AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION
One hundred and twenty-five years ago, an ancient manuscript was translated into modern languages. It became known as the Oera Linda Book and the stories it told revealed the secrets of the Matriarchal Age of Western Europe.
It recorded the history of the Children of Frya, the mother goddess of their race and of her Sacred `Tex’ that gave them the social and moral values they needed to build a great nation, perhaps the greatest civilization of the ancient world. It told of the struggle that the earth mothers had to maintain the freedom against the invasions and influence of the princes and priests of the foe from the East. Their struggle gave us our own Western values, and many of the heroes and heroines of our classical mythology. This book tells that inspiring and interesting story in present day language with messages for today as we go through our change of ages.
The story begins in the timeless Age of Taurus when mythical goddesses mothered their children but that age ended in the "bad times" that heralded the coming of the Age of Aries. Devastating land disruptions, volcanic activity, floods and forest fires changed the map of Europe. It is so recorded in this oldest of writings to survive in Western Europe. The new age began with the earth mothers, citadel maidens and the long voyages of the sea-kings, ending two thousand years later with the patriarchs, the royal kings that demanded recognition and fealty for favors, and a distrust of women’s contributions to society.
This story is about a racially protective society that would inevitably fail to maintain its integrity, even though the people tried to educate foreign traders and rowers into their ways. The center of growth, for Europe, had to shift to the east, where it was more rewarding to serve the family than the community. It had to bottom out and then work up from there. Has this happened yet? Our civilization has now become a global one where both western and eastern values are being tested on all fronts.
I believe it took a long time to reach bottom in a global sense. A world cooperation based on humanity, not race, is building from that base; it is progressing now even though in many of today’s hot spots there are attempts at ethnic genocide. There are diverse peoples, all over the world, inspiring the building of a more advanced society from personal example, but it is a minority; too many still feel they have to defend their own separateness and at all costs indulge and collect in the material world. With higher populations and limited resources, this leads to desperate competition for fear of missing out; to greed in the face of potential plenty.
Thousands of years ago in Western Europe, a society attempted to maintain a high state of consciousness and individual freedom that was based on a moral and civil code, where men and women were respected for their intrinsic abilities. This is the heritage of Europe. Borrowing a history from the Middle East has not satisfied this desire that myths like Atlantis continue to kindle.
This is not the presentation of a paper or a dissertation with the source of every thought referenced. Neither is it fiction. It is the offering, once again, of an old work, for the reflection and divertissement of the reader. The author was stimulated to explore these implications and add his comments. Such comments come from a variety of sources, many are listed in the bibliography, and many simply derive from a lifetime of living, with the only direct quotes coming from the Oera Linda Book.
This edition contains a modern language rendition of the Oera Linda Book taken from the first English translation by William R. Sandbach in 1876 of the 1871 Frisian translation by Dr. J. O. Ottema. Dr. Ottema commissioned the original modern translation of the thirteenth century manuscript that was copied in ancient Frisian from a ninth century version. The English book is available on microfilm from the British Library, which reserves the right to permit any reproduction.
This book is the story of groups of peoples who tried to keep a community together that originally extended across all of Europe, but eventually disappeared in the polders of the Netherlands. But did it disappear? We owe so much of our present Western civilization to them and take for granted our concepts of freedom, of democracy, our sense of honor and the very basics of our language that has structured the way we think. Too often we are guilty of depicting our own ancestors as primitive or ignorant rustics, incapable of understanding a civilized modern culture; but read on, and discover the origins of so many noble concepts that are now far less commendable. It is time this story was told. It has lessons for us at this critical time in the history of the world and the changing relationship between East and West.
People traditionally think that ancient man was more primitive mentally and socially than ourselves. Images of troglodytes and ape-men are confused with historical man. If we have been physically evolving for a million years then four thousand of them represent less than half a percent. In tests, our intelligence quotient ranges from 25 to 200, for functioning man, so what is half a percent? Granted we have had a technical and information explosion in the last few generations but that has little to do with our values, a truer measure of civilization.
Traditional ways are no longer working for our world; life-styles themselves have become experimental, manifesting at faster and faster rates. Much of the inspiration for these styles is being taken from concepts of history rather than from history itself, with these notions being purveyed by the popular media which can express only those ones that its often young audience wants to see. Modern life styles as well as vicarious historical adventures and fantasies from the future are both molding and separating societies while the more conservative older members fight to preserve their own concepts of how things should be. They criticize the adventurous young who feel the need for change, to do things their way, regardless of experience or knowledge.
The Oera Linda Book describes this dynamic of young/old, new/traditional over a very much longer time scale. At first reading, these old writings can be seen as a struggle by ancient heroes and heroines to preserve their civilization, winning some battles, but eventually loosing the war because of the individual desires of the young. This cannot be considered a backward step for mankind, because humankind is a much larger concept than one nation or even one continent. The world may have needed a couple of thousand years of male dominance so that a new order respecting all the strengths that have played their part may be formulated. These are the male and female strengths, the respect for young as well as old, the incorporation of the most remote society, the coexistence of many alternative life-styles and, unique to our time, the enormous influence of telecommunications and other modern technical achievements. The story describes its own cycles of earth changes and catastrophes; it is valuable now as we are moving out of the Patriarchal Age into a new cooperation between men and women.
The ancient book tells of a remote era of peace when time was not even counted because one year was like the next. Do we really want to maintain that indefinitely? The present changes are both positive and negative. The media shows us daily that the negative appears to be winning again, and yet at the same time, an ever growing segment in all parts of the world is showing concern for fellow man beyond their own personal desires for material objects, sensual gratification and powers.
History is political, it is propaganda, and it serves a social and national competitive need, which leaves the truth without importance. I am optimistic about the world working things out and achieving a higher level of civilization than we have ever known before. But that new age, even if it lasts a thousand years will in turn give way to more challenges to address restrictions we cannot even conceive of at this time.
R. 1997 Ojai, California
