The Oera Linda Forum

There is a borderland where the rigid deductions of the historian meet the wild, uncharted vistas of human imagination. It is upon this perilous frontier that we lay before you »Holmes and the Frisian Codex«.

First two chapters have been posted here:
1. Holmes and the Frisian Codex
2. Dissection of the Roster
It is my intent to pursue this narrative trail to its furthest extremity. When the final page is turned, we shall spare no pains to refine the whole into a definitive, polished version.

For the last months I felt this forum was slowly becoming less active, and of course I knew it was mostly Ott, the main driver behind the forum, who got suddenly a bit silent.

There could be many reasons, personal or other, but I felt it was obvious from the little he wrote here recently, Ott was very busy with the chronology, to prove the Oera Linda to be real (?). But now I feel like it is more like a paradigm shift? If the Jesuits were involved, did they use a real document for their advantage, or was it a total forgery to prove their chronology?

I feel we on this forum all want the OLB to be authentic, but truth matters most to me. I can't wait what Sherlock will reveal in the next part!

Thanks Friedrich. I would not describe it as a paradigm shift towards a Jesuit theory, nor am I working on the chronology in order to prove that Oera Linda is authentic.

What has changed somewhat is my approach. Rather than beginning with the question “Is Oera Linda authentic or a forgery?”, I have become increasingly interested in reconstructing what can actually be established, what different people knew at different moments, and which assumptions have entered the discussion along the way.

The Jesuit possibility is one thread Holmes has encountered, but certainly not the solution I have decided upon in advance. The same applies to the various other possibilities: an old manuscript faithfully transmitted, an old text altered or recopied later, a nineteenth-century fabrication, collaboration, political use of older material, etc. At this stage I want all of them to remain open to examination.

That is actually one reason why writing the Holmes story has become so useful to me. Holmes cannot simply say, “Here is an interesting parallel, therefore the book is authentic,” but neither can he say, “Here is something suspicious, therefore someone forged the whole thing.” He has to ask what a particular observation can actually prove.

The chronology work is part of that. If a detail in Oera Linda resembles something supposedly discovered or published only later, the important questions are: When was it really first known? How widely was it known? Could the people involved have had access to it? And are the two things genuinely independent? Only after that can it have evidential value.

I also agree strongly with your last point. I can understand why many of us would like Oera Linda to be authentic, but wanting either authenticity or forgery to be true is precisely what can make an investigation unreliable. If the evidence eventually leads somewhere unexpected, that is where Holmes will have to go.

And I should perhaps warn you not to expect Sherlock to reveal everything too quickly. The next chapters have actually made the case considerably stranger rather than simpler.

Holmes and the Frisian Codex — Four New Chapters

I have now added four new chapters to Holmes and the Frisian Codex. These continue Holmes and Watson’s investigation in Leeuwarden, while also taking us back to the origins of Holmes’s interest in the Oera Linda Book in 1876.
The new chapters are:

Chapter 3 — The Closed Archive
Holmes and Watson have arrived in Leeuwarden expecting to be introduced to the archives by Jacob Dirks, but their plans are frustrated when word arrives that Dirks is ill. While waiting, Holmes writes to other possible contacts—including Leendert F. Over de Linden—and he and Watson begin exploring Leeuwarden itself. What appears at first to be an enforced delay gradually opens other avenues of investigation.

Chapter 4 — The Unasked Question
Holmes tells Watson about his first serious encounter with the Oera Linda question eleven years earlier. In London in 1876, the young Holmes sought out a Dutch cattle dealer whom he expected to question about the book. Instead, he encountered a man who seemed to know considerably more than Holmes had anticipated—and who had a rather different way of deciding which questions were worth asking.

Among the ideas that emerge is one that will become increasingly important to Holmes: when examining a disputed old text, we should not look only at what its writers appear to know, but also at what they do not know.

Chapter 5 — The Cavalry Nightmare
Back in Leeuwarden in 1887, Watson has a disturbing dream in which his memories of the Battle of Maiwand become entangled with the mysterious eighteenth-century cavalryman from the manuscript’s supposed history: Deventer, Groningen, Leeuwarden, Johannes van Beucker and the Over de Linden family all pass through the nightmare.

When Watson wakes, something in the dream suggests a different way of looking at this obscure figure. Perhaps the cavalryman cannot tell Holmes where the manuscript originally came from. But he may be an important clue to where it went.

Chapter 6 — The Letter A
The story of Holmes’s encounter with the Dutch cattle dealer continues. Holmes reveals that their meeting in 1876 had not been accidental at all. The following morning a messenger personally delivered a letter to the young detective. It was signed with a single letter: A.

What follows draws Holmes much further into the affair and towards people who had already been quietly asking questions about Cornelis Over de Linden, Ottema, Verwijs, Vitringa, Leendert F. Over de Linden—and the strange manuscript connecting them.

As before, this is fiction, but I am trying to construct the mystery around as much real chronology, correspondence, biography and documented argument as possible. The historical characters should not merely be names inserted into a Holmes story: each should approach the Oera Linda problem in a way that fits what we know of the real person.

An important part of the developing story is therefore the contrast between their methods. Ottema searches for historical correspondences; Verwijs scrutinises language and the physical manuscript; Vitringa asks what the competing explanations actually require; Leendert concentrates on evidence, accusations and the defence of his father; while the mysterious A approaches the matter through people—their behaviour, motives, inconsistencies, mistakes and silences.

Holmes, meanwhile, is beginning to realise that the question “Is the Oera Linda Book genuine or false?” may itself be too crude a place to begin.

I should also mention that Chapters 1 and 2 are not yet in their final form. Now that the later investigation and its characters have developed further, I intend to go back and improve those opening chapters so that the clues, chronology and tone connect more naturally with what follows. The essential story will remain, but I expect both chapters to become considerably stronger.

Chapters 3–6 can now be read on my Patreon.

As a small thank-you to those who actively contribute to discussions here on the OL Forum: if you would like to continue reading beyond the Patreon paywall, just send me a DM and I’ll gladly give you free access.

I would be especially interested in comments from forum members on the historical plausibility of the investigation, and in any details from the contemporary correspondence or other sources that Holmes—or A—ought to notice.