Narrator: On a clear afternoon, old lady Water and the child of the village sat in the grass, looking out to the Onlanden. The sky was open and wide, and the land stretched out before them.
Child: “Did you travel far?”
Water: “Not so far, you could say. I came down from the sky and up from the ground, just upstream, then made my way here. And you?”
Narrator: The child gestured to the village visible in the distance.
Child: “I live over there, in Roderwolde. I come here sometimes when the weather is nice. Where are you heading to?”
Water: “My journey will take me to the Wadden sea. But not yet. I’ll linger here for a while longer.”
Child: “Will you tell me a story? It would help pass the time, wouldn’t it?”
Narrator: Water pondered this.
Water: “I’ll tell you a story if you tell me one in return.”
Narrator: The child grinned.
Child: “Okay, deal.”
Narrator: Water closed her eyes for a moment, as if feeling the weight of time wash over her. Then she started to speak.
Water: “I’ll tell you about a time when I was much younger. A time when I could not flow,
when I could move only very, very slowly. I was a mass of ice, hundreds of meters tall. I had to be patient; I could do nothing but wait to thaw. A hundred and thirty thousand years ago I finally began to melt. I saw only then how powerful I was. The land shifted beneath me, forming ridges and valleys. I didn’t know it then, but I was shaping the earth people like you would someday walk upon.”
Narrator: As water spoke, the child’ s eyes widened, a flicker of awe on his face.
Child: “I can’t even imagine it, being so strong that you can shape the land underneath you.”
Water: “Ah, but the people do it too. They have for a long time. You promised to tell a story in return. Do you know about the people who first lived here?”
Child: “We can’t remember things so long ago like you do, we need to tell stories and read old books and dig in the ground to know about the past. But I can try.
Once upon a time, in the Iron Age, people lived where Roderwolde is now. But they did not stay for very long. A bit more than a thousand years ago they settled there again. But the land was too wet. They started in the North and went towards the South, digging ditches and draining the ground so they could build houses and make their farms. Around 800 years ago, they built the Roderwoldedijk, mirroring the path of the Peizerdiep. It became the only land route to the city, everything else was moved by water.”
Narrator: The water listened intently, nodding as the child spoke. Her eyes shone with
recognition. Water remembered these things not through words, but through feeling, through roots and rains and rivers.
Water: “Yes, I remember. I fed the plants that the people grew, so many clustered together, travelling through their roots. It was so curious to me, these ditches and dikes. Before, I flowed when I wanted, I rose and fell, I flooded the land, I rested and formed the peat. Then, for the first time, I found myself led through new paths.”
Child: “I heard it from my father! The peat was important to the people! They dug it from the ground and used it for fire to keep themselves warm and cook food.”
Water: “They used many things from the land.”
Child: “Yes! They hunted songbirds and ducks and moles and otters. All sorts of things! They fished too, catching eels and perch from the Peizerdiep.”
Water: “I’ve known many such creatures in my time, some that no longer roam this earth. I sustained them all. Some must drink, others live in the bogs and the streams. They travel through me, I travel through them. What a feeling it is, to feel the flutter of a fish’s fin, the kick of a duck’s webbed feet, and the swish of an otter’s tail.”
Narrator: The child looked at her with a new kind of respect, not just as a companion but as something ancient and essential.
Water: “But please, tell me another story.”
Child: “My grandmother told me that Roderwolde is a wandering village. We were visiting my grandfather’s grave, and she told me: ‘The village used to be here, but when it moved away, it forgot to take the cemetery with it!’ I said, ‘A village can’t walk away, it doesn’t have legs!’ But she said it was true. She told me that, long ago, the village had to move south because the land was sinking. People had dug up peat for years, and over time the ground got wetter and softer. Water started creeping in, and buildings began to suffer. Even the old church near the cemetery started to crack, and the walls shifted. So the people moved, little by little, to higher ground. They built a new school, and a new church too. They kept some bricks from the old one, my dad even has one at home! After that they built the big mill, Woldzigt. It milled grain and oil. Then they would send them to the city through the Schipsloot that led into the Peizerdiep.”
Water: “I have helped the people carry their things and themselves down that path for
centuries.”
Child: “I know that the monks of St. Bernard’s in Aduard used it too, to send peat and wood and their monastery bricks.”
Water: “I remember. The boats were heavy, loaded with clay. But I carried them all the same.”
Narrator: The child’ s brow furrowed. A hint of something stirred in his voice, not anger, but frustration.
Child: “You say you’ve helped the people so much. But it wasn’t easy living with you. People once lived on the Onlanden too, but you showed up more and more until they couldn’t keep houses, and then not even farms. My ancestors were one of those families. Why did you make it so difficult for us?”
Narrator: Water didn’t answer right away. She looked out over the Onlanden, searching for the right words.
Water: “I don’t see the world like people do. I must move, and I must flow. I have made this land, I have travelled through it to the sea over and over again. I subsided and moved when the humans tried to guide me, but it is not always so simple, I have my own way I must follow.”
Narrator: The child’ s shoulders sank. He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, he was only trying to understand.
Water: “It was not always easy being with the humans either — new things find their way to me, like pollutants which make it harder for me to sustain the life here. Sometimes even I am surprised by the new places I find myself in. A short time ago, I found myself in such a strange space. It had colorful walls and unusual objects. I had seen it before, this cheerful fortification, its tower tall and yellow. But I had never been inside.”
Child: “Do you mean the Groninger Museum? I’ve heard about this from my family. The terrible flood of 1998! it filled the land and the homes and the city, even the museum. It was a really difficult time, and they realized the system to manage the water wasn’t good enough anymore. That’s why they decided to create the Onlanden here. I’ve only ever known it like this.”
Water: In the Onlanden I can stop and rest and linger, seeping in the land before I must continue onwards. I can take up space, I need not rush, even when I come in strong from storms. I used to flow through farmland, where meadow birds made their homes. They’ve mostly gone now but new ones have come. Waterbirds like the great egret and the white-tailed eagle. They seem to like it here.”
Child: “People like it here too. They come to walk and cycle and watch the birds. That’s what I came here for.”
Water: “I must thank you for your stories and leave you in the company of the birds. My journey awaits. But worry not, I am here always, and I will return, and return again. Farewell.”
Child: “Thank you. Until next time.”
Narrator: The child waved Water goodbye as she slowly disappeared, her form dissolving into the grasses around them and into the streams beneath their feet.
Stefania Bostan, Karlijn Ton, Cezara Radu, and Maja Moorman
3e jaar Kunstgeschiedenis, Practice Lab: Kunst, Architectuur en Landschap.
Opdracht: “Schrijf een water-verhaal vanuit een menselijk perspectief en vanuit het perspectief van het water zelf”.