Töll the Great

The first Saare County Governor Töll the Great (Suur Töll, in English also known as Toell) was born to his parents in the 18th century. And this is as much as we know of his origins. Nobody knows even his birthname. And as he was big and clumsy already as an infant, the other kids started to call him mockingly Töll the Great. But Töll was kind-hearted and didn’t mind such silliness and kept growing and growing. When Töll reached adulthood, he was already 3 meters and 24 centimetres tall and the islanders chose him to be their first County Governor. In addition to the governor’s position Töll had many other jobs that suited him for his great height. As an army commander he protected his people against the attacks of the devil himself and other enemies, as a volunteer fireman he helped to retrieve the cats from the treetops to their owners, the elderly ladies, as a handyman he repaired the broken blades of the windmills, and he also helped islanders when larger items needed to be moved. Töll the Great perished in the first half of the 19th century during a fight with Otto-Triin-Wilhelm Masing when the latter came with a quill and ink to oppress the islanders with the letter “õ”. Töll’s last words were: ‘On my tomb, write my name as Töll, not Tõll!’ But the whereabouts of Töll’s grave are unknown. The Soviet occupation forces saw the memory of Töll as a threat to their power and they took his remains far away to Russia. There are no images remained of Töll, because the islanders believed that such a holy man cannot be portrayed in any way. This unwritten law was breached in 1980 by an artist Jüri Arrak when a cartoon documentary was produced about the life of Töll. Arrak received a permanent prohibition on entry to Saaremaa for such a sacrilege, the only thing he is welcome to do is to look for trouble.