Denmark now had peace on its southern border.  Dagmar was dead, and Valdemar, whose restless soul yearned for new worlds to conquer, turned toward the east where the wild Esthland tribes were guilty of even worse outrages than the Wends before Absalon tamed them.  The dreadful cruelties practised by these pagans upon christian captives cried aloud to all civilized Europe, and Valdemar took the cross “for the honor of the Virgin Mary and the absolution of his sins,” and gathered a mighty fleet, the greatest ever assembled in Danish waters.  With more than a thousand ships he sailed across the Baltic.  The Pope sped them with his apostolic blessing, and took king and people into his especial care, forbidding any one to attack the country while they were away converting the heathen.  Archbishop Anders led the crusade with the king.  As the fleet approached the shore they saw it covered with an innumerable host of the enemy.  So great was their multitude that the crusaders quailed before the peril of landing; but the archbishop put heart into them, and led the fleet in fervent prayer to the God of battle.  Then they landed without hindrance.

There was an old stronghold there called Lyndanissa that had fallen into decay.  The crusaders busied themselves for two days with building another and better fort.  On the third day, being St. Vitus’ Day, they rested, fearing no harm.  The Esthlanders had not troubled them.  Some of their chiefs had even come in with an offer of surrender.  They were willing to be converted, they said, and the priests were baptizing them after vespers, while the camp was making ready for the night, when suddenly the air was filled with the yells of countless savages.  On every side they broke from the woods, where they had been gathering unsuspected, and overwhelmed the camp.  The guards were hewn down, the outposts taken, and the King’s men were falling back in confusion, their standard lost, when Prince Vitislav of Ruegen who had been camping with his men in a hollow between the sand-hills, out of the line of attack, threw himself between them and the Esthlanders, and gave the Danes time to form their lines.

In the twilight of the June evening the battle raged with great fury.  With the King at their head, who had led them to victory on so many hard-fought fields, the Danes drove back their savage foes time after time, literally hewing their way through their ranks with sword and battle-axe.  But they were hopelessly outnumbered.  Their hearts misgave them as they saw ten heathen spring out of the ground for every one that was felled.  The struggle grew fiercer as night came on.  The Christians were fighting for life; defeat meant that they must perish to a man, by the sword or upon pagan altars; escape there was none.  Upon the cliff overlooking the battle-field the archbishop and his priests were praying for success to the King’s arms.  Tradition that has been busy with this great battle all through the ages tells how, while the aged bishop’s hands were raised toward heaven, victory leaned to the Danes; but when he grew tired, and let them fall, the heathen won forward, until the priests held up his hands and once more the tide of battle rolled back from the shore, and the Christian war-cry rose higher.