The motif of “death by his own horse” and the Russian princes of the Rurik dynasty in “The tale of bygone years”

The article is devoted to the problem of interpreting the widespread recurring chronicle motif of “death by his own horse” in connection with descriptions of the deaths of Russian princes from the Rurik dynasty in the X - early XI centuries: Oleg the Prophetic, Oleg Svyatoslavich Drevlyansky and Gleb Vladimirovich Muromsky. The author sought to identify and analyze in detail all the folklore motifs associated with these three deaths and to examine the connections that unite all these cases in “The Tale of Bygone Years”. The problem is considered on the basis of modern achievements of Russian science.