ssstories

Sarah – the Netherlands

During my childhood I used to spend a lot of time in the Dutch province of Zeeland, primarily in Goes. Both my paternal and maternal ancestors come from this province. My grandparents would tell me stories about the sea, my grandfather having been a sailor. All of them had lived through the flood of 1953.
When I was about five years old my mother told me the story of the Flying Dutchman (de Vliegende Hollander), who is allegedly from the town of Terneuzen. She and my father had just recently been to a concert of Wagner’s the Flying Dutchman, and they were playing the CD constantly. The bombastic opening might be a reason why this story made such an impression on me.
As I remember it, the Flying Dutchman was a sea captain. On Easter (or perhaps it was Pentecost) he wanted to set sail. A terrible storm had been announced, but even though it was Easter, the weather prospect was bad and his wife begged him not to, he still set sail.
The ship he was on never appeared at its destination. It had gone under in the storm and God had cursed the captain for his hubris. Now, his ship and his crew are cursed to roam the seven seas forever. On stormy nights ghost ship the Flying Dutchman appears to sailors, the prow of the ship as black as coal, its sails red as blood. It sails straight for the other ship, ready to clash in to it. Yet when the sailors close their eyes in fear at the moment of impact, nothing happens, and when they open their eyes again, the Flying Dutchman is gone.
I was extremely impressed by this story, and remember lying in my grandmother’s bed scared, afraid the Flying Dutchman would come through the wall.

Anonymous

It’s not really a fairy tale, but when I was a kid we used to have this chair and I used to have reoccurring dreams about floating above that chair and hearing giggles. The dreams went away after two years when the chair broke.
Also on the way to school there’s this castle that has a door near the water, that no one notices until you get it pointed out to you. So we used to joke that it was a magic door, but who knows.