Legends of Tallinn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Like any other medieval city Tallinn (Reval) gathered legends around and of itself.

[edit] Reval

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"). On its wall there is a sculpture which depicts a deerhunt on Toompea (German: Domberg, a district of old Reval. And that deerhunt gave the name Reval to the town according to a legend.

A Danish king Valdemar II was hunting for deer on Toompea. And he spotted a beautiful stag. The king really liked the animal and so he ordered it to be caught alive. But unfortunately the deer escaped and fell from a high limestone bank and broke its neck. In German, Reh-fall means "fall of a deer". And that is where the name "Reval" has been derived from according to the legend.

The "deer-fall" legend is contradicted by documentary evidence. "Reval" is derived from the name of the adjacent ancient Estonian county of Revalia (Rävala), and the first recorded occurrences of that name predate the Danish king's first visit to Estonia (1219) by several years.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../l/e/g/Legends_of_Tallinn_e4b6.html"