The boy who put his finger in the dyke

My father told me this story many years again, of a young boy that put his fingers in the dyke, to save Holland, as the Netherlands was called in those days.

My father was born in the Netherlands. He emigrated with his family, to South Africa, when he was a teenager.

My father explained to me that dykes were used to claim land back from the sea.

The Netherlands actually grew larger with the aid of dikes and polders, making the old Dutch adage "While God created the Earth, the Dutch created the Netherlands" come literally true.

The story, of a young boy that put his fingers in the dyke, was invented by an American writer, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge.

Mary Elizabeth Mapes Doge began her writing carrier in 1865. She published her book Hans Brinker, otherwise known as the Silver Skates. Her book became an instant best seller. It became a children’s classic. She carefully did research on the Netherlands, and her Dutch neighbours helped her also.

Many Americans visiting the Netherlands were disappointed because nobody could show them the dyke where Hans Brinker plugged the dyke with his fingers. The demand from American tourist became so high, that in 1950, the Dutch Bureau for Tourism placed a statue of Hans Brinker at Spaarndam. The sculptor’s name was Grada Rueb.

In 1954, the story was rewritten by a dutch autor called Margreet Bruijn, it was called
Een nieuw verhaal naar het oude boek van Mary Mapes Dodge, illustrated by Maarten Oortwijn.

She placed the story in Spaarndam because of the statue which is also known as Hans Brinker. 

The inscription beneath the statue is in Dutch and English and it reads:

Opgedragen aan onze jeugd als een huldeblijk aan de knaap die het symbool werd van de eeuwigdurende strijd van Nederland tegen het water.

Dedicated to our youth, to honour the boy who symbolizes the perpetual struggle of Holland against the water.

The Dutch tactfully used the word "symbolizes" because the story isn’t a popular folktale in the Netherlands, but thanks to the statue at Spaarndam, American tourists can visit the "Dutch" hero that originated in an American novel.

The story

This story is a legend, Dutch dykes were made out of clay, and a finger in a dyke will not help to save the day

Many years ago a young boy by the name of Hans Brinker lived in Haarlem with his parents. His father was a sluicer. A sluicer is a man who opens and closes the large oaken gates that were placed across canal entrances to control the amount of water flowing into them.

One day when Hans was walking home after visiting a friend, he heard the sound of trickling water. Hans went too investigated and he saw a small hole in the dyke. Hans put his finger into the hole and the leak stopped.

Hans stayed that like that all night. He was numb with cold. Daybreak came and a clergyman, who was returning after he had visited the bedside of a sick parishioner, heard Hans, who was groaning in pain. The clergyman saw Hans, and immediately set off for help.

This story is told to children to teach them that if they act quickly and in time, even they with their limited strength and resources can avert disasters. The fact that the Little Dutch Boy used his finger to stop the flow of water is used as an illustration of self-sacrifice. The physical lesson is also taught: a small trickle of water soon becomes a stream and the stream a torrent and the torrent a flood sweeping all before it, Dyke material, roadways and cars, and even railway tracks and bridges and whole trains.