GardenStone
"Return of the Goddess
Nehalennia"
After about 4 years of research and writing, the Nehalennia-project has ended in a book about that fascinating Goddess. It is written in german.... well, I live there. :-) Lucky me, it's running fine and has got excellent critics.
A dutch edition is planned for publishing in mai *09, being a dutch, I will translate it myself, that shouldn't be too problematic.
Unfortunately my english isn't good enough to do that myself in english too. Contacts with two small english publishing companies were closed because of unacceptable demands they had.
Oh well, maybe some other reasonable publisher shows interest, who knows.
The book, which contains 340 pages, is published in two different editions.
Edition 1: Paperback, 194 b/w pictures, 5 colour pictures, 14 maps
ISBN: 978-3-8370-4545-1
Price € 25,--
Edition 2: Hardcover, 154 colour pictures, 45 b/w pictures, 14 maps.
ISBN: ISBN: 978-3-8370-4496-6
Price € 49,50
If you can read and understand my rather clear german, the book can be ordered in my online shop or by sending me an email; I'll mail you the details back than.
Text on the backside
(Translated by the author)
Please note: I'm not a translator, english isn't my mothertongue, not even my first foreign language. That must make my translation rather poor. Please ignore that for now.
In the first centures after the year 0, as large parts of middle and western Europe belonged to the roman empire, there was at the western coast of the Northsea a Goddess honoured and worshipped by romans, celts and germanics. However, she isn't mentioned in any written source from those times. Not until 1647 her name appears, Nehalennia, carved in stone. And not just once, no, there were lots of votiv-altars found with her name on them.
This book tells about those finds, describes in words and pictures a rich selection of those stones and outlines then a detailed overview in which the Nehalennia-cult is placed in its time; her land, her meaning, her worshippers and all kind of things that are related, presenting it all in a possible historical context.
The last chapter isn't part of the historical research, but shows, that this goddess ist nowadays again in different ways present in the heads and hearts of many people.
A goddess without mythology, but with a fascinating history.
Contents overview
Preface 5
Introduction 7
Here and now 13
Zeeland 13
Colijnsplaat and Nehalennia 15
Anecdote 1 16
Domburg and Nehalennia 21
The Archeon and Nehalennia 25
Anecdote 2 25
Return of the goddess 31
The finds at Domburg 35
Stones on the beach 37
Rating of the finds 43
The destruction 48
The altars of 1647 51
The finds at Colijnsplaat 101
Der Fishingboat 101
The altars of 1970 and the following years 104
Matrones on altars 141
Left- and rightsides of the altars 149
Neptune and Hercules 149
Cornucopia 152
Acanthus 153
Humans 156
Sorts of stones used for the altars 159
Donors of the altars (Dedicants) 161
Where did they originate? 161
Their professions 164
Celts, Germanics, Romans? 168
Their voyages over land, rivers and the sea 171
INTERMEZZO … Those days I… 171
Travelling over land 173
Travelling over rivers 179
Travelling over the sea 183
INTERMEZZO … Those days II … 185
The stonemasons 189
Home of the goddess 193
The dutch northseacoast in the antique times 193
Germanic inhabitants 196
INTERMEZZO … Those days III … 202
Colonizing the the delta-area of the river Scheldt 205
Trade and harbour 209
Neighbours of the zeelandic germanics 213
The Romans in Zeeland 221
Ending and a new start 225
The goddess 229
INTERMEZZO … Those days IV... 229
Her name descussed 231
Her possible origin 239
Symbolic meanings 249
The dog 252
Appels 257
Pears 259
Cornucopia – fruitbasket 260
Ruderschaft 262
Schiprudder and stem 263
Bouquet of plants 264
Curtain 266
Throne and canopy 268
The area of influence of the goddess 270
Back in here and now 275
Nehalennia in modern arts 276
Music 276
Painting 278
Plastic arts – Sandsculptures 283
Dance – The Nehalennia Projekt 286
Return in Religion 289
Asatru 289
Wicca 297
Priestesses of Avalon 300
Scientific research 303
Miscellaneous and curious 304
Thanks goes to … 305
Listing of mentioned dedikants 307
Listing of pictures 309
Listing of maps 311
Used literature 313
Weblinks 321
Index of words 323
A small selction of pictures, used in the book here
The preface of the book
It is perhaps because I am a dutch, born and raised up in that small country along the Northsea, that the name Nehalennia had already for a long time a kind of magical attraction to me. The few available information in my youth called her an old dutch goddess: "The Greec had their gods, the Romans, the Vikings. And so the Dutch too! A short proud smile, meaning, how such a small country can keep up with the big ones., and that was it..... in those days.
Many years that didn't change. But as historical and mythological research became a real hobby to me, the wish arose for more information about Nehalennia. Many years that just stayed a wish, because there were so many other attractive research topics, (see my other books). But then, after some other projects had come to an end, that old wish came onto the surface again and this time it wasn't put back in the sliding drawer full of wishes.
A Nehalennia project was planned and in 2004 the search for sources begun. For several reasons it was nessesary, as it was the same with my previous books, to buy almost all the sources in stead of borrowing them in libraries. That makes such projects surely very expensive, on the other hand it feels really great posessing such books. As the many sources arrived by and by, they were crossread immediately and got classified, added to the project parts. Later they were read extensively and showed then lots of coloured pieces of papers on lots of places in every book; each colour corresponding to another theme. Yes, the work had begun....
Journeys and interviews were planned and realized, according to my wishes of how realisable field research could be done.
Already at the start of the project it became clear, that that old patriotic thought, Nehalennia was a dutch goddess, couldn't get upright. But that wasn't a disappointment, because my view has grown out to a citizen of Europe and to a cosmopolic view. and of course the intriguing questions remains, which goddes she was and perhaps again is.
The title of the book, "The return of the Goddess Nehalennia" can and should be interpreted in multiple ways because she is presented in several different views, all though the reader might not get aware of that at a first sight.
Maybe it is because of my impossible shriving for completeness, but mainly because the work on this project was so very pleasant and joyfull, that I'm still a little bit sad after the publishing of the book. But this project too had to come to a, perhaps tentavely, end.
I hope, this book gives the reader at least as much pleasure with the text and pictures as I had with the project.
Usingen, Februar 2008
GardenStone
A few random PDF proofreadings: (all in german)
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