silk, their horses wearing silver and even the thresholds of homes were made from gold. The wealth attracted poor immigrants but the people of Saeftinghe showed no mercy and chased the migrants away with sticks and dogs. Greed corrupted the hearts of men and turned them blind for imminent threats.
On a foggy day, a fisherman caught a
mermaid
In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Mermaids are sometimes asso ...
on the waters of the
Western Scheldt
The Western Scheldt ( nl, Westerschelde) in the province of Zeeland in the southwestern Netherlands, is the estuary of the Scheldt river. This river once had several estuaries, but the others are now disconnected from the Scheldt, leaving the W ...
. From the nets, the mermaid warned him Saeftinghe needed to change its ways or suffer the inevitable dire consequences. When the mermaid's husband surfaced and asked for his wife to be set free, the fisherman refused and yelled at him. The merman cursed the fisherman and his city, screaming "The lands of Saeftinghe will fall, only its towers will continue to stand tall!"
The people of Saeftinghe, occupied with greed, forgot to take care of their dikes. One day, when a maid went to get water from a well, she noticed cod and other fish swimming in it. The sea was nearing, the water turning salt. With the
All Saints' flood of 1570, a huge tidal wave washed over the lands of Saeftinghe, destroying the towns of Sint-Laureins, Namen and Casuwele, killing all inhabitants.
Saeftinghe withered and soon only its towers testified of its prosperous past until the city finally sank into the muddy swamps.
On foggy days, the tower bells call for help from what was once a wealthy place but is now a doomed world covered in mud, captured by the sea. Another Saeftinghe legend holds the belief that visitors of the area and inhabitants of the nearby village of Emmadorp sometimes see 'ghosts' in the fog. According to the legend the ghosts are the spirits of the inhabitants of the three towns killed in the flood.
See also
*
Lost city
A lost city is an urban settlement that fell into terminal decline and became extensively or completely uninhabited, with the consequence that the site's former significance was no longer known to the wider world. The locations of many lost cit ...
External links
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saeftinghe Legend
History of Zeeland
Floods in the Netherlands
Dutch folklore
Hulst
nl:Saeftinghe