Volga Vseslavich - wizard of Kiev

The singers of Russia tells this tale: When the glittering camps of the Golden Horde - the Tartar heirs of Genghis Khan - were spread throughout the frosy Caucasus, the Tartar leaders turned greedy eyes north toward Russia and found themselves matched against the enchanter Volga Vseslavich. Strange tales gathered about his name. His mother was a princess of Kiev, it was said, but his father was a serpent; from the mother came his courage and from the father the skill and guile.

At night, he assumed the shape of a lion and hunted forest animals; when he fished for sturgeon, he took the form of a pike. But by day, he was a warrior and a leader of warriors. In his fifteenth year, he had an army of 7.000, and with it he challenged the Tartars.

Golden Horde was arming for invasion. The warrior wizard gathered his officers for counsel, but none would venture a mission across the Russian steppes to spy on the enemy's mountain stronghold. It is said that Volga Vseslavich laughed at the cowardice and in the next moment he vanished from view.

In his place stood a ram, which turned at once and sped away. The last the Russians saw of the beast was the flash of its gilded horns at the edge of the distant plain. For long days and nights, through winds and rains, the ram traveled toward the territory of the Khan. At last it halted on a mountain crag and watched a windy plain below, where sentries marched the ramparts of the Khan's fortress. No adversary had breached that stronghold.

One hour later, a scarlet-crested bird lighted at the window of a chamber high in the fortress. It cocked its head to catch the words of the man and the woman within. The bird heard the Khan tell his wife how he would divide the rich Russian lands among his sons. The woman cried,
"I dreamed two birds battled: A small Northern bird slew a raven from the South. That small bird was the enchanter Volga; do not raise your arm against him." But the Tartar cursed her dreaming. The listener at the window took wing.

That night a destroyer struck at the fortress: A ferret darted about the amory, tearing bowstrings and snapping arrows with its teeth. By the time the guards heard it, the ferret was gone, and from the stables rose the screams of dying horses. Soldiers drew swords against and invisible army. Someone saw the shadow of a wolf on the wall; then, someone heard the beating wings of a falcon flying toward Russia. Left weaponless and unmounted, the Tartars were crippled.

But the Russian enchanter wanted more vengeance than that. He gathered his men at Kiev and marched them south to the Tartar fortress. No one saw them come; not a footfall was heard. A sharp-eyed sentry scanning the walls might have seen ants in their thousands creeping in a single, silent column underneath the iron gates, but no sentry saw. Only the Khan and his soldiers within the strong-walled fortress saw warriors spring up where the ants had been. In the moments that followed, the Tartars all died on Russian swords.