Twice ToldChronicon Belgicum, book 31, chapter 63: the woman the girls of Edam caught (in Sweertius, 1620)
- Language
- Latin
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 10 October 2026
The oldest text we found for the story. Sweertius prints it as part of a Latin chronicle of the counts of Holland that his title page gives to “Ioannes Geerbrandi Leydensis, Carmelitani” and whose running heads call “Ioan. a Leidis Carmel.”. Sweertius was publishing from manuscript. The chapter carries no date of its own and sits between the 1403 siege of Gorinchem and the death of Duke Albert in 1404 (chapter 64, margin “Anno 1404”). The author says he is recording what Haarlem men of good standing told of her.
De muliere quam prendiderunt puellae Edammenses & Purmerenda[…].
Cap. LXIII.
Porro circa eadem tempora validissima ventorum intemperies inhorruit, unde & multi homines cum domibus in diversis terris perierunt. In eadem quippe tempestate per maris impulsionem quaedam indomita mulier ex longinquis partib. perpulsa est ad latitudinem maris australis infra opidum Campen & Edam quae natando per Purmerye pervenit ad Purmermeer. Illa ergo in aqua natando dormiendo vigilandoque insuper & victum ex eius profundo acquisiverat; erat enim nuda vestimentis, nihilominus tamen corpus tegebatur ex materia aquatica sibi adhaerente, perseveravit nempe natando ibidem per dies multos quia unde redierat [rediret?] nescivit, pro eo quod agger ille novus breviter post illam tempestatem constructus fuerat in Purmer ubi ipsa intraverat. Deinde accidit, ut puellae Edammensis opidi cum naviculis remigantes per eandem aquam ad vicina prata pro lacte vaccarum cernerent praedictam puellam sive mulierem in Purmermeer natantem, unde & admirantes stupefactae sunt. Tandem ex consueta visione minus formidantes habuerunt praedictae puellae colloquia cum invicem, & consilium invenientes extraxerunt eam vi de aquis & sic navigio perducta est ad plateas opidi Edammensis. Locutionem autem eius non intelligebant sed nec ipsa nostrum intellexit idioma. Mundata ergo à maris sordibus & vestimenta muliebria induit nostroque cibo utebatur, sed tamen ad aquam semper redire desiderans, non valuit propter solicitam custodiam. Magnus igitur concursus fit in Edam de remotis partibus propter praefatam mulierem considerandam, unde & fama eius pervenit usque ad Haerlem. Tunc Harlemenses accedentes propter rei novitatem petierunt ab Edammensibus mulierem sibi dari, quod & factum est. Abhinc ergo perducta est usque Harlem, ubi & nere didicit, & ad tempus plurimum annorum peruixit. Tandem mortua sepelitur in coemiterio pro eo quod crucifixo reverentiam exhibere consuevit. Igitur nostris temporib. fuerunt in Harlem probi viri & fide digni qui dixerunt se eam multoties vidisse. Quare in praesenti Chronographia dignum duxi annotare.
Translation
About the same time a very violent storm of wind broke out, and many people perished with their houses in various places. In that same storm an untamed woman, driven by the force of the sea from far-off parts, was swept into the southern sea between the town of Campen and Edam, and swimming through the Purmerye she reached the Purmermeer. There she lived in the water, swimming, sleeping and waking, and found her food in its depths; she had no clothes, though her body was covered with watery matter that clung to it. She kept swimming there for many days because she did not know the way back: the new dike, built soon after that storm, had closed the place in the Purmer where she had come in. Then it happened that girls of the town of Edam, rowing in small boats across the same water to the nearby meadows for the cows’ milk, saw the girl or woman swimming in the Purmermeer, and were astonished and stunned. In the end, as they got used to the sight, they were less afraid; the girls talked it over among themselves, agreed on a plan, dragged her out of the water by force, and brought her by boat to the streets of Edam. They did not understand her speech, and she did not understand our language. She was washed of the sea’s filth and dressed in women’s clothes, and she ate our food, but she always wanted to go back to the water and could not, because she was closely watched. A great crowd came to Edam from distant parts to see the woman, and word of her reached Haarlem. Then the people of Haarlem, drawn by the novelty, went to the people of Edam and asked for the woman to be given to them, and it was done. From there she was taken to Haarlem, where she learned to spin and lived for very many years. In the end she died and was buried in the cemetery, because she had been in the habit of showing reverence to the crucifix. In our own time there were respectable and trustworthy men in Haarlem who said they had often seen her. So I have thought it worth recording in this chronicle.
Notes
Spelling is normalised (u/v, j/i, long s) and abbreviations are expanded; the punctuation follows the print. The heading’s last word is cut by an abbreviation stroke and left open. “Redierat” is what the page seems to read; “rediret” would fit the grammar better. The chronicle never says she could not speak: it says the girls could not understand her and she could not understand them. The chapter gives no year. Sweertius’s own preface calls the chronicler a Carmelite of Haarlem; the date of the chronicle is not established in our sources.