Table of Contents
This is the story of Saint Olga and the people who fucked around and found out the hard way that she wasn’t the one, two, or three.
Act 1 – Digging the Hole
In the 10th Century AD Saint Olga was Queen of Kievan Rus, a federation that included much of modern day Ukraine. The name of the federation coming from the city of Kyiv, the present day capital of Ukraine.
In 945 AD, her husband King Igor, was killed by a tribe of people called Drevlians. See, the Drevlians weren’t too bright. They thought they could kill Olga’s husband and get her to marry their Prince. In fact, after murdering Igor, they sent her a letter saying: “Hey, now that we killed your husband, why don’t you come and marry our Prince?”
When Olga opened the letter she was like…
So, Olga, being a big believer in letting people find out, responded by saying:
Your proposal is pleasing to me, indeed, my husband cannot rise again from the dead. But I desire to honor you tomorrow in the presence of my people. Return now to your boat, and remain there with an aspect of arrogance. I shall send for you on the morrow, and you shall say, “We will not ride on horses nor go on foot, carry us in our boat.” And you shall be carried in your boat
The next day, the Drevlians did just as she requested. They thought it was a great honor that they would be carried. Not exactly. See, when the Drevlians came knocking, the people of Kiev did as Olga commanded and lifted the Drevlians up and carried them.
They carried them to a very large hole they had dug just for them, dropped them inside, and buried them alive.
As they were getting buried, Queen Olga bent down and asked if “they found the honor to their taste”
Olga was poetically petty. But that wasn’t enough. Not for Queen Olga and not for the Drevlians.
Act 2 – A Hot Bath
Obviously, back then there wasn’t any internet, cell phones, or instant communication so the Drevlians had no idea what happened to their people. Olga, feeling that the Drevlians still hadn’t learned a proper lesson, sent them a message inviting them to send emissaries “so that she might go to their Prince with due honor.” Of course, they sent “the best men who governed the land of Dereva”.
Upon arriving, Olga offered them a bath and invited the men to see her after they had bathed. Thinking nothing of it, they entered the bath house and that’s when Olga had her people seal up the doors and light the bath house on fire so “that all the Drevlians within burned to death.”
And still, this wasn’t enough for Olga.
Act 3 – A Grieving Widow
Olga sent another message, this time asking them
“to prepare great quantities of mead in the city where you killed my husband, that I may weep over his grave and hold a funeral feast for him.”
Upon arriving to Dereva, she did exactly that. She went to Igor’s grave and, along with some Drevlians, she grieved and wept for her dead husband. While she wept, the Drevlians were drinking heavily. Once they were nice and drunk, Olga commanded her people to kill them “and went about herself egging on her retinue to the massacre of the Drevlians.”
It was reported that 5,000 Drevlians were killed that night. But for Olga, it still wasn’t enough.
Act 4 – Flock to Fire
Olga returned to Kiev where she prepared an army to finish the survivors. She marched on Drevela, beating them back into their cities and then marched on the city where her husband was killed, laying siege to it. The Drevlians managed to survive for a year, holding on to dear life.
Olga wanted to get things over with so she decided she needed to switch it up on them.
So, she sent the hold outs another message:
“Why do you persist in holding out? All your cities have surrendered to me and submitted to tribute, so that the inhabitants now cultivate their fields and their lands in peace. But you had rather die of hunger, without submitting to tribute.”
The Drevlians, thoroughly tired and beaten to submission, were afraid that Olga still had plans on avenging her husband but Olga assured them she was satisfied after having killed so many of their people. She said “Give me three pigeons….and three sparrows from each house” as tribute.
The Drevlians, still dumb as rocks, thought “wow, what a small price to pay” and did as she asked.
After the Drevlians sent their birds, Olga directed her people to “attach a piece of sulfur bound with small pieces of cloth to each bird.” When night came, her people lit the cloth and released the birds who all went back to their nests which set the entire city on fire.
“There was not a house that was not consumed and it was impossible to extinguish the flames, because all the houses caught fire at once.”
The Drevlians started pouring out of the city and those who weren’t killed or enslaved were left to continue paying tribute. Olga walked away victorious having thoroughly taught the Drevlians that if you fuck around, you’re gonna find out.
Source: Olga of Kiev – Wikipedia
