Groningen today is celebrating the Gronings Relief, the day on which the Bishop of Münster in Groningen was defeated. On August 28, 1672, the city was liberated when Bishop Bernhard von Galen, better known as Bombs Berend, with his army withdrew. According to folk stories, this bombs Berend would have charged for the final battle in Drenthe and the so -called poop sky would be a silent witness of that.
Bommen Berend was in 1672, also known as the disaster year, the boss large parts in the northeast of the Netherlands. The bishop of Münster went from Coevorden to Groningen, where he was eventually driven out when he tried to take that city.
Asser forest ranger Marten van Dijken studied the war tour in 1672 and that has everything to do with a small earthen wall just outside Assen, in the Drentsche Aa area near Deurze. A ramp with a striking name: poop heaven. According to age -old stories, this defense schans is a remnant of the bombing of Bommen Berend, although various historians contradict this.
Marten van Dijken also has his doubts, but likes to let his imagination run free at the folk tale that originated in the area. “Our country was attacked from all sides in 1672, by the French, by the English and here in the region mainly by the Germans, who were called the pooping with a swear word,” explains the forester.
And that could also be the origin of the name Poop Hemeltje, or the bed of the pooping. “It is a raised earthen shore, also known as a red route. It is not too large, thirty by thirty meters. But it is clearly an elevation in the Beekdal. Really a high place to keep dry feet. Van Dijken says that Bommen Berend, according to the stories of his route from Coevorden to Groningen, has been deviated and thus ended up in door.
“He would have spent the night here,” says Marten van Dijken as he stands by the earthen shore. That shore would have been raised to protect the tent in which the bishop of Münster slept. “It is a beautiful place here. If you squeeze your eyes to a slit and you look around you. Then you hear the soldiers clinging with their armor equipment. You see fires hanging on top and you hear the bishop snoring,” fantasizes the forester.
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