Author: William Elliot Griffis

Many times, the storyteller has wandered along the dikes overlooking the Zuyder Zee. Once, there were fertile fields and many towns where water now covers everything. Back then, fleets of ships sailed on Lake Flevo and in the river that flowed into the sea. Bright and beautiful cities lined the shores, and church bells rang happily for weddings or tolled sadly for the grieving. There were many festive days because of the wealth the ships brought from lands near and far.

But today, the waters cover the area, and "The Dead Cities of the Zuyder Zee" is a saying. Yet not all are dead in the same way. Some lie deep under the waves, their names forgotten because of the ocean's flood that rushed in to destroy them one night, centuries ago. Others faded because wealth no longer came by ship, and the seaports dried up. And one, because of a foolish woman, instead of holding thousands of homes and people, is now just a village nestled behind the dikes. It holds a few hundred people, and only a fragment of land remains of its once great area.

In the distant ages of ice and gravel, when the long and high glaciers of Norway reached into Friesland, Stavoren held the shrine of Stavo, the storm-god. The people were very poor, but many pilgrims came to worship at Stavo's altars. After the new religion came into the land, wealth increased because the ships traded with the warm lands in the south. A great city sprang up, to which the counts of Holland granted a charter with privileges second to none. It was written that Stavoren should have "the same freedom which a free city enjoys from this side of the mountains (the Alps) to the sea."