The Most Important Buildings in Lai Street in Tallinn
The Lady Chapel, built southwards from the chancel just before the Reformation in the early
sixteenth century, is one of the most beautiful and noteworthy late-Gothic buildings in
Estonia. It erected in 1502-1514 on donations of a rich merchants and art-lover Hans Pavels.
It is the most interesting annexe of the church. On the eastern façade of the chapel is the
cenotaph of a citizen merchant, composed like the sixteenth-century winged altarpieces. It is
the work of two late-Gothic stonecarvers Clemens Pale and Hinric Brabender (nicknamed
Bildensrieder). A skeleton with a toad on its chest and a serpent around its skull has been
carved in the lower niche. According to Estonian folklore, Olev, the man who built the
church, fell down and got killed when he was putting finishing touches to the spire. A toad
and a serpent sprang out of his mouth. Olev was buried on the very spot where he died. A
stone block with the carved figure of Olev, a toad and a serpent, was placed on his tomb.
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