I am grateful for the useful suggestions made by two Slavic Review referees and Diane Koenker. In addition, 1 wish to thank all who commented on portions of this paper presented at the University of Illinois “Russkii kruzhok” (Urbana, 2002), the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (New York, 2002), and the Sixth Midwest Medieval Slavic Workshop (Chicago, 2003).

1. On the debated circumstances of Ol'ga's baptism, with bibliography, see Nazarenko, A. V., Drevniaia Rus'na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh: Mezhdistsiplinarnye ocherki kul'turnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh sviazei IX-XII vekov (Moscow, 2001), 219–310 Google Scholar. On the origins of the Povest', see Tvorogov, O. V., “Povest'vremennykh let,” in Likhachev, D. S., ed., Slovar'knizhnikov i knizhnosti drevnei rusi, vol. 1, Xl-pervaiapolovina XTVv. (Leningrad, 1987)Google Scholar; and Ostrowski, Donald G., introduction to The ‘Povest’ vremennykh lět': An Interlinear Collation and Paradosis, ed. Ostrowski, Donald G., Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature, vol. 10 in 3 bks. (Cambridge, Mass., 2003)Google Scholar, electronic version available at http://hudce7.harvard.edu/∼ostrowski/pvl/index.html (last consulted 25June 2004).

2. See Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 42:3-55:9 and 64:22-74:9 (years 6421-6453, 6472- 6480). Ostrowski's line numbers for the Povest'are keyed to the columns and lines in Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei (PSRI-.),vo\. l,3ded. (offset reprint of 2d ed. with additions, 1926; Moscow, 1997). Cf. the First Novgorod Chronicle, PSRI^, vol. 3, 2d ed. (Moscow, 2000), 107, wherein Igor’ is characterized as “brave and wise,” and the praise for Igor’ and Sviatoslav in the Sermon on Law and Grace attributed to the Metropolitan Ilarion, “ Slovo o zakone i blagodati, Ilariona,“ ed. A. M. Moldovan (Kiev, 1984), 91-92.

3. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 75:23-130-31:29 (years 6488-6523); Ol'ga's influence is mentioned in lines 108:26-28 (year 6495).

4. For instances of Oleg's cleverness, see Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 23:4-17 and 30: 10-16 (years 6390, 6415). Perhaps Oleg's depiction as clever somehow reflects his status as a regent, rather than as a true Riurikid ruler. We may note that the most striking deceptions and military strategems in the Povest’ that are not connected either with Ol'ga or with him are associated with an unnamed Kievan youth and with the general Pretich (lines 66:4- 67:8 [year 6476]), and with an elder in Belgorod (lines 127:10-129:12 [year 6505]). True Riurikids are shown as capable of trickery, but dieir deceptions are less sophisticated than Ol'ga's or Oleg's. Sviatoslav deceives the Greeks about the number of his troops (lines 69:28-70:8 [year 6479]), but this act shows mainly that the Greeks themselves have not fooled him and, in any case, it is insufficient to deter the Greeks. Vladimir has his brother Iaropolk murdered (an act the chronicler condemns) and sends some Varangians to Byzantium with a message requesting that the emperor disperse them (lines 76:18-79:9-10 [year 6487]).

5. Representative examples include Karamzin, N. M., Istoriia gosudarstva Rossiiskogo, ed. Sakharov, A. N. et al. (Moscow, 1989), 1:122 Google Scholar; Solov'ev, S. M., Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, ed. Cherepnin, L. V. et al. (Moscow, 1959), 155–56Google Scholar; and Pushkareva, N. L., Zhenshchiny drevnei rusi (Moscow, 1989), 14 Google Scholar.

6. Shakhmatov, A. A., Razyskaniia o drevneishikh russkikh letopisnykh svodakh (St. Petersburg, 1908), 108–10Google Scholar. Tvorogov, O. V., “Povest'vremennykh let i Nachal'nyi svod: Tekstologicheskii kommentarii,” Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury 30 (1976): 22–23 Google Scholar, summarizes and restates Shakhmatov's argument. Vilkul, Tat'iana, “Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis’ i Nachal'nyi svod,” Palaeoslavica 11 (2003): 5–35 Google Scholar, reviews and criticizes literature on Shakhmatov's larger hypothesis of a text antedating the Povest', but she does not deal with Ol'ga.

7. Stender-Petersen, Adolf, “Die Varägersage als Quelle der Altrussischen Chronik,“ Acta Jutlandica 6, no. 1 (1934): 127–55Google Scholar. See also Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk- Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends, rev. and enl. ed. (Bloomington, n.d.; reprint, 1966), vol. 4, motif K2351.1: “Sparrows of Cirencester“; Rydzevskaia, E. A., Drevniaia Rus’ i Skəndinaviia LX-XIV vv. (Moscow, 1978), 195–202 Google Scholar; and Oinas, Felix J., “Folklore and History,” Palaeoslavica 2 (1994): 33–35 Google Scholar.

8. Tschižewskij, Dmitrij, Geschichte der Altrussischen Literalurim 11., 12. und 13.Jahrhundert: KieverEpoche (Frankfurt am Main, 1948), 54–55 Google Scholar; Ciževskij, Dmitrij, History of Russian Literature from the Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque (The Hague, 1960), 16 Google Scholar; Likhachev, D. S., commentary to Povest’ vremennykh let, ed. Likhachev, D. S., 2d ed. (St. Petersburg, 1999), 435–38Google Scholar.

9. Ludolf Müller, “Die Erzählung der Nestorchronik über die Taufe Ol'gas im Jahre 954/55,” Zeitschrift für Slawistik 33 (1988): 788.

10. Atkinson, DoroUiy, “Society and the Sexes in the Russian Past,” in Atkinson, Dorothy, Dallin, Alexander, and Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky, eds., Women in Russia (Stanford, 1977), 10 Google Scholar.

11. Grossman, Joan, “Feminine Images in Old Russian Literature and Art,” California Slavic Studies 11 (1980): 34–35 Google Scholar.

12. Barker, Adele Marie, The Mother Syndrome in the Russian Folk Imagination (Columbus, 1986), 40 Google Scholar.

13. Hubbs, Joanna, Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture (Bloomington, 1988), 89 Google Scholar. Hubbs inaccurately identifies Ol'ga as Oleg's daughter and translates the epithet “mudreishi v'sekh” chebvek,” applied to Ol'ga in Povest', ed. Ostrowski, line 108:28, as “wiser than any man,” rather than “wiser than all [other] human beings.” She cites The Russian Primary Chronicle, Laurentian Text, trans, and ed. Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 111, which reads (strangely, but more correctly) “wiser than all other men.” Errors of translation and fact occur throughout Hubbs's book and vitiate many of its arguments.

14. Franklin, Simon and Shepard, Jonathan, The Emergence of Rus 750-1200 (London, 1996), 301 Google Scholar (with an interpretation akin to Čiževskij's and Likhachev's).

15. McKenzie, Rosalind, “Women's Image in Russian Medieval Literature,” in Barker, Adele Marie and Gheith, Jehanne M., eds., A History of Women's Writing in Russia (Cambridge, Eng., 2002), 23 Google Scholar.

16. For reasons of space, I will deal with the story of Ol'ga's baptism elsewhere.

17. I assume that linguistic and cultural groupings tend to coincide, though both language and culture differentiate with time. Thus we may meaningfully speak of “early Slavic culture,” “early Germanic culture,” and (most vaguely) “Indo-European culture.” These groupings do not invariably and neatly coincide. For example, French is spoken by what might be called “cultural descendants” of the Germanic Franks, but it is not a Germanic language. An optimistic view of the coincidence between Indo-European language and culture informs Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. and Ivanov, Vjačeslav, Indo-European and the Indo- Europeans: A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and a Proto- Culture, trans. Nichols, Johanna, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more skeptical view, see Renfrew, Colin, “The Anatolian Origins of Proto-Indo-European and the Autochthony of the Hittites,” in Drews, Robert, ed., Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite Language Family: Papers Presented at a Colloquium Hosted by the University of Richmond, March 18-19, 2000 (Washington, D.C., 2001), 54–56 Google Scholar; see also remarks by Garrett Olmsted and Bill J. Darden, “Discussion Session, Saturday Afternoon,” ibid., 74-75.

18. See Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, 1:325-50; Goląb, Zbigniew, The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's View (Columbus, 1992), 127–52Google Scholar, 170— 85, 337-92.

19. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, 1:831-52; Golab, Origins of the Slavs, 337-92.

20. On relations between East Slavs and Scandinavians in this period, see Franklin and Shepard, Emergence of Rus, and Ostrowski, “Who Were the Rus’ and Why Did They Emerge?” Palaeoslavica 7 (1999): 307-12.

21. Uspenskii, F. B., Skəndinavy. Variagi. Rus': Istoriko-ftlologicheskie ocherki (Moscow, 2002), 45–49 Google Scholar, raises the interesting possibility that she was a Slav who was given the name Ol'ga (Scandinavian Helga) in honor of Oleg (Scandinavian Helgi).

22. In succeeding centuries, the social structures of the easternmost East Slavs diverged from common European norms more radically than did those of the West Slavs and the western East Slavs. This happened for a many reasons, including the split between the eastern and western churches, the rise of Latin as the western literate lingua franca, the rise of Slavonic as its eastern counterpart, and the incorporation of eastern East Slavic territory into the Mongol empire. All these developments lessened the unity of Slavic culture.

23. Stafford, Pauline, Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers: The King's Wife in the Early Middle Ages (Athens, Ga., 1983)Google Scholar, xi-xii, makes a case for the relative homogeneity of western European attitudes toward queenship, though her book (which largely ignores Scandinavian as well as Slavic territory) explores the diversity within this homogeneity.

24. On ways of choosing rulers, see Goody, Jack, introduction to Succession to High Office, ed. Goody, (Cambridge, Eng., 1966), 1–56 Google Scholar. In western Europe, as in East Slavic territory, rule by queens was always exceptional, even if the exceptions were memorable. For a survey of these exceptions (largely excluding Scandinavian ones), see Stafford, Queens. On early Slavic kinship and rule, see Gimbutas, Marija, The Slavs (New York, 1971), 133–50Google Scholar (with perhaps excessive emphasis on the subjugation of women). On the patrilineal focus of Indo-European kinship and on Indo-European words for king and queen (with the latter derived from the former), see Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo- Europeans, 1:658-76 and 653-55. Arguments for matrilineal tendencies among die early East Slavs do not pertain to royal succession patterns. Arguments for Slavic matrilineality and matriarchy are cited skeptically in Atkinson, “Society and the Sexes in the Russian Past,” 4, and sympathetically in Hubbs, Mother Russia, 13-14. On the compatibility of close relations between mother's brother and sister's son (sometimes adduced as an indicator of matrilineality) with patrilineal kinship systems, see Gimbutas, Slavs, 137; Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr., “The Importance of Kinship: Uncle and Nephew in Beoumlf” Amsterdamer Beitrage zur dlteren Germanistik 15 (1980): 21-22; and Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo- European and the Indo-Europeans, 1:669-76.

25. On early Germanic women (historical, quasi-historical, and literary) as fighters and leaders in time of war, see Walker, Ian W., Mercia and the Making of England (Stroud, Eng., 2000), 96–121 Google Scholar; Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey, “Gender Roles,” in Bjork, Robert E. and Niles, John D., eds., A Beowulf Handbook (Lincoln, 1997), 322 Google Scholar; Clover, Carol J., “Maiden Warriors and Other Sons,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 85 (1986): 35–49 Google Scholar; Clover, “Regardless of Sex: Men, Women, and Power in Early Northern Europe,” Speculum 68 (1993): 363-87; and Stafford, Queens, 117-20.

26. A Germanic exception is Æthelflaed of Mercia, on whom see Walker, Mercia, 96-121.

27. For the Povest', years in the common era are usually calculated by subtracting 5508 from the AM year and assuming that the year ran from March 1 through the end of February, but some dates may follow other patterns. See Danilevskii, N. N., “Nereshennye voprosy khronologii russkogo letopisaniia,” Vspomogatel'nye istoricheskie distsipliny 15 (1983): 62–71 Google Scholar.

28. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 29:12-14 (this and all translations are mine). The word zhena in early East Slavic typically means simply “woman,” but must refer here to Igor“s spouse. This sort of usage doubtlessly led to the modern meaning (cf. English wife).

29. See Stafford, Queens, 32-54; and Alexander Kazhdan, “Rus'-Byzantine Princely Marriages in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 12-13 (1988-89): 414-29.

30. These conclusions resemble those of Pushkareva, Zhenshchiny, 12-13. Interestingly, the second mention of Pskov in the Povest’ refers to Ol'ga's sani (sledge?), which was apparently kept there after she visited in AM 6455. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 60:9-12. Preservation of the sani may have reflected some sort of Pskovian civic or dynastic pride.

31. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 46:20-23. This list of names seems to have been part ofagenuine treaty. See Malingoudi, Jana, DieRussisch-Byzantinischen Verträge des lO.Jhds. aus diplomatischer Sicht (Thessaloniki, 1994), 35–38 Google Scholar. Cf. Franklin and Shepard, Einergence of Rus, 118-19. Pushkareva, Zhenshchiny, 13, treats the list as a possible literary creation.

32. Cf. Pushkareva, Zhenshchiny, 13.

33. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 54:14-55:9.

34. Ibid., lines 55:10-16.

35. Similar struggles have occurred in many societies; see Goody, Succession to High Office, 8-29. On how the succession system in Rus’ became more orderly over generations, see Martin, Janet, Medieval Russia: 980-1584 (Cambridge, Eng., 1995), 21–35 Google Scholar. See also Kollmann, Nancy Shields, “Collateral Succession in Kievan Rus',” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 14 (1990): 377–87Google Scholar. On succession in western Europe (excluding Scandinavia), see Stafford, Queens, 152-65.

36. This pattern was not confined to Europe. For a survey that remains valuable and thought-provoking in spite of its age, uncritical use of sources, and dubious interpretations, see Frazer, James G., The Golden Bough, 3d ed. (New York, 1935), 2:268–322 Google Scholar. On remarried European royal widows roughly contemporary to Ol'ga, see Stafford, Queens, 4 9 - 54, 137, 168-71.

37. Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power in Eleventh- Century England (Oxford, 1997), 220-36, presents the marriage of Emma, widow of Æthelred II (the Unready) of England, to Æthelred's enemy Cnut of Denmark in 1017, as perhaps initially coerced but eventually used by Emma to advantage. Other queens of interest include Bertha, wife of Eudes of Blois and the Capetian Robert the Pious; Eadgifu, widow of the West Frankish Charles the Simple; and Bertha of Swabia. See Stafford, Queens, 53, 83-84, 168-69, and Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith, 62; Dhont, Jean, “Sept femmes et un trio de rois,” Contributions a I'histoire economiqueet sociale 3 (1964-65): 37–70 Google Scholar; Fasoli, Gina, I re d'ltalia: 888-962 (Florence, 1949), 139–40Google Scholar. Likhachev, commentary to Povest', 435, suggests that Mai's belief that he could assume power reflects a “matriarchate“ among the Derevlians, who “were on a significantly lower level of social development than the Polianians [i.e., the Rus’].” On the Derevlians’ backwardness, Likhachev cites Grekov, B. D., Kievskaia Rus’ (Moscow, 1949), 358–59Google Scholar, which is based on a tendentious reading of the Povest'. Cf. M. B. Sverdlov's note in Likhachev, ed., Povest', 607. Likhachev cites no references on matriarchy. His remarks may be influenced (directly or not) by Engels, Friedrich, UrsprungderFamilie, desPrivateigentums und des Staats (Hottingen-Zurich, 1884)Google Scholar but they seem more closely linked to Frazer, Golden Bough, 2:286-322. See Eller, Cynthia, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women aFuture (Boston, 2000), 32 Google Scholar, on Engels and Soviet scholarship; cf. Stafford's skepticism regarding matrilineality in Queens, 169-70, and Atkinson, “Society and the Sexes in the Russian Past,” 4. For a modified version of Likhachev's interpretation (without reference to relative social development), see Pushkareva, Zhenshchiny, 214n8.

38. On conditions for female regency in the early medieval west (with a survey of individual cases), see Wolf, Gunther, “Königinwitwen als Vormünder ihrer Söhne und Enkel im Abendland zwischen 426 und 1056,” in Wolf, , ed., Kaiserin Theophanu: Prinzessin aus der Fremde—des Westreichs Groβe Kaiserin (Cologne, 1991), 58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Stafford, Queens, 153-65.

39. References to foster fathers in sagas are widespread. For fostri and related terms, see Fritzner, Johan, Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog (Kristiania, 1886), 1:465–66Google Scholar, and Cleasby, Richard and Vigfusson, Gudbrand, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 2d ed. with supplement by Cragie, William A. (Oxford, 1957), 168 Google Scholar. For instances of kormilets’ in East Slavic, see Avanesov, R. I., Barkhudarov, S. G., Borkovskii, V. I., et al., Slovar’ drevnerusskogo iazyka: XI-XTVvv., vol. 4 (Moscow, 1991)Google Scholar, s.v. k'rmil'c'. For discussions of foster fathers in Rus’ (with limited attention to western analogues), see V. K. Gardanov, “'Kormitel'stvo’ v drevnei Rusi,” Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1959, no. 6:43-59, and Gardanov, “'Diadki’ drevnei Rusi,” Istoricheskiezapiski 71 (1962): 236-50. More recently, see N. I. Shchaveleva, “O kniazheskikh vospitateliakh v drevnei Pol'she,” Drevneishie gosudarstva na territorii SSSR, 1985, 123-31.

40. See Bagge, Sverre, Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla (Berkeley, 1991), 120 Google Scholar,134.

41. King Athelstan of England apparently fostered Hakon, son of Harald Fairhairand later himself king, but the treatment of this event in Sturluson, Snorri, Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, trans, and intro. Hollander, Lee M. (Austin, 1964), 92–93 Google Scholar (Harolds saga Hdrfagra, chap. 39) indicates that it was exceptional. Cf. Andersson, Theodore M. and Gade, Kari Ellen, trans, and eds., Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Nonvegian Kings (1030-1157) (Ithaca, 2000), 89–90 Google Scholar and note 5. Gardanov, “Diadki,” and Shchaveleva, “O kniazheskikh vospitateliakh v drevnei Pol'she,” suggest that, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, foster fathers were sometimes seen as a threat to Polish and East Slavic rulers.

42. See Sklute, L. John, “Freoðuwebbe in Old English Poetry,” in Damico, Helen andOlsen, Alexandra Hennessey, eds., New Readings on Women in Old English Literature (Bloomington, 1990)Google Scholar; and Olsen, “Gender Roles,” 314-17.

43. Clover, “Maiden Warriors“; Olsen “Gender Roles,” 318; and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, “Cynewulf 's Autonomous Women: A Reconsideration of Elene and Juliana,” in Damico and Olsen, eds., New Readings on Women, 225-26.

44. The words pereg“bekh” and sustugahh” are apparently unique to this text, though cf. Likhachev, commentary to Povest', 436, on the latter.

45. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 55:16-56:29.

46. Čiževskij, History, 15-16, argues that this phrase, as used here and in one other instance in the Povest', suggests “the declaration of a bloody vengeance which abolished all moral standards, including the laws of hospitality,” and he asserts that “the [Derevlians] did not understand the Varangian formula of declaration of a bloody vengeance” (cf. Tschižewskij, Geschichte, 54-55). By contrast, George Krugovoy, “A Norman Legal Formula in Russian Chronicles and ‘Slovo o polku Igoreve,'” Canadian Slavonic Papers 11 (1969): 497-514, argues that this and similar statements found in the Slovo o polku Igoreve and the Old French Chanson de Roland probably constitute instances of a genuine formulaic rejection of revenge. He explains Ol'ga's failure to adhere to this rejection in terms of “extreme situations and offences against honour which … would justify the pursuit of revenge by the most devious and ruthless means including breach of faith and the laws of hospitality“ (504). Cf. Likhachev, “Slovo o polku Igoreve” i kul'tura ego vremeni, 2d ed. (Leningrad, 1985), 216-17.

47. Das Nibelungenlied, ed. Karl Bartsch, rev. Helmut de Boor, 13th ed. (Wiesbaden, 1956), stanzas 2118-19, 2122.

48. A more distant parallel to the events in the Povest’ occurs in the English Life of Offa II, which describes how the evil Cynethryth arranged for her guest and prospective son-in-law St. Æthelbert, king of East Anglia, to fall into a pit, where cushions were thrown on him until he suffocated. See Chambers, R. W., Beoxvulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn, 3d ed., with a supplement by Wrenn, C. L. (Cambridge, Eng., 1967), 239–42Google Scholar; and Wright, C. E., The Cultivation of Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (Edinburgh, 1939), 94–106 Google Scholar. On the Lives of Offa I and Offa II (Vitae Duoram Of farum), see Edith Rickert, “The Old English Offa Saga,” Modern Philology 2 (1904-1905): 29-76 and 321-76. Likhachev, commentary to Povest', 435-36, while he does not draw a parallel with the Nibelungenlied, links the episode in the Povest’ with boat-burial, a practice better attested among Germanic tribes than among Slavs. See Lubor Niederle [Niderle], Slavianskie drevnosli, Russ. trans, from Czech by T. Kovaleva and M. Khazanov (Moscow, 1956), 209-11, and, more recently, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo- Europeans, 1:724, 728ra58. Likhachev also notes parallels to East Slavic folkloric episodes in which a bride or groom finds a way of arriving “neither on foot nor on horseback.” The Derevlians, who are proxies in a marriage proposal, find just such an unusual mode of travel.

49. The meaning of trizna is discussed below.

50. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 56:29-57:29.

51. See Heiðarviga saga, ed. Kr. Kålund (Copenhagen, 1904), 13-14, and Danmarks gamle folkeviser, ed. Svend Grundtvig (Copenhagen, 1862), 3:20-53, both discussed in Rydzevskaia, Drevniaia Rus' 195-96. Thompson, Motif-Index, motif K831, “victim killed while being bathed” cites only Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon and some Indian instances. The drowning of Byzantine emperor Romanos III in a bath in 1034 CE is well enough documented to be considered historical. See N. A. Skalabanovich, Vizantiiskoe gosudarstvo i tserkov v XI veke: Ot smerti Vasiliia II Bol'garoboitsy do votsareniia Alekseia I Komnina (1884; reprint with an introduction by J. M. Hussey, n.p., 1972), 26-27.

52. These are instances of “enemies invited to a banquet and killed” as presented in Thompson, Motif-Index, motif K811.1.

53. Probably relevant, in addition to the parallels discussed here, is the legend of how Sigriðr “the Proud,” a widowed queen of Sweden, killed Harald of Greenland and an unidentified king of Rus’ named Vissavald (=Vsevolod?) who wished to marry her. See Sturluson, Heimskringla, 185-86 (“Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, chap. 43); discussed in Friedrich Braun, “Das historische RuBland im nordischen Schrifftum des 10 bis 14 Jahrhunderts,” in Festschrift:Eugen Mogk zum 70. Geburtstag, 19Julil924 (Halle an der Saale, 1924), 160-61; and in Rydzevskaia,DrevniaiaRus', 196-200.

54. Atlakviða, stanzas 34-43, in Ursula Dronke, ed. and trans., The PoeticEdda, vol. 1, Heroic Poems (Oxford, 1969).

55. For more analogues, see Thompson, Motif-Index, motifs K871: “Fatal intoxication“; K871.1: “Army intoxicated and overcome“; K871.2: “Slaughter of drunken enemies in banquet hall“; and K872: ‘Judith and Holofernes.“

56. Atlamdl in Grcenlenzko, stanzas 72-82, in Dronke, ed. and trans., Heroic Poems; The Saga of the Volsungs, Norse text edited with facing English translation by R. G. Finch (London, 1965), 72-74. On Atlakviða, Atlamdl, and Völsunga saga, see Ronald G. Finch, “ Atlakviða, Atlamdl, and Völsunga Saga: A Study in Combination and Integration,” in Ursula Dronke et al., eds., Speculum norroenum: Norse Studies in Memory of Gabriel Turville-Petre ([Odense], 1981); and Andersson, Theodore M., A Preface to the Nibelungenlied (Stanford, 1987), 27, 107–9Google Scholar (with references).

57. Sturluson, Heimskringla, 22 ﹛Ynglinga saga, chap. 19).

58. Here I treat as one (and slightly simplify) the narratives about Guðrún in the Atlakviða, Atlamdl in Grcenlenzko, and Völsunga saga. I do the same thing with narratives about Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied and in piðreks saga. For the Nibelungenlied, see Das Nibelungenlied, ed. Bartsch and de Boor. For piðreks saga, see relevant passages translated in Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 186-208. On the relation between Guðrún and Kriemhild, with further references, see Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 106-12, and Elisabeth Vestergaard, “Guðrún/Kriemhild—s0ster eller hustru?” Arkiv for nordisk fdologi 99 (1984): 63-78. Other relevant figures that would render my comparison unwieldy include Asa, wife of Gunroth in Sturluson, Heimskringla, 48-49 (Ynglinga saga, chap. 48), Sigridr the Proud, and Rogneda. Mann, Robert, The Germanic Legend ofAttila the Hun in Kievan Rus’ (Jupiter, Florida, 2004)Google Scholar juxtaposes Ol'ga with Guðrún and Kriemhild from an interesting perspective that differs from mine.

59. By “queen,” I mean a woman married to a male ruler. Skjalf is a ruler's child who becomes Agni's queen after her father's death.

60. For the sake of simplicity, in my summary of this pattern I do not distinguish the actions of male rulers from actions carried out by their people or at their orders.

61. A reference to a commemorative feast seems to be buried even in the Nibelungenlied, where Hagen (Victim 2) speaks of commemorating the dead as he at once recalls his own murder of Siegfried (Victim 1) and commits a new murder. See Das Nibelungenlied, ed. Bartsch and de Boor, stanza 1960 and note.

62. On the word trizna, see Aleksandr B. Strakhov, “Iz oblasti obriadovoi terminologii: ts.-slav. tryzna, (b)dyn[ etc.,“Palaeoslavica 10, no. 2 (2002): 166-96. (Strakhov's copious bibliography omits Niederle, Slavianskie drevnosti, 211-13.)

63. Bauschatz, Paul C., “The Germanic Ritual Feast,” in Weinstock, John, ed., The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics 3: Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Nordic and General Linguistics, The Univ. of Texas at Austin, April 5-9, 1976 (Austin, 1978), 289 Google Scholar. See also Enright, Michael J., “Lady with a Mead-Cup: Ritual, Group Cohesion and Hierarchy in the Germanic Warband,” Fruhmittelalterliche Studien 22 (1988): 179 Google Scholar. Magennis, Hugh, “Monig oft geseet: Some Images of Sitting in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Neophilologus 70 (1986): 442–52Google Scholar, emphasizes associations of (often solitary) sitting with sorrow in Anglo- Saxon poetry but also notes associations with feasting and council.

64. I have reached this conclusion with the aid of O. V. Tvorogov, “Leksicheskii sostav Povesti vremennykh let: Slovoukazateli i chastotnyi slovnik, krome poucheniia Vladimira Monomakha,” in PSRL 1, 695, 716, 717. I exclude instances in which the verbs sedeti and sesti refer to actions other than “sitting” (e.g., “settling,” “colonization“) and where they may be treated as referring either to sitting or to riding.

65. See Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 78:5, 171:9, 239:2 (less relevant than most), 259:7, 265:9, 273:27, 274:3, 275:27, 277:3, 279:8.

66. See Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup,” 184-85 with references, and Hugh Magennis, “The Beowulf Poet and His Druncne Dryhlguman,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 86 (1985): 159-64. Among Enright's references, see especially Bauschatz, “The Germanic Ritual Feast,” and Cahen, Maurice, Etudes sur le vocabulaire religieux du vieux-scandinave: La libation (Paris, 1921), 33 Google Scholar. Bauschatz overstates his thesis somewhat (as, perhaps, Cahen does to a lesser degree). In particular, Bauschatz's suggestion that eating may have been “deliberately excluded” from feasts is not supportable. See Beowulf, lines 560-64, in Fr. Klaeber, ed., Beoumlfand theFight atFinnsburg, 3d ed. (Boston, 1950); cf. Atlakviða, stanzas 34-37, and Atlamál in Groenlenzko, stanzas 79-80, in Dronke, ed. and trans., Heroic Poems.

67. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 125:24-126:20 (year 6504). In fact, this passage describes two feasts: A feast for the poor motivated by Christian charity and a more traditional feast for Vladimir's druzhina or comitatus.

68. Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup,” 173. In connection with this assertion, Enright tentatively dates Beowulf to the eighth century, but a dating as late as the tenth would not necessarily weaken his argument. For a survey of the dating controversy, see Robert E. Bjork and Anita Obermeier, “Date, Provenance, Author, Audiences,” in Bjork and Niles, eds., A Beowulf Handbook, 13-34.

69. The very casualness with which the apparently pagan term trizna is used supports this hypothesis.

70. Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup,” 185; cf. Magennis, “The Beowulf Poet,” Bauschatz, “The Germanic Ritual Feast,” and Cahen, Études.

71. Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup,” 181.

72. Ibid., 179-84.

73. Ibid., 171-73, 177, cites Beoivulf, lines 607-41 and 1163-75. Helen Damico, “Beowulf“^ Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition (Madison, 1984), 3 - 4 with n2 and 21-23, questions the notion that queens personally offered drink to all warriors in the hierarchy, but she emphasizes the importance of queens offering drink to the ruler.

74. Beotimlf, lines 491-96 and 1013-15.

75. Cf. Damico, “Beowulf's Wealhtheow, 21-23.

76. Fagrskinna appears to have been compiled early in the thirteenth century from older sources. The most recent scholarly edition is in Ágrip af Nóregskonunga soguni/ Fagrskinna—Nóregs konunga tal, ed. Bjarni Einarsson (Reykjavik, 1984). In English, see Hermannsson, Halldór, Bibliography of the Sagas of the Kings of Norway and Related Sagas and Tales, Islandica (Ithaca, 1910), 3:6–7 Google Scholar, on the textual tradition and on older editions, and Andersson, Theodore M., “Kings Sagas,” in Clover, Carol J. and Lindow, John, eds., Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide (Ithaca, 1985)Google Scholar, on the interrelationships of the Kings' Sagas.

77. Ágrip/Fagrskinna, ed. Einarsson, 124-25. Part of the passage is translated in Einarsson, Stefan, “Old English Beot and Old Icelandic Heitstrenging,” in Bessinger, Jess B., Jr., and Kahrl, Stanley J., eds., Essential Articles for the Study of Old English Poetry (Hamden, Conn., 1968), 110 Google Scholar. My interpretation is indebted to Ottar GrØnvik, Runenepa Tunesteinen: Alfabet, Sprdkform, Budskap (Oslo, 1981), 165-66, and GrØnvik, The Words for “Heir,” “Inheritance,“ and “FuneralFeast” in Early Germanic (Oslo, 1982), 9 and note 3. For other relevant passages, seeSturluson,/fe'»«/£raig'/a, 39 (Ynglingasaga, chap. 36), 175-76 (“ÓláfssagaTryggvasonar, chap. 35). Cf. Damico, “Beowulf's Wealhtheow, 4, 54-56.

78. Among the most famous such oaths recorded in the Scandinavian tradition are those of thejomsvikings, described in Ágrip /Fagrskinna, ed. Einarsson, 125, in Sturluson, Heimskringla, 175-76 (“Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, chap. 35), and mjdmsvikinga saga/The Saga of theJomsvikings, Norse text edited with facing translation by N. F. Blake (London, 1962), 28-29. On the bragafull outside funeral contexts, see Saga Heidreks Konungs ins Vitra/The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, Norse text edited with facing translation by Christopher Tolkien (London, 1960), 3, and Helgaqvida Hibrvardzsonar, prose after stanza 30 and stanzas 31-32, in Neckel, Gustav, ed., Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmdler, Text, 3d ed., rev. Kuhn, Hans (Heidelberg, 1962), vol. 1 Google Scholar.

79. Beowulf, lines 628-38.

80. Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup,” 190-203. The extent to which queens acted at the will of their late husbands’ followers probably varied. Few (if any) male monarchs have ever ruled without at least the tacit consent of some larger group, and the powers of such groups have always depended on the situation and personalities involved. Analogously, although no widow-queen may ever have been completely free to choose her husband's successors, some probably had more of a real voice in the matter than others did.

81. See Pauli Historia Langobardorum, ed. Georg Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum, [vol. 25] (Hannover, 1878), 140-41, and Enright, “Lady with aMead-Cup,” 192-93. On the significance of gestures, particularly the offering of the cup, in this scene, see Pizarro, Joaquín Martínez, A Rhetoric of the Scene: Dramatic Narrative in the Early Middle Ages (Toronto, 1989), 109–11Google Scholar.

82. The scene also fits a third pattern: an unmarried woman serving drink to a man implies an intention (the woman's, the man's, or someone else's) that the two should be wed. See Pauli Historia Langobardorum, 133-34, with Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup,“ 180-81; Karl Strecher, ed., Waltharius, in Monumenta Germaniae historica, Poetae lalini medii aevi, vol. 6, bk. 1 (Weimar, 1951), lines 221-29; Ragnars saga loðbrókar, in Magnus Olsen, ed., Völsunga saga ok Ragnars saga loðbrókar (Copenhagen, 1906-8), 133.

83. Atlakviða, stanzas 34-36, in Dronke, ed. and trans., Heroic Poems.

84. Clover, “Maiden Warriors” and “Regardless of Sex,” 363-72.

85. Clover, “Maiden Warriors.“

86. Clover, “Maiden Warriors,” 39-40, 47-48.

87. In principle, she could raise her children as avengers, but this would entail encouraging them to kill their own father. Guðrún's story broadly resembles the East Slavic legend of Rogneda, who first tries to kill Vladimir Sviatoslavich (who has killed her father), then encourages her son Iziaslav to confront Vladimir. See PSRL 1, col. 300.

88. References in Atlamál (stanzas 47-49 and 96-97 in Dronke, ed. and trans., Heroic Poems) to Guðrún defending her brothers with a sword while they still lived and participating in Viking raids in her youth seem to be modifications of the earlier Atlakviða. Cf. Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 27, 107-9 (with references).

89. If anything scandalized the narrators, it was presumably Gudriin's treatment of her sons. Vestergaard, “Guðrún/Kriemhild,” 68, summarizes some modern scholarly perspectives on Gudriin's behavior before presenting her own; see also Steblin-Kamenskij, M. I., “Valkyries and Heroes,” Arkivfornordiskfilologi 97 (1982): 86 Google Scholar.

90. See Guðrúnarhvbt and Hamdismal, in Dronke, ed. and trans., Heroic Poems and cf. the legend of Rogneda.

91. On this later Guðrún as a goader, see Clover, Carol, “Hildigunnr's Lament,” in Anderson, Sarah M. and Swenson, Karen, eds., Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology (New York, 2002), 23–27 Google Scholar. For arguments that the Scandinavian stereotype of goading women developed late (though without attention to Eddie material), see Jochens, Jenny M., “The Medieval Icelandic Heroine: Fact or Fiction,” Viator 17 (1986): 35–50 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Jochens, , “The Female Inciter in the Kings’ Sagas,” Arkiv for nordisk filologi 102 (1987): 100–19Google Scholar.

92. Andersson remarks that, in the Nibelungenlied, Kriemhild is “caught between the demands of clan loyalty and marital fidelity” (the former traditional, the latter strongly supported by the church; cf. Vestergaard, “Guðrún/Kriemhild,” 71-76) and observes that the poet of the Nibelungenlied treats Kriemhild more gently than his predecessors. Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 93, 165-66. These sensible remarks mainly suggest (as they are intended to do) how the Nibelungenlied differs from more traditional accounts of Kriemhild. Even the Nibelungenlied's narrator condemns her actions (if not so much her character), however, as, for example, in Das Nibelungenlied, ed. Bartsch and de Boor, stanza 1394. For English translations of the relevant passages from piðreks saga and Gesta Danorum and a reconstruction of the Nibelungenlied's hypothetical source, see Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 186-213, 252-55.

93. Saxo does not describe Kriemhild's acts in any detail. For the scenes in which Kriemhild (Grimhild) kills and is killed, see Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 207, and Das Nibelungenlied, ed. Bartsch and de Boor, stanzas 2372-77.

94. The East Slavic authors of the Povest’ might have been more scandalized by a woman's use of weapons (under any circumstances) than would their Scandinavian contemporaries. See Franklin and Shepard, Emergence of Rus, 122-24, on evidence about the relative status of women in early Rus’ and early Sweden and on the significance of weapons in male burials. See also Jesch, Judith, Women in the Viking Age (Woodbridge, Eng., 1991), 10–35 Google Scholar; Clover, “Regardless of Sex,” 368; and Clover, “The Politics of Scarcity: Notes on the Sex Ratio in Early Scandinavia,” in Damico and Olsen, eds., New Readings on Women, 114— 17. On the burial, centuries before Ol'ga's time, of women with weapons on what would become East Slavic territory, see Sulimirski, Tadeusz, The Sarmatians (London, 1970), 34, 105–6Google Scholar.

95. In an as yet unpublished paper, David Prestel has argued that the Povest’ sets up a contrast between Ol'ga's violent pagan behavior and her gentler Christian behavior. While I agree, I believe that, before her conversion, Ol'ga is shown striving to behave as well as the Povest“s Christian author(s) believed a pagan could. Cf. Lars Lönnroth, “The Noble Heathen: A Theme in the Sagas,” Scandinavian Studies 41 (1969): 1-29. Lonnroth (whose examplary “noble heathens” are all men) remarks that “in the sagas not even the noblest of heathens ever renounces his pagan code of honor as far as revenge is concerned” (15).

96. The Derevlians’ desire to “do with [Sviatoslav] as we please” transparently suggests murder, since a living Sviatoslav would constitute a perpetual threat to Mai.

97. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 13:7-19.

98. For the death of Kriemhild's son, see piðreks saga, translated in Andersson, Preface to the Nibelungenlied, 199-200, and Das Nibelungenlied, ed. Bartsch and de Boor, stanzas 1912-20 and 1960-61.

99. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, line 108:28

100. The distinction between voi, “troops,” and khrabry, “warriors,” is not clear, though the latter were presumably better equipped. Translation of khrabry here as “brave“ is certainly wrong; cf. Sreznevskii, I. I., Materialy dlia slovaria drevnerusskogo iazyka (St. Petersburg, 1912), vol. 3 Google Scholar, cols. 1394-95.

101. Povest', ed. Ostrowski, lines 57:30-58:9.

102. To my knowledge, the only other explanation advanced for the placement of this reference to Sviatoslav's rule is in Shakhmatov's often speculative Razyskaniia, 108-10.

103. See Likhachev, commentary to Povest', 438. Cf. Dronke, ed. and trans., Heroic Poems, 13, for the casting of the first spear by Odin in the Eddie Volsupa (stanza 24).

104. Sturluson, Heimskringla, 246 (“ÓláfssagaHelga, chap. 4).

105. Sturluson, Heimskringla, 538-40 (Magnuss saga ins Goda, chap. 1); on Alfifa and Svein, see. 524-34 ﹛“ÓláfssagaHelga, chaps. 239-47).

106. Sturluson, Heimskringla, 736-37 (Haratdssonasaga, chaps. 1 and 2). See also Andersson and Gade, trans, and eds., Morkinskinna, 372, where Ingiridr supports only Ingi.

107. Stender-Petersen, Die Vardgersage, 127-55; Thompson, Motif-Index, motif K2351.1; Rydzevskaia, Drevniaia Rus', 195-202; and Oinas, “Folklore and History,” 33-35.

108. Even if Shakhmatov's theory that this fourth revenge was somehow added to the story of Ol'ga is correct, the insertion still seems broadly consistent with the remainder of Ol'ga's depiction. Shakhmatov, Razyskaniia, 108-10.

109. Olsen, “Cynewulf's Autonomous Women,” 225.

110. See Murphy, Michael, “Vows, Boasts and Taunts, and the Role of Women in Some Medieval Literature,” English Studies 66 (1985): 105–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Olsen, “Cynewulf's Autonomous Women,” Olsen, “Gender Roles,” and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen, “Old English Women, Old English Men: A Reconsideration of ‘Minor’ Characters,” all in O'Keeffe, Katherine O'Brien, ed., Old English Shorter Poems: Basic Readings (New York, 1994)Google Scholar; Straus, Barrie Ruth, “Women's Words as Weapons: Speech as Action in ‘The Wife's Lament,'” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 23 (1981): 268–85Google Scholar; Niles, John D., “The Problem of the Ending of The Wife's Lament,” Speculum 78 (2003): 1107–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Clover, “Hildigunnr's Lament,” focuses on early Scandinavian society but includes comparisons with cultures temporally and geographically removed from it. Also relevant to Ol'ga's situation are three stanzas dedicated to queen Astridr, wherein the skald Sigvatr praises a woman's speech as a political instrument. See Sturluson, Heimskringla, 539-40 (Magnuss saga ins Goda, chap. 1).

111. See L. John Sklute, “Freoðuiuebbe in Old English Poetry,” in Damico and Olsen, eds., New Readings on Women; Enright, “Lady with a Mead-Cup“; and Olsen, “Gender Roles,” 316-17.

112. See especially Clover, “Hildigunnr's Lament.“

113. On early medieval attitudes toward women's intelligence, see Alain Renoir, “Eve's I.Q. Rating: Two Sexist Views of Genesis B,” in Damico and Olsen, eds., New Readings on Women, 262-72.

114. Cf. Niles, “Problem of the Ending,” 1142-43 on the justice of the Wife's Lament, and 1146-49 on the dubious modern assumption that early medieval women had a duty to be “nice.” In an unpublished paper, David Prestel has discussed the possibility that pagan Ol'ga could be considered cruel.