Case file · Folklore / legend
Oleg's death foretold by his horse
The Primary Chronicle (entry for 912) says sorcerers told Prince Oleg of Kyiv he would die through his favourite horse; years later a snake crawled from the horse's skull and bit him.
912 CE · 50.47, 30.51 · status: legend
The account
Oleg had the horse sent away and, hearing it was dead, went to laugh over its bones; a serpent slid out of the skull and bit his foot. The chronicle adds that he was buried on the Shchekavytsia hill in Kyiv. Pushkin retold the story in his 'Song of the Wise Oleg' (1822). A parallel tale is told in Old Norse of Örvar-Oddr, which suggests a shared Varangian story pattern.
The sceptical view
The chronicle was compiled around 1113, two centuries later, and another tradition places Oleg's grave at Ladoga.