TTStoryTime! #3: Legends of the Haunted Castle

Magnificent, mighty, and heroic. 

Only three words to describe Olavinlinna - the first castle standing on an island of Lake Saimaa in the Eastern region that could withstand cannon fires.

Technically, “linna” means castle in Finnish. It was named after St. Olaf and withstood numerous attacks back in medieval times.

This resulted in many fascinating and even creepy legends throughout history until the present day, and we would like to share two of them with you!

1) Legend of the rowan tree

The story goes that in the late medieval Olavinlinna, a tragedy began…

Olavinlinna was ruled by the lord of the castle. He was responsible for the strategic control of the castle, as well as the prevention of attacks from the East.

His daughter, Ingel, whose beauty was as pure as the first snow, was deeply in love with an enemy soldier. They vowed to be together forever and nothing could tear them apart, despite the prohibition.

One night, the maiden opened the castle gate to meet her lover secretly inside the castle. To her surprise, the devious man opened the gates, allowing his troops to come in. The guards of Olavinlinna were then woken up by the noise. Add sth more With all their strengths, they killed all the enemy forces and the traitorous lover.

The attack at the castle was found to root from the maiden’s doing and she was sentenced to death. The crowd pleaded for her mercy, however, the Lord still turned a blind eye, even though the punishment was for his own daughter. Eventually, she was buried alive inside the Southern wall of Olavinlinna’s courtyard. 

After a short time, at the burial spot, a beautiful rowan tree started to grow. The white flowers blooming on the tree symbolized the maiden’s innocent heart, and the berries were the blood of love. According to the legend, during every full moon around midnight, you can see the couple on the balcony.

Nowadays, the rowan is no longer growing in the wall anymore, but the story of the Maidens Rowan lives until these days.

2) Rams against an army

Back in the day, Olavinlinna Castle was standing on the island, isolated from the coast. So goats and rams were raised inside the castles, which also resulted in some amount of strange legends about them.

One story is about a black ram that had a sad destiny. It had very good living conditions, as its life was meant to be served in the feast. It did not end up on the dinner table, but instead, fell off the castle wall and drowned in the black stream.

On the other hand, another ram became a hero in the castle’s military history.

During spring 1656, the enemy besieged the castle. However, mother nature did not approve of their invasion - there was wind, lightning, and thunder strucks. The tar placed on the ramparts caught the fire, resulting in huge flames flashing into the sky.

A black ram climbed up to the castle wall looking for food. At the same time, a thunderstorm struck. Frightened by the thunder, it stood up on two legs with gleaming red eyes, started beating with its hooves, and swinging its huge horns.

On the opposite shore, the Russian camp witnessed a grand creature with a mighty horn and hooves dancing on the black wall. As lightning flickered in the background, flames appeared to shoot out of the creature’s mouth.

Thinking the devil himself was living in the castle, the enemies were terrified and fled. They chaotically crammed into the boats that were soon overloaded and capsized, which led to numerous deaths from drowning.

Olavinlinna Castle was saved with the help of the Black ram! The citizens took exceptionally good care of this ram until the end of its life. Also, a statue was carved by sculptor Anton Ravander-Rauas to honor this ram, it’s located on Tallisaari island, next to the Castle.

The ram legend still travels from time to time till the present day, as Finns have a saying “to live like a ram in a castle”. Funnily, my colleague from Helsinki did not recognize this quote at all, so perhaps you could only hear it in the Eastern Finland region.

Ending

At first, the purpose of this castle was to protect the strategically important Savo region. But did you see it coming, that now it’s the venue of the yearly Opera Festival?

So if you are planning to visit Saimaa, better plan it soon this summer, because for sure you couldn’t miss this event in July!

If you would like to know more about Saimaa, check out our monthly magazine here:

Timetravelers issue No.13 - Saimaa