[38] Both Von Hammer-Purgstall (_Geschichte der Goldenen Horde_) and Howorth allude to Poppon as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a post held at that date by Konrad of Thuringen; also both include him among the slain, though the former has a note to the effect that this could not have been Poppon “of Osterino,” who died much later. Poppon of Osterna was at this date Provincial or Land-master in Prussia, and lived to be elected Grand Master in 1253. [39] Howorth, following Wolff, discredits the widely-accepted story of a Bohemian victory over the Mongols at Olmutz, and refers the event to a success over the Hungarians and Kumans twelve years later. [40] Von Hammer-Purgstall, _Geschichte der Goldenen Horde_. [41] Laszlo Szalay, _Geschichte Ungarns_. [42] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. CHAPTER V “THE YEARS THAT THE LOCUST HATH EATEN” While the Golden Horde was dealing out death and destruction in the neighbouring western kingdoms, Russia was exerting her powers of recuperation to regain some of the life that had been crushed out of her. Like unscathed pheasants stealing back one by one to the coverts from which the beaters had sent them whirring forth, the fugitive princes returned to the wrecks of their provinces. Daniel re-established himself at Galitz, Mikhail at Kiev; Tchernigov was still infested by roving bodies of Mongols. Meanwhile the Novgorodskie, in their own little world in the North, pursued as usual a political existence isolated from that of Central and Eastern Russia. On the top of their quarrels with the German knights they became involved in a question of frontier lands with the crown of Sweden. Under the command of the Skandinavian Prince Birger, an army of Swedes, Norwegians, and Finns disembarked at the mouth of the Ijhora, an affluent of the Neva, and threatened an attack upon Ladoga. [Sidenote: 1240] Aleksandr Yaroslavitch, the young Prince of Novgorod, gathering together the few men at his disposal, flung himself on the Swedish camp and gained a brilliant victory, wounding Birger himself in the face with his lance. In honour of which battle he ever after bore the added name of Nevski (“of the Neva”).