S is for Störtebeker » Mika Meskanen

Klaus Störtebeker seems to be a Robin Hood figure of sorts in Northern Germany. According to legends, he was able to drink four litres of beer with one schluck and walk past twelve men without his head — which he eventually lost. He lived in the late 1300s and became the most famous pirate of the Baltic Sea. First he was hired to supply Stockholm under siege from the Danes, but after the war he started raiding Hanseatic ships. The brotherhood of "equal sharing" pirates was to be feared on the coasts up to Ostrobothnia for forty years more.