Much of the north Netherlands has been reclaimed from wetlands by building embankments, or dykes, and draining them to form polders,
to be used for farming, and the Dutch became expert at building windmills to operate the water pumps used to drain the water. Nowadays,
electric or diesel pumps are more generally used, but one of the best preserved collection of windmills is at Kinderdijk, where a system
of 19 windmills was built around 1740. The name derives from the Dutch for “Children dyke” and stems from the 15th century, when the
region was flooded. Someone saw a wooden cradle floating on the water, with a cat inside, jumping from side to side to keep it afloat.
When the cradle was close enough for the bystander to pick it up, he saw that there was a baby inside, sleeping, and nice and dry.
The cat had kept the cradle balanced and afloat.