Wiipurin pamaus

The memory of the immense explosion in the Viborg Castle on 30 November 1495 survived in Finnish, and Russian, folklore. Probably some of the following stories are later inventions. A contemporary popular poem narrates the story of this blast.

The defence of Viborg was led by its castellan, Lord Knut Posse. Russian invaders were just about to conquer the town. According to folklore, Knut Posse had caused the blast with some sort of exploding mixture. Other stories allege that the phenomenon was a figure shown against the sky and depicted for example the X-formed cross of St. Andrew.

There are different opinions of the historicity and the real events of this phenomenon. There were only a couple of thousands soldiers on the Swedish side and defenders attempted to recruit peasants to add to their number. The first Russian attacks were successfully repelled, but in late November, the Russians attacked with all their forces. The battle seemed lost. The attackers had succeeded in reaching tops of walls and several towers were in their power. After that, something happened which caused Russians to retreat.

One story narrates that Knut had a powder mine or tar barrels under one tower, which he detonated. Russians alive after the explosion would not have known what happened and escaped in great fear. Another story tells of Russians escaping because they became afraid of a light phenomenon on the sky. 30 November is the feast of St Andrew and they thought the saint was protecting the town, making them halt the attack.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Viipuri
• Viborg
• 911