Brita Olsdotter

Brita Olsdotter, (fl.1719), was an old Swedish woman who, according to the legend, was to have saved the city of Linköping from being burnt by the Russians during the Great Northern War.

In 1719, in the last years of the war, Sweden was invaded by the Russian army who burned several cities and plundered villages along the coasts. A lot of stories are kept which describes how some of the villages, churces and farms was saved by individual acts and personal courage. During the plunderings in 1719, the Russian army burned Norrköping, and then marsched south towards Linköping to burn this city as well.

On the way to Linköping, the Russian army met an old woman and apparently stopped to ask her something. She improvised a story and told them that a curir had arived to Linköping with the message that the British fleet had come to Sweden's rescue, and that a Swedish army of 20.000 soldiers was on their way. This made the Russian army to turn back and refrain from attacking the city, and the city of Linköping, which was in fact without any protection at all, was saved from being burned.

They where a lot of such local legends; the vicar's wife Maria Fraxell was to have armed her maids in Värmland, defending her parish against an attack from Norway. But Brita Olsdotter was, of all those, the person said to have saved the largest place from the war.

Sources

* http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0323.html
* http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0160.html