To their assistance came the Novgorod prince, Yaroslav, son of Big Nest. When on his way to Riga, envoys came to him from the Sea-Fins, from the island of Izel, and begged him to defend them from the Danes. The country from Izborsk and Yurieff toward Fellin seemed free of the enemy. It remained to drive the Danes from the Revel coast, strengthen Revel and build a stone fortress there. When Yaroslav approached Fellin, a fearful sight met his eyes; traces of the terrible knights were everywhere; villages had been burned; in places the earth was red with blood; there were gibbets with bodies swinging from them. The knights had retaken Fellin, and the Russian garrison had been slaughtered. Yaroslav and his forces went through the country to the sea, approached Kolivan and besieged the castle of Revel for nearly a month. The Danes defended the place valiantly. At that stage, Yaroslav took counsel of the Novgorod men, and decided to abandon the siege for a large tribute in gold. The Pskoff people considered this ending of the campaign inglorious, and blamed their “brothers of Novgorod” for their selfish conduct. But even this campaign did not shake the faith of the people in their Russian defenders. Yurieff and the country around struggled against the knights till completely exhausted. While waiting for promised reinforcements from Novgorod, a few Russian champions and native people fought with the whole force of Livonian knights. This party of brave men was led by the most insignificant prince of all Russia, that Prince Vyachko, from whom the archbishop had taken his native place, Kuikenos. His name, however, had acquired great notoriety among the Germans, for he was their most irreconcilable enemy. From Kuikenos, Vyachko had gone to Yurieff, and there he gave the Germans no peace. He strengthened the place, and made savage raids on all sides. At last the archbishop decided, cost what it might, to take Yurieff, that hateful den where all the “malefactors and traitors” had assembled, as well as many of the bitterest enemies of the church in Livonia, and where they were commanded by that prince who, from the beginning, had been the root of all evil. The archbishop himself took part in this campaign, bringing with him a multitude of knights from various parts of Germany. The Knights of Livonia assisted with all their strength. The place was surrounded and besieged. In addition to the usual engines of war, the Germans had a movable tower as high as the walls of the city. Under cover of this tower, they began to dig a tunnel. Meanwhile they entered into negotiations with Vyachko, offering him a free escape with all the Russians, horses and arms, if he would surrender the fortress and with it the natives who had found shelter within its walls. Vyachko gave an answer which the archbishop called shameless and insolent, and in Russian style.