They had two chief deities, Jumal, the great good one, and Perkel, the great evil one, and these were supposed to meet in fierce encounters in which they would throw each other over high mountains. The people kept wooden images of these deities in their huts, and had also open places in the forest, with a stone on the centre of each, on which they made sacrifices to their divinities. When a Karelian, as these people were called, came to within a fixed distance of the sacrificial stone, he took off his cap and crawled up to it silently, making sacrifices there of the bones and horns of elk and reindeer. In case of danger they would sacrifice goats, cats and cocks, sprinkling their idols with the blood of these animals. At that time, shortly before the year 1300, Birger, heir to the throne of Sweden, was very young, and the country was under the rule of Torkel Knutson, regent of the kingdom and a wise and energetic man. Exasperated by the cruelties committed by the Karelians on the Christians, he determined to put a stop to them and sailed to Finland with a strong army. Against this force the pagan foresters could not make head and they were soon obliged to submit. A fort with a strong garrison was built at Wiborg to keep them in order, and the churchmen who went with the expedition strove to convert them. It is not with these savage woodsmen, however, that we are concerned, but with the Russians, with which people the Swedes now first came into warlike contact. The forest Russians of that day were as savage as the Finns and as hard to deal with. They came to the help of the Karelians in this war, and to punish them the regent took Castle Kexholm, their chief stronghold, and left in it a garrison under Sigge Lake. It was this that brought on the first war between the Swedes and the Russians, some of the events of which are so interesting that it is worth telling about. After the Swedes had held Kexholm for some time their food supply ran very low, and as no aid came from home many of them wished to abandon the fort. This Sigge Lake would not listen to. He had been left there to hold the place and did not intend to give it up. But only the bravest of his men remained with him, the others leaving under pretext of sending food and reinforcements from home. Neither men nor supplies arrived and the Russians, learning of the state of affairs, gathered in multitudes around the fort, laying close siege to it. In the end, after a brave resistance lasting many days, food became so scarce that the Swedes dared not stay any longer and they determined to try and cut their way through the besiegers. The gates were thrown open and Sigge rushed out at the head of his company, with such force and fury that for a time it seemed as if they would succeed. But they were weakened by semi-starvation and in the end the swarming Russians killed them all but two, who alone made their escape and carried the news of the disaster back to Sweden.