Solovey the Robber

The tale of Solovey the Robber

On the straight road from Chernigov to Kyiv, beside the river Smorodina, stood nine great oaks. In their branches, the old songs say, sat a monster: Solovey Razboynik, Solovey the Robber. Solovey means "nightingale". He was half man and half bird, and the whole road had been abandoned for thirty years because of him.

His weapon was his voice. When anyone came near, Solovey whistled like a nightingale, roared like a wild beast and hissed like a serpent all at once. The sound flattened the grass, tore the leaves from the trees, and made every living thing fall dead. Horses collapsed under their riders, and knights went home deaf and shaking, if they went home at all. His sons and daughters lived in a fine house nearby, rich from the goods of everyone he had killed.

Ilya against the Nightingale

The great bogatyr Ilya of Murom, newly cured of his thirty-three years on the stove, set off to ride to Kyiv and offer his service to Prince Vladimir. Everyone told him to go the long way round. Ilya took the straight road.

As he came near the nine oaks, Solovey whistled. Ilya's mighty horse stumbled to its knees. Ilya scolded it, then drew his bow and shot a single arrow. It struck the robber in the eye (or in the temple, in some tellings), and Solovey fell out of his nest like a sack of oats.

Ilya tied him to his stirrup and rode on to Kyiv. When Prince Vladimir did not believe the story, Ilya asked Solovey to whistle once, just at half strength, to prove it. The robber whistled at full strength. The roofs of the palace shook, the princes and boyars fell to the floor, and Vladimir himself had to crawl under a table. Then Ilya, seeing the monster would never change, took him out into the open field and ended him there.

Solovey in Battle of Myths

Solovey the Robber is a cost 3 Slavic hunter and assassin. His ability, Robber's Whistle, is a short and horrible sound: it deals magic damage to his target and every enemy next to it and silences them. As his quote says: hear that? No? Good. Then he hasn't started. With the Slavic heroes he shares the Cycle of Morana: the first time he falls, he rises again as a spectral spirit.

Did you know?

• The tale of Ilya Muromets and Solovey the Robber is one of the most retold of all the Russian byliny, and the 1956 film Ilya Muromets shows the famous whistle.
• His nest on "nine oaks" may be an old memory of a fortified robbers' camp in the forest.