On this day in 1156, Finnish peasant Lalli kills English clergyman Henry, the Bishop of Turku, on the ice of Lake Köyliö.

13 comments
  1. The story, according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lalli):

    The story begins with an expedition of one of the first Christian missionaries in Finland, Bishop Henry. In midst of travelling, he and his entourage stop by a local dwelling. Only the matron of the house, Kerttu, is home. Bishop Henry asks for food and hay for the horses, but the matron refuses him. Bishop Henry and his men then forcibly take the food and hay before continuing on with their journey. After they are gone, Lalli, the husband of Kerttu, returns and hears of what has happened. When Lalli hears of the bishop ransacking his home, he becomes enraged and leaves to pursue the bishop. Lalli then catches up to the bishop on top of a frozen lake, storied to be Köyliönjärvi. At Bishop Henry’s bidding his entourage flees and hides in a nearby forest. The bishop tries to calm the angered man, but Lalli strikes and kills Henry with an axe.

    There are numerous versions as to how Lalli then met his own gruesome fate, but in general Lalli takes the bishop’s mitre to wear it pompously and cuts off the bishop’s finger to snatch his valuable ring. But the mitre becomes fused to Lalli’s head and when he tries to remove it, it tears his scalp off with it. When Lalli tries to remove the bishop’s ring from his finger, it likewise tears his finger off. Lalli runs off to the woods, where mice or rats corner him to a tree. Lalli falls from the tree into a pond and drowns. The bishop’s body parts are collected by his servants and transported with oxen towards the south. Where the oxen stopped became the site of the first church in Finland.

  2. I was in the Finnish national museum the other day and noticed that a popular motif of Christian artifacts in Finland is statues of priests and bishops standing on top of kneeling peasants… Lalli is a folk hero

  3. Why aren’t the a million movies and books on this legend, compared to the weak-ass robin hood tales? Seriously, this is so much more inspiring story.

  4. Don’t believe the anglo-saxon propaganda.

    This is a painting of Lalli heroically protecting Henry from the vicious horse which was attacking Henry with an Axe. Lalli’s martial prowess meant he was highly practiced in disarming violent nordic horses.

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