Let's start with the end : "Coffin Road"

A couple of weeks ago I bought a cheap digital camcorder. The plan was to use it for videoing the Dutch landscape and publish them on Youtube and this blog. A first try-out with time laps recording was quite disappointing. I decided to do it the 'old-fashioned way' and take photographs which would be transferred into a movie. Windows Movie Maker can put 12 pictures into 1 second so it isn't a smooth movie. I think that adds to the charm (and takes less time to watch).

My first movie is "Coffin Road", a short movie about a path used in the past to carry the deceased to their last resting place, St.John's cemetery near Laren (The Netherlands). The cemetery is believed to be an ancient place of worship going back to pre-Christian times. In 893 A.D. a pilgrim carrying a silver box containing the bones of St.John was murdered at the spot and found dead the next morning. The bones were found and buried thus starting the St.John's cemetery. Being the only Cathlic cemetery in the district deceased Catholics were buried there. To ban out heiden habits it was forbidden to carry the dead in a zigzagging way. Straight lines were formed from villages to the cemetery (zigzagging was used in heiden times to prevent the deceased finding his or hers way back home).


'Doodweg' near Laren by Anton Mauve 

Several paths still exist - all leading to St.John's cemetery - and are called 'doodweg' in Dutch (death road). I believe the english equivalent is Coffin Road.

I hope you'll enjoy my movie and the Dutch landscape.