It is possible that upon reading the title of today’s post, you internally questioned whether or not Olga of Kiev is interesting enough to read about that her antics required three separate posts. I wouldn’t blame you or judge you for thinking this, but allow me to assert that if you have been following along with Olga thus far, you’re arguably aware of the fact that this woman should have anthologies dedicated to her exploits.
I’m not sure if there is a woman in history who tops Olga in the context of absolute badassery, and I yearn to know more about what she was like as an individual, as opposed to a bloody menace when it came to revenge for her brutally murdered husband.
Again, this information about this icon comes from museumhack.com.
“Olga of Kiev Plan for Revenge Phase 3: Party Foul
“After the bathhouse burning, Olga sent Mal a request: marriage still sounded good, but she’d like to visit Iskorosten to hold a funeral feast and proper burial for her deceased husband, Igor. Mal still didn’t know what happened to his last two diplomatic parties, so he figured why not? Whatever greased Olga’s wheels and got him on the Kievan Rus’ throne.
“Olga and her soldiers arrived for the funeral feast and the mead was flowing. But, while the Drevlians were blacking out, Olga’s men had been ordered to teetotal and keep their wits. When the time was right and the Drevlians were good and sloshed, Olga brought down the hammer, killing 5,000 of the Drevlians. Well, 5,000 might be a bit of hyperbole, to tell the truth, but she killed a bunch of Drevlian revelers.7 8
“Olga of Kiev Plan for Revenge Phase 4: Bird Fyrd
“This final step was truly Olga’s crowning achievement.
“Olga had gathered an army to wipe the Drevlians out, once and for all. The surviving Drevlians—those whom Olga hadn’t buried, burned, or put to the sword at the funeral feast—begged for mercy. ‘Please, Olga, we’ll give you so many furs you’ll be sweating your ass off in February,’ they (probably) said.
“‘You know what,’ Olga said, ‘fine. But I don’t sweat sh*t. So instead of furs, I’m going to let you Drevvies off easy. We’ve impoverished you with our siegin’ and a-killin’, so all I ask of you are three pigeons and three sparrows from each house.’
“Olga of Kiev: animal lover.
“‘Lady,’ the Drevlians said, thinking they were getting off easy, ‘you got it.’
“The Drevlians made good, but Olga didn’t. The birds were given to Olga, and she gave each of her soldiers a pigeon or sparrow, along with an order: tie a thread to each bird’s feet. On the end of that thread, tie some cloth-bound sulfur.
“Once it was dark, Olga’s soldiers released the pigeons and sparrows, who naturally flew back to their nests in the houses, coops, and haystacks of Iskorosten. The whole city was set aflame at once and the Drevlians fled. Olga’s army captured the survivors. Some she killed, some she kept as slaves, and the rest she left to pay tribute.
“Now, this might be a myth from the Kievan Rus’Primary Chronicle (the Russian equivalent of the Norse Sagas, if you will). It does seem to be an outlandish tactic. That said, the United States Army tested a similar tactic in World War II, where they would send flaming bats to burn down Japanese cities. The tests went so well that the testing base was burned down. So Olga’s army of fire birds? Not impossible.9
“Olga of Kiev Inducted into Sainthood, Somehow
“Now that you know what Olga may have done in her quest for vengeance against the Drevlians, you might be asking, ‘How’d she get sainted, and why?’
“It’s a good question. Christianity is, in theory, not quite as into revenge as some of the pagan religions were. You might even say Christianity was supposed to be about forgiveness—revenge’s great enemy.
“But Christianity, especially during the medieval period, had another priority: conversion. While Olga of Kiev was a pagan for much of her life, and particularly in her approach to epic poem-style revenge, she later converted to Christianity—receiving baptism between 945 and 957—and encouraged her people to do the same.
“While her son, Svyatoslav, stuck with paganism, her grandson later adopted Olga’s Christian mantle and declared Kievan Rus’ a Christian empire. In 969, Olga died as she lived: not a saint. But nearly 600 years later, the church recognized her efforts to make Kievan Rus’ a Christian nation. In 1547, she was given the title ‘Isapostolos,’ meaning ‘equal to the apostles.’10
“So what’s the lesson here? Perhaps it’s this: medieval Christianity’s capacity for forgiveness was boundless, especially if you could boost membership,” the web page states.
Photo by Claudio Carrozzo on Unsplash
