Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga (Polish Baba Jaga, Slovene jaga baba, Russian Бáба-Ягá, Bulgarian Баба Яга) in Slavic mythology is the wild woman, the dark lady and mistress of magic. She is also seen as a forest spirit, leading hosts of spirits. The word baba in most Slavic languages means an older or married woman of lower social class.

Baba Yaga is portrayed as a witch who flies through the air in a mortar using the pestle as a rudder sweeping away the tracks behind her with a broom made out of silver birch. She lives in a log cabin that revolves around by means of a pair of chicken legs that dance. Her fence outside is made with human bones with skulls on top. The keyhole to her front door is a mouth filled with sharp teeth. In another legend the house does not reveal the door until it is told a magical phrase: turn your back to the forest, your front to me.

She aids those who are pure of heart and eats the souls of those that visit her unprepared and unclean of spirit. She is said to be the Guardian Spirit of the fountain of the water of life.

In one folk tale a young girl, Vasilisa, is sent to visit Baba Yaga on an errand and is enslaved by her, but the hag's servants — a cat, a dog, a gate and a tree — help Vasilisa to escape because she has been kind to them. Finally, Baba Yaga is turned into a crow.

In Hungarian folklore she was originally a good fairy, but later became a witch.

External Links: http://www.oldrussia.net/baba.html

Cabin on Chicken Legs

A "cabin on chicken legs with no windows and no doors" in which Baba Yaga dwells sounds like pure fantasy. In fact, this is an ordinary construction popular among hunter-nomadic peoples of Siberia of Uralic (Finno-Ugric) and Tungusic families. This was an ingenious invention to preserve supplies against animals during long absence. A doorless and windowless log cabin is built upon supports made from the stumps of 2-3 closely grown trees cut at the height of 8-10 feet. The stumps, with their spreading roots, give a perfect impression of "chicken legs". The only access into the cabin is via the trapdoor in the middle of the floor. Bears are strong, smart and stubborn enough to break into any door, but they cannot use a ladder or climb a rope to reach the trapdoor.

A similar, but smaller construction was used by Siberian pagans to hold figurines of pagan gods. Recalling the late matriarchy among Siberian peoples, a common picture of a bone-carved doll in rags in a small cabin on top of a tree stump fits a common description of Baba Yaga, who barely fits her cabin: legs in one corner, head in another one, her nose grown into the ceiling.

This very specific kind of dwelling provides a reasonable hypothesis about the time frame when Baba Yaga entered Slavic Pantheon: it would be the time of the initial incursions of Slavs into the habitat of Uralic peoples and initial rumors about "chicken-legged huts".

Baba Yaga in arts

Creative works inspired by Baba Yaga include:

• Numerous Russian films and cartoons
• Baba Yaga (Italian film, 1973, by Corrado Farina)
• Baba Yaga (a drawing of Baba Yaga's hut by Viktor Hartmann that features in Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition)
• Baba Yaga (musical release, 1999, by Norwegian folk musician Annbjørg Lien)
• Enchantment (a novel by Orson Scott Card)
• The Sandman and The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman featured Baba Yaga in a number of stories based on folk tales.
• Baba Yaga appears in Mike Mignola's comic book Hellboy, in the issue Baba Yaga. She is depicted or referenced in other issues, including the Conqueror Worm and Wake the Devil collections.
• Koshka's Tales(Stories From Russia) by James Mayhew features Baga Yaga as the main plot's antagonist. (ISBN 1-85697-121-X)

The following Western works bear little or no relation to the "real" Baba Yaga but the name.

• Fables by Bill Willingham occasionally features her.
• In the Role playing game (RPG) series Quest for Glory she is the main villain of the first episode. She briefly reappears in the 4th part.
• In the Vampire: the Masquerade RPG, Baba Yaga was a powerful vampire of the Nosferatu clan which reappeared after the fall of Gorbachev, killing all of the Brujah clan vampires that controlled the Soviet Union

External Links and Resources

• SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: The Annotated Baba Yaga (http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/babayaga/index.html)bg:Баба Яга

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