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Like any other medieval city, Tallinn (known as Reval from the 13th century until the 1920s) has inspired many legends.
One of the defensive towers in the town wall that surrounds old Tallinn is called Kiek in de Kök (Low German: "peek into the kitchen"). There is a sculpture on its wall which depicts a deerhunt in Toompea (German : Domberg), a district of old Reval. The deerhunt is said to have given the town its old name, Reval.
According to legend the Danish king Valdemar II was hunting for deer in Toompea when he spotted a beautiful stag. The king liked the animal much and so he ordered it to be caught alive. Unfortunately, the deer escaped, fell from a high limestone bank and broke its neck. In German, Reh-fall means "fall of a deer", and so that is where the name Reval was derived from.
However, the "deer-fall" legend is not supported by any documentary evidence. More likely Reval is derived from the name of the adjacent ancient Estonian county of Revalia (Rävala), and in fact the first recorded occurrences of that name predate the Danish king's first visit to Estonia in 1219 by several years.[ citation needed ]
If you happen to be standing near the so-called Cat's Well on Rataskaevu Street, look up at house number 16 and you'll notice something odd. One of the windows on the top floor is bricked up from the inside, and has false curtains painted on the inside. This 15th century house happens to be the subject of Tallinn's most famous ghost legend, a story called "The Devil’s Wedding". The tale goes like this: Long ago, the landlord of this house, desperate for money and nearly suicidal, was approached by a mysterious, cloaked man who offered a huge sum of money to rent the upstairs flat for a party. The renter's only condition was complete privacy. The landlord readily agreed. During the evening in question, loud noises were heard, as if a hundred guests were tramping up the stairs, and an ungodly racket issued from the room. Precisely at 1 o’clock the sound abruptly stopped, as if the party had simply vanished. The next day the landlord's servant, who had been spying through the keyhole, was found mortally ill. Before dying, the servant claimed to have seen the Devil himself having a wedding party in the flat.
In the Lake Ülemiste, the largest lake surrounding Tallinn, there is boulder called Lindakivi ("Linda's rock"). In Estonian mythology, it is believed to be one of the boulders Linda was supposed to carry to Kalev's grave at Toompea, but which fell off her apron. She sat on the boulder and cried, thus creating the lake.
The semi-legendary-mythological "Ülemiste Elder" (Estonian: Ülemiste vanake) is believed to live in the lake. If anyone should meet him, then he is believed to ask: "Is Tallinn ready yet?". If then the other person answered "yes", then he would flood the city. Thus, the correct answer would be: "No, there is much to be done yet". This tale is sometimes viewed as an explanation why Tallinn is building/growing all the time. [1] [2]
A long time ago Tallinn was growing pretty slowly. All the inhabitants wanted Tallinn to be a big seaport, but the merchant ships would not come to Tallinn. Then someone got a very interesting idea: to build a church with such a high tower that nobody had ever seen before. The ships would see the church from the open sea and would come to Tallinn with their goods. Everybody liked the idea. But where would they find such a craftsman to build such a church? Suddenly out of nowhere came a craftsman who applied for the job. Citizens gladly accepted him, but he asked a very high price for his job - ten barrels of gold with one strange condition: if someone would find out his name, then he would work for free. Of course, the citizens agreed. The craftsman started working very fast and the people in Tallinn were getting dimmer and dimmer. Every evening they would come to him and say different names hoping that that would be his name. The church was almost finished. The citizens of Tallinn were getting more and more scared. Then they sent a spy to his wife, and he overheard how she was singing to her baby: Sleep my baby, tomorrow our Olev is coming back and will bring us ten barrels of gold! The spy rushed back into the city. The craftsman was on the roof of the church, placing the cross. When the people started calling him: Hey, Olev! Make sure the cross is straight! When Olev heard his name he understood that he wouldn't get gold! He let the cross go and fell to the ground. At the same moment his body turned into stone. This legend is reenacted at Tallinn Legends, Tallinn's museum of history and folklore. [3]
Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of about 454,000 and administratively lies in the Harju maakond (county). Tallinn is the main financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located 187 km (116 mi) northwest of the country's second largest city Tartu, however only 80 km (50 mi) south of Helsinki, Finland, also 320 km (200 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, 300 km (190 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, and 380 km (240 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical name Reval.
Tallinn Airport or Lennart Meri Tallinn Airport is the largest airport in Estonia, which serves as a hub for the national airline Nordica, as well as the secondary hub for AirBaltic, cargo airline Airest and LOT Polish Airlines. It was also the home base of the now defunct national airline Estonian Air. Tallinn Airport is open to both domestic and international flights. It is located 2.7 nautical miles southeast of the centre of Tallinn on the eastern shore of Lake Ülemiste. It was formerly known as Ülemiste Airport.
Kalevipoeg is a 19th century epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald which has since been considered the Estonian national epic.
Toompea is a limestone hill in the central part of the city of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The hill is an oblong tableland, which measures about 400 by 250 metres, has an area of 7 hectares and is about 20–30 metres higher than the surrounding areas. In folklore the hill is known as the tumulus mound over the grave of Kalev, erected in his memory by his grieving wife.
Harju County, is one of the fifteen counties of Estonia. It is situated in Northern Estonia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, and borders Lääne-Viru County to the east, Järva County to the southeast, Rapla County to the south, and Lääne County to the southwest. The capital and largest city of Estonia, Tallinn, is situated in Harju County. Harju County is the largest county in Estonia in terms of population, as almost half (45%) of the Estonia's population lives in Harju County.
In the Estonian mythology and Kreutzwald's epic Kalevipoeg, Linda was the mother of Kalevipoeg and the wife of Kalev.
Lake Ülemiste is the largest of the lakes surrounding Tallinn, Estonia. Ülemiste is the main part of the Tallinn water supply system, which supplies the city with most of its drinking water. The lake is fed mostly by Kurna stream and the Pirita River, through the Vaskjala–Ülemiste canal.
The Duchy of Estonia, also known as Danish Estonia, was a direct dominion of the King of Denmark from 1219 until 1346 when it was sold to the Teutonic Order and became part of the Ordensstaat.
St. Mary's Cathedral, Tallinn is a cathedral church located on Toompea Hill in Tallinn, Estonia. Originally established by Danes in the 13th century, it is the oldest church in Tallinn and mainland Estonia. It is also the only building in Toompea which survived a 17th-century fire.
The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is an orthodox cathedral on Toompea hill in central Tallinn, Estonia. It was built to a design by Mikhail Preobrazhensky in a typical Russian Revival style in 1894–1900, when the country was part of the Russian Empire. The cathedral is Tallinn's largest orthodox cupola church. It is dedicated to the grand prince of Kiev, and later saint, Alexander Nevsky who in 1242 won the Battle of the Ice on Lake Peipus, near the present-day border between Estonia and Russia. The late Russian patriarch Alexis II started his priestly ministry in the church.
The Catholic Church in Estonia is the national branch of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
Toompea castle is a medieval castle on Toompea hill in the central part of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. In modern times, it houses the Parliament of Estonia.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the Republic of Estonia.
Christian Ackermann was a sculptor and carver who worked in Estonia.
The Tallinn Town Hall is a building in the Old Town (Vanalinn) of Tallinn (Reval), Estonia, next to the Town Hall Square. The building is located in the south side of the medieval market square and is 36.8 metres (121 ft) long. The west wall is 14.5 metres (48 ft) in length, and the east is 15.2 metres (50 ft). It is a two-storey building with a spacious basement. It is the oldest town hall in the whole Baltic Sea region and Scandinavia.
Martin Aunin is an Estonian architect.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Tallinn, Estonia.
Stenbock House is a prominent neo-classical building located on Toompea hill, Tallinn. It is the official seat of the Government of Estonia.
Johan(n) Gustav Stockenberg was a Swedish sculptor, wood carver and stonemason who worked in Sweden, Russia and mainly in Reval.
Anton Lembit Soans was an Estonian architect, urban planner and lecturer. He was one of the founding members of the Estonian Architects Union.
