[PW] Finger in the dike

[Fuller, Thomas (US - Washington D.C.)]

I don't recall seeing this discussed on the list before, but because it
is likely to come up at some point, I thought I'd post this.  The story
of the courageous Dutch boy who puts his finger in the hole of a dike
and rescues the country is well-known.  An article in the
November/December 2007 issue of THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, though,
concludes with convincing citations that the story was made up by the
American author Mary Mapes Dodge for her 1865 novel HANS BRINKER, OR,
THE SILVER SKATES.  Dutch folklorists have been unable to find instances
of the story in any Dutch sources, including oral tradition, and Dodge
had never visited the Netherlands before writing her book.  Dutch
folklorist Theo Meder, in 2006, called the boy in the tale "the Dutch
hero that never was".  

The Dutch Bureau of Tourism placed a statue of the imaginary lad at
Spaarndam in 1950, as a concession to American tourists.  But anyone who
asks should directed to the SI article for an explication of the history
of this story, almost certainly spurious as either fact or fable.

-- Tom 

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