examined the book's use as a cultural identity marker by the Frisian-descended canal folk of the English Midlands. In The Rites and Rituals of Traditional Witchcraft (2001) he connected the religious practices of the priestesses described in the book with later medieval witchcraft traditions. Authorship Among those who doubt the book's authenticity, the most popular candidates for the author of the manuscript are Cornelis Over de Linden or Eelco Verwijs. A recent third choice is the Protestant preacher François Haverschmidt (1835–1894), well known for writing poetry under the pseudonym Piet Paaltjens. Haverschmidt lived in Friesland and was an acquaintance of Verwijs. Goffe Jensma (2004) argued that Haverschmidt was the main writer of the book, with the help of Over de Linden and Verwijs. According to Jensma, Haverschmidt intended the Oera Linda Book as a parody of the Christian Bible. An article in late 2007 by Jensma says that the three authors of the translation intended it "to be a temporary hoax to fool some nationalist Frisians and orthodox Christians and as an experiential exemplary exercise in reading the Holy Bible in a non-fundamentalist, symbolical way." Ignoring clues that it was a forgery, J. G. Ottema took it seriously, and it achieved popularity for the reasons given above. Its creators felt unable to admit that they had written it, and it became the foundation for new occult beliefs. Jensma concludes his article by saying "It is a perfect irony that a book written to unmask the Holy Bible as a book of human making was to become a bible itself." Contents Themes running through the Oera Linda Book include catastrophism, nationalism, matriarchy, and mythology. The text alleges that Europe and other lands were, for a large part of their history, ruled by a succession of folk-mothers presiding over a hierarchical order of celibate priestesses dedicated to the goddess Frya, daughter of the creator god Wr-alda and Jrtha, the earth mother. The claim is also made that this Frisian civilization possessed an alphabet that was the ancestor of the Greek and Phoenician alphabets. Modern historiography is essentially ignored, particularly in the area of basic chronology of known events in the recent and distant past of Europe. Geological as well as geographical evidence that was readily available even as far back as Over de Linden's time is also mostly absent from the manuscript. The earliest portion of the Oera Linda Book, namely Frya's