Case file · Witch trials
Prince Gleb and the volkhv of Novgorod
A volkhv in Novgorod claimed to know the future and promised to walk across the Volkhov before all the people; Prince Gleb asked him what would happen that day, and when he answered 'great wonders', Gleb split him with an axe hidden under his cloak.
1071 CE · 58.52, 31.27 · status: account
The account
The Primary Chronicle says almost the whole city sided with the sorcerer against the bishop, who stood alone with the prince's retinue. The same entry tells of another volkhv in Kyiv who prophesied that the Dnieper would flow backwards in five years and that lands would change places, and who vanished one night. The stories show how strong popular trust in pagan seers still was in the 1070s.
The sceptical view
Told as a moral tale against sorcery; there is no other record.