The Flying Dutchman and Other Folktales from the Netherlands

Copyright © 2008 by Theo Meder

The inhabitants of Amersfoort have the nickname "Boulder-pullers," which probablyoriginates from the following story.

It was a fact that beneath one of the squares of the small town, a colossal boulder had been buried. Some of the inhabitants were so curious about this enormous block of stone that they decided to dig it up. So it happened.

After digging for a long time, they finally stumbled upon the boulder, which happened to have the following inscription on it:

                    If you could turn me around,

                    You would really be astounded.

This inscription provided the curious diggers with enough motivation to try to pull the boulder over. It took them a lot of effort, but in the end they succeeded.

They looked at the boulder and found another inscription:

                    I'm so pleased – you don't know how –

                    To lay on my pretty side now!

This humorous legend is a version of AT 926B*, Turning over the Block of Stone (not in ATU). The tale was sent to collector G. I. Boekenoogen in February 1894 by J. W. Smitt, an importer and exporter of tea, who was born in Amersfoort (province of Utrecht), but who moved to Amsterdam. Amersfoort is still nicknamed Boulder City. The boulder was pulled into the city in the seventeenth century as part of a wager, and was buried a few years after that. It was recovered in the nineteenth century, but the part about the inscriptions is fiction. The translation is based on T. Meder, De magische vlucht (Amsterdam 2000) 110-111.