hese were supposed to meet in fierce encounters in
which they would throw each other over high mountains. The people kept
wooden images of these deities in their huts, and had also open places in
the forest, with a stone on the centre of each, on which they made
sacrifices to their divinities. When a Karelian, as these people were
called, came to within a fixed distance of the sacrificial stone, he took
off his cap and crawled up to it silently, making sacrifices there of the
bones and horns of elk and reindeer. In case of danger they would
sacrifice goats, cats and cocks, sprinkling their idols with the blood of
these animals.

At that time, shortly before the year 1300, Birger, heir to the throne of
Sweden, was very young, and the country was under the rule of Torkel
Knutson, regent of the kingdom and a wise and energetic man. Exasperated
by the cruelties committed by the Karelians on the Christians, he
determined to put a stop to them and sailed to Finland with a strong
army. Against this force the pagan foresters could not make head and they
were soon obliged to submit. A fort with a strong garrison was built at
Wiborg to keep them in order, and the churchmen who went with the
expedition strove to convert them.

It is not with these savage woodsmen, however, that we are concerned, but
with the Russians, with which people the Swedes now first came into
warlike contact. The forest Russians of that day were as savage as the
Finns and as hard to deal with. They came to the help of the Karelians in
this war, and to punish them the regent took Castle Kexholm, their chief
stronghold, and left in it a garrison under Sigge Lake. It was this that
brought on the first war between the Swedes and the Russians, some of the
events of which are so interesting that it is worth telling about.

After the Swedes had held Kexholm for some time their food supply ran
very low, and as no aid came from home many of them wished to abandon the
fort. This Sigge Lake would not listen to. He had been left there to hold
the place and did not intend to give it up. But only the bravest of his
men remained with him, the others leaving under pretext of sending food
and reinforcements from home.

Neither men nor supplies arrived and the Russians, learning of the state
of affairs, gathered in multitudes around the fort, laying close siege to
it. In the end, after a brave resistance lasting many days, food became
so scarce that the Swedes dared not s