name for Kate, or Katharine...." The story outlines the following traditional beliefs in Holland: Wodan (mentioned here as "God of Sun") is the deity the Dutch shared with other Germanic people, and is the Dutch name for Odin. Wednesday is named after him; Holland is from the phrase Holt Land which means "Land of Many Trees". The tale says the land was once covered with forests and people lived in the trees for a "thousand years" until they became an agricultural people. In fact, the trees kept the land firm otherwise it would melt or disappear under water and floods. Eyck is ancient Dutch word for oak (the modern spelling is 'Eik')that has become a popular Dutch surname. There is notable ambiguity in the tale if the Moss Maiden and Trintje were tree fairies, or a wood elf and tree elf, respectively. As elves, they communicate the trees' promise to humans to "stand upside down" for the Dutch people. The oak trees in particular were the mythical life giving and medicinal tree and had many mythical purposes: "Under its branches, near the trunk, people laid their sick, hoping for help from the gods. Beneath the oak boughs. ..wives joined hand in hand around its girth, hoping to have beautiful children. Up among its leafy branches the new babies lay, before they were found in the cradle by the other children. To make a young child grow up to be strong and healthy, mothers drew them through a split sapling or young tree. Even more wonderful, as medicine for the country itself, the oak had power to heal. The new land sometimes suffered from disease called the val [or fall]. When sick with the val, the ground sunk. Then people, houses, churches, barns and cattle all went down, out of sight, and were lost forever, in a flood of water." In this legend, the Kabouter and the elves show mankind how to turn the trees into piles to drive into them upside down into the ground and thus to make the land firm to build on, later how to make wooden shoes. Note that historically, Dutch land was low and prone to flooding, hence the land would sometimes flood and wipe out towns and villages, and the flooding was worse when forests were cut down to make way for agricultural and pastoral lands. Landmarks and toponymy Many regional legends exist in