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.
The regent was greatly distressed at the loss of the brave men whom he had left so long without support. It was too late to save their lives but he felt it his duty to avenge them. To do so he set sail with another army, making his way up the river Neva, the stream on which the city of St. Petersburg was afterwards built. No enemy was seen and the regent landed on an island in the river, where he built a strong fort which he named Landscrona, furnishing it plentifully with provisions.
The Russians, when they found what was being done, were infuriated. A great multitude of them, thirty thousand in number, gathered on the Neva and made a vigorous effort to burn the Swedish fleet, sending rafts down the stream on which were great heaps of blazing wood. But the regent caught these by iron chains which he stretched across the stream, holding the fire-floats until they burned out.
This effort failing, the Russians made a fierce attack on the fortress, with such savage violence that though many of them fell the others would not give up the assault. But so strong and so well defended was the place that they failed in this also, and in the end were obliged to retreat, leaving great numbers of dead behind them. Then a young and brave knight in the garrison, named Matts Kettilmundson, made a sortie against the Russians and drove them back in panic flight, many more of them being killed.
Shortly after this a party of Russian cavalry, one thousand strong, appeared in the edge of a wood, not far from the fort, their armor gleaming brightly in the sunlight. While the garrison were looking at them from the walls, the brave knight Matts Kettilmundson asked permission of the regent to ride out against them, saying that "he would venture a brush with the bravest among them."
The regent having consented, the daring fellow put on his armor and had his horse led through the gate. Leaping on it he rode out, and when he had passed the moat, turned back to his friends who lined the wall.
"Strive to live happily," he said, "and do not be troubled about me, for it depends on God in heaven whether I shall return with a captive foe or fail to return at all."
He then rode boldly on and sent an interpreter to the Russian lines, challenging the bravest of the Russians to fight with him for life, goods and freedom. It must be borne in mind that those were the days of chivalry and knight-errantry, when such adventures and challenges were common things and good faith was kept with those who made them. So no force or treachery was attempted against the daring knight, although we should hardly have looked for knightly deeds and chivalrous ways in the Russia of that day.