Slavic Seiðr? Reconsidering the Volkhvy of Northern Rus´

Abstract

In the Primary Chronicle’s entry for 1071 CE (6579 in the chronicler’s reckoning of the years since Creation), the reader learns that volkhvy (sorcerers, sing. volkhv) led a rebellion against ecclesiastical and secular authorities across Rus ́.1 The following events occurred: a volkhv appeared in Kiev and convinced the populace that within five years, the Dnieper River would run backward and various countries, like Greece and Rus ́, would change geographic positions; near Rostov, two magicians supposedly led a crowd of onlookers in the murder of several women, potentially as a sacrifice, to stave off a famine; the same magicians then moved to Beloozero, where they and their supporters fought a pitched battle against princely forces before they were captured and executed; a Novgorodian man went out from the city and found a Chud ́ sorcerer to help him divine his future; and, finally, a Novgorodian magician led an armed rebellion against the bishop, which was ultimately put down by the city’s prince, Gleb.2 The chronicler’s fascination with sorcery during the year 1071 has traditionally been read as pointing to (a) the anxieties of a fragile Christian hierarchy insistent on its own supremacy over the continued popularity and subversive potential of indigenous beliefs; and (b) a description of a local rebellion against the political authority of the Varangian princes.3 1 The Primary Chronicle here is a shorthand for the collection of records known as Povest ́ vremennykh let (henceforth PVL), typically anglicized as The Tale of Bygone Years, a text that was compiled, rewritten, and altered in several stages over the 11th and 12th centuries. For the purposes of this article, I follow the standardized version in D. S. Likhachev and V. P. Adrianova-Peretts, eds., Povest ́ vremennykh let, 2 vols. (Moscow: Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1950). All translations in this article are my own. 2 PVL 1:116–21. Additional depictions of magic can be found in entries for the years 912, 1024, 1044, and 1091. 3 Additional readings of the volkhvy in the PVL can be found in Rachel May, “The Power of Speech: Dialogue as History in the Russian Primary Chronicle,” in Dialogue and Critical