Windmill Messages

Nowadays our society tries to make every single production automated. It includes also the production of flour from grain and maize which was once a very hard manual activity performed in mills. In fact, flour produced in a windmill is thought to be of a higher quality nowadays. It costs more and is more authentic. But not all of the Dutch support this opinion and less flour is produced in wind- and water mills all over The Netherlands nowadays. Why? In the first place, being a miller isn’t a profitable business in the country anymore and fewer and fewer people would like to become millers today. In the second place, people don’t believe that flour of windmills is of such a high quality. On the contrary, many share that they prefer “industrial flour” because it sometimes happens that they find remaining plants of the grain or maize, or even insects in the other one. No matter what, windmill flour is still produced and most of the windmills in Holland are demonstration ones like Molen de Adriaan in ….

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Before climbing up on the different floors of De Adriaan, I would like to ask you whether you know that windmills transmit messages, too. Yes, they do. Nowadays we use our mobile phones and the Internet and thus we deliver our messages. However, high techs didn’t exist in the past. That doesn’t mean people didn’t communicate in past times. Nope. They had other ways to communicate and to exchange pieces of information and news. Their system of communication with current and potential partners, customers and farmers was namely through the position of sails (known also as blades, wings) of a windmill at a standstill. What do I mean?

While you’re still in the staircase (on ground floor) of De Adriaan you see a big photo of windmills whose sail-arms are in various positions. There are some explanatory notes beneath every windmill which tell you which position what message delivers. You will manage to understand and read them, only if you know the simple rotation rule of windmill sail-arms in Holland, i.e. they always rotate to the left and counterclockwise.

For example, you will know that a windmill is not working and a miller is having a long rest now if the blades are locked in an “X” position (Lange rust, i.e. Long Rest). By the way, this is the lowest position and the wings could hardly be struck by lightning.

If a miller is just taking a short break or making some changes, a windmill sail-arms will be in a “+” position (Korte rust, i.e.  Short Rest).

There is one more position that shows some repairs of grinding windmill stones are required. In this situation, the bottom blade is slightly right outside the silhouette of a windmill. This position is known as Hakscheef and two messages are delivered to both farmers and itinerant mill stone dressers, respectively: “I am sorry, My Dear Customers, no grinding can be performed today as the windmill grinding stone needs sharpening because it’s worn out” and “Dear  Partners, please,  note I do need your service today. I will highly appreciate your timely assistance. Thank you in advance.”

Of course, there are two other messages related to various occasions. If a miller’s family has a feast (e.g. birthday, wedding of a family member, birth of a child), he will stop the wings of his windmill in the Vreugde (i.e. Rejoicing) position just before they reach their highest possible vertical position. And do you know why? Because such happy and joyful events should show he prospers and “he sails before the wind”, like one proverb says.

Finally, Dutch millers leave the upper sail-arm to pass through its highest position and then to leave for its lowest one. This is, actually, the Rouw (Mourning) position. It shows that the culmination point of someone’s life has already been passed by and that person has departed, i.e. he/she has started the journey downhill. By the way, this position is still used in The Netherlands even nowadays when a member of the Royal Family passes away or on the days when the whole nation commemorates the dead.