The Frieslanders, like other northern nations, are superstitious, and they have a multitude of traditions or sagas, some of them very curious and interesting. We must pass over these instructive myths--always the rarest and most striking portion of a people's history--more cursorily than we could wish, and cite a few only of the most peculiar. The island of _Sylt_, which is the richest in remains of _höogen_, the celts of heathen heroes, &c., lays claim to the largest number of Märchen. The most characteristic of all is that of _de Mannigfuel_, the "colossal ship," (or world,) which was so large that the commander was obliged to ride about the deck in order to give his orders: the sailors that went aloft as boys came down greyheaded, so long a time having elapsed whilst they were rigging the sails. Once, when the ship was in great peril, and the waters were running high, the sailors, disheartened by their protracted watching and labour, threw out ballast in order to lighten the vessel, when, lo! an island arose, and then another, and another still, till land was formed--the earth being, according to the sailors' notion, the secondary formation. Once--many ages afterwards--when the _Mannigfuel_ was endeavouring to pass through the Straits of Dover, the captain ingeniously thought to have the side of the vessel, nearest Dover, rubbed with white soap, and hence the whiteness of the cliffs at Dover. The achievements recounted of _de Mannigfuel_ are endless. The following explanation of the formation of the Straits of Dover is found in a Friesic saga:--Once upon a time, a queen of England, the land to the west of the North Sea, and a king of Denmark, the land to the east of the North Sea, loved each other, and plighted troth; but, as it happened, the king proved faithless, and left the poor queen to wear the willow. England was then joined to the Continent by a chain of hills called _Höneden_; and the queen, desiring to wreak vengeance on her false wooer and his subjects, summoned her people around her, and setting them to work for seven years in digging away these hills, at the end of the seventh year the waves pushed furiously through the channel that had been dug, and swept along the coasts of Friesland and Jutland, drowning and carrying away 100,000 persons. To this very hour the Jutland shores yearly tremble before the fatal vengeance of the slighted queen. The Frieslanders are so wedded to this marvellous geological myth, that they insist upon its historical foundation. In some versions 700, in others 7000, in others again, even 700,000 men are said to have been employed in this gigantic undertaking.