Intermediate level: cycle 3
Voorbeeld 11 ~ Example 11

Volkslied ~ Folksong

On October 9th, 1799 a British ship, HMS Lutine attempted to take a large amount of gold (estimated to be worth some 100 million pounds in 2015 currency) from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven in Germany. This was part of the war effort of the Second Coalition against Revolutionary France of which the Batavian Republic was an ally. When sailing past Vlieland and Terschelling a strong northwesterly gale drove the ship into the sound and onto a sandbank where it perished. All but one of the 240 passengers perished and the gold was lost. Many people have tried to recuperate it since and found a few pieces here and there but most of it is still somewhere deep in in sand.

There is a Dutch folksong about what happened.

• Book:Dutch