Rimen en Teltsjes

Rimen en Teltsjes ("Rhymes and Tales"), pron.: [ˈrimǝn ɛn ˈtɛlʧǝs], is the national book of Western Frisian literature, written by the three Brothers Halbertsma. It is an extensive collection of short stories and poems, the first of which were published in 1822 under the title of De Lapekoer fan Gabe Skroar.Rimen en Teltsjes developed its present-day form in the course of the 19th century, when the Halbertsma's continuously added new work to their previous publications. Eventually their works were gathered together, and the first edition of the actual Rimen en Teltsjes was published posthumously in 1871. Although the literary value of this collection was later disputed by some critcs, it is undeniable that Rimen en Teltsjes and its predecessor De Lapekoer fan Gabe Skroar played a role of crucial importance in the development of a new literary tradition after Western Frisian had been used almost exclusively as a spoken language for three centuries.

The Brothers Halbertsma, the authors of Rimen en Teltsjes, were three brothers born in the village of Grou, in the central part of the Dutch province of Friesland in the late 18th century. The two most important ones of the brothers were Justus Hiddes Halbertsma (1789–1869), a Mennonite minister in Bolsward en from 1822 onwards in Deventer, and Eeltsje Hiddes Halbertsma (1797–1858), who was a physician in Grou. Justus was a man of science, a prominent linguist, who was acquainted with German literary figures such as the Brothers Grimm. He strongly sensed what the public needed, but at the same time he was a somewhat distant and cerebral author, which tended to have an averse effect on his poetry. His brother Eeltsje, whose prose and poetry were of equal quality, was probaby the most talented of the brothers. He was also a much more emotional persoan, who was sometimes overcome by periods of melancholy, which found an outlet in his writings. The third brother, Tsjalling Hiddes Halbertsma (1792–1852), who was a merchant in Grou, trading in butter and cheese, was greatly overshadowed by his brothers a literary writer. His oeuvre mainly consisted of folk literature, which, however, became quite popular with the common man.