old and Dir--in the same manner--except that
they were not invited--took possession of Kief on the Dnieper and set
up a rival principality in the South with ambitious designs upon
Byzantium, Oleg promptly had them assassinated, added their territory
to the dominion of Igor, and removed the capital from Novgorod to
Kief--saying, "Let Kief be the mother of Russian cities!" Then after
selecting a wife named Olga for the young Igor, he turned his attention
toward Byzantium, the powerful magnet about which Russian policy was
going to revolve for many centuries.

So invincible and so wise was this Oleg that he was believed to be a
sorcerer. When the Greek emperor blockaded the passage of the
Bosphorus in 907, he placed his two thousand boats (!) upon wheels, and
let the sails carry them overland to the gates of Constantinople. The
Russian poet Pushkin has made this the subject of a poem which tells
how Oleg, after exacting tribute from the frightened Emperor Leo VI.,
in true Norse fashion, hung his shield upon the golden gates as a
parting insult.

Again and again were the Greeks compelled to pay for immunity from
these invasions of the Varangian princes. After the death of Oleg,
Igor reigned, and in 941 led another expedition against Constantinople
which we are told was driven back by "Greek-fire." Then enlisting the
aid of the Pechenegs, a ferocious Tatar tribe, he returned with such
fury, and inflicted such atrocities, that the Greek Emperor begged for
mercy and offered to pay any price to be left alone. The invaders
said: "If Caesar speaks thus, what more do we want than to have gold
and silver and silks without fighting." A treaty of peace was signed
(945), the Russians swearing by their god Perun, and the Greeks by the
Gospels; and the victorious Igor turned his face toward Kief. But he
was never to reach that place.

The Drevlians, the most savage of the Tatar tribes, had been forced to
pay him a large tribute, and were meditating upon their revenge. They
said: "Let us kill the wolf or we will lose the flock." They watched
their opportunity, seized him, tied him to two young trees bent
forcibly together; then, letting them spring apart, the son of Rurik
was torn to pieces.

No act of the wise regent Oleg was more fruitful in consequences than
the choice of a wife for the young Igor. Olga, who acted as regent
during the minority of her son, was destined to be not only the heroine
of the Epic Cycle in Rus