Case file · Apparition / miracle
Pelgusius sees Boris and Gleb on the Neva
The Life of Alexander Nevsky says that before the battle of the Neva on 15 July 1240, Pelgusius, an Izhorian elder keeping watch at dawn, saw a boat with rowers in mist and the martyr-princes Boris and Gleb standing in it, promising help to their kinsman Alexander.
1240 CE · 59.81, 30.60 · status: legend
The account
Pelgusius (Pelgui) was a baptised elder of the Izhorians, a Finnic people of the Neva, which makes him one of the few named Indigenous witnesses in early Rus' writing. Alexander told him to keep the vision secret. The Swedish landing force was defeated the same day.
The sceptical view
Written a generation later as a saint's life; the vision is a literary device linking Alexander to Rus' saints.