Early Accounts of Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Magic in Medieval Rus

This chapter discusses early accounts of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic in medieval Rus. “Rus” is the name given to the lands of the Eastern Slavs in the medieval accounts of the region that now comprises Ukraine, Belarus, and European Russia. Conventionally, the narrative history of Rus begins in the eighth or ninth century, when diverse Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, Turkic, and Scandinavian people settled the region. Along with some Arabic accounts, Scandinavian runic inscriptions, occasional mentions in European documents, and a few Byzantine Greek records, the main textual sources on Rus are historical chronicles written by Rus churchmen beginning in the late eleventh century. The excerpts in the chapter may narrate actual historical events, or they may reveal more about how their authors thought about their history and their present. In either case, they are good stories, and they show how these medieval authors thought about magic and sorcery, and about how those practices interacted with other issues of concern: with the paganism that remained active long after the formal conversion of Rus; with teachings about the devil and his wiles; and with ideas about men and women and their respective characteristics and proclivities toward sorcery.