However the title means exactly the same as “Heidnisches Jahrbuch“, these publications have nothing to do with eachother, but of course, they are alike in more than one way. The “Heidens Jaarboek” is a small, self-published booklet by the Dutch heathen group “Nederlands Heidendom”. Like the German counterpart it is an anual publication with essays about (contemporary) paganism. The eighth issue already contains two more chapters of Jan de Vries’ Die Geistige Welt Der Germanen (‘the spiritual world of the Germanic people’ by lack of a better translation), translated from German to Dutch. In the fifth chapter De Vries speaks about poetry, the role of women in Germanic society; in fact a deep peek into the old Teutonic psyche. De Vries used a very poetic writing style that must have been quite hard to translate, but the translation is done very well. The sixth chapter of Die Geistige Welt is again about poetry, in particular the ways of constructing poems and later the focus shifts towards other forms of art, metallurgy and woodworking. Quite a few pages and also quite a few well-printed images. The new “Heidens Jaarboek” is very well printed in general on glossy paper and with a colour cover. In any case, besides these two chapters of Jan de Vries there is a short essay about Langobards and Kynekephalen (dog-faced men), whether they were a trick or an actual elite warrior group. The opening article is about Stellingwerf and the turbulent history of this area laying between the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Drenthe. Are the inhabitents Frisians, Drenths or neither? Boppo Grimmsma traces back the history of the inhabitents and their language.
A limited number of books are printed, so if you are interested, quickly click on the image to get ordering information. Of course the booklet is in Dutch.