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Volgá Vseslavich
VOLK or Volgá Vseslavich, corrupted from Svyatoslavich,
is the Prince Oleg (Olg, Volg, Volgá)
who succeeded Rurik early in the tenth century.
Though this bylina undoubtedly preserves a dim memory
of the Vseslavich of the Chronicles and the "Word of
Igor's Expedition," most of Volgá's traits are purely
mythical. His name of Volk (the Wizard) corresponds
to that won by Prince Oleg through his knowledge of
the Black Art—vyetchi, the Wise Man, or Sorcerer.
The history of Oleg in the Chronicle of Nestor, a monk
of Kief, 1050-1114, is almost as fantastic as the
bylina. Like Volgá, he made a trip to "the Turkish
Land," in 907. On this expedition, he is said to have
placed wheels under his ships, and spreading their
canvas, to have sailed thus across the plains of Thrace
to the gates of Constantinople. The two heroes also
begin their military career at the same age.
In the songs of the Turkish tribes of Siberia, the
figure of the sorcerer and hunter who catches game
and feeds his followers is very common, these peoples
being still in the shepherd and hunter stage of civilization.
The signs and wonders accompanying Volgá's birth
have their parallel in many other mythologies. Similar
omens preceded the incarnation of Vishnu and the birth
of Indra the Thunderer and Lightning-bringer.
A similar disturbing approach of the Thunder-god
must be taken for granted in all epic accounts of
marvellously born heroes. The omens are also often
legends which crystallize about striking individualities,
as in the case of Alexander of Macedon.
The dragon father in these myths is the Thunder-god;
for the clouds, in which primitive man saw
dragons,—the robbers of the living water, and of the
gold of the sun's rays,—were regarded also as an
external covering, a garment or cloak, in which the
bright gods and goddesses wrapped themselves. Enveloping
themselves thus in their cloudy garment,
the gods clothed themselves, as it were, in a dragon's
skin, and assumed the monstrous dragon form. The
Thunder-god, slumbering within the frost-fettered
clouds, invisible until the spring in the radiance of
his beauty, the lightning, transformed himself into a
dragon. All Volgá's transformations refer, therefore,
to changes in the shape of the rain-bearing thundercloud.
As the representative of sorcery, Volgá holds the
place in Slavic epics, held by Maugis or Malagis in
the Carlovingian epos, especially in Renaud de
Montauban.
Thirty is the favourite epic number for the bodyguard
(druzhina). In the Chanson de Roland, for
instance, Roland's guard at the court of Charlemagne
numbers thirty, while the traitor Ganelon is defended
by the same number of relatives. As the ancient Slavs
had no other organization than that of the patriarchal
commune, this idea would seem to have been borrowed
from the Scandinavians. The tests for admission to
these brotherhoods, and the manner of their formation
among the latter people, are well known. Princes,
bishops, and even wealthy private individuals, like
Churilo and Sadko, had these guards, which owed
allegiance to no one but their leader.
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