| Baba Yaga: Witch Queen |
| If you say the name Baba Yaga to a Russian child then a shock of fear will grow in their eyes, if you say her name to a Russian adult they will say: "You mean from the children's stories?" No other character in Russian Fairy Tales is as popular as Baba Yaga, particularly because Baba Yaga is in most of the tales. However she is a fearsome witch, with iron teeth, which she uses to devourer unwanted visitors. Her izba (a small Russian peasant cottage, but not a dacha) had a chicken leg on each corner, and the izba would spin round and round. It would stop if a visitor recited the proper poem. If you did not recite it correctly she ate you. It is also said that the izba can run around on its crazy legs and chase you. Her izba is surrounded by a fence made of the bones of her victims, and had 13 (12 in some stories) skulls topping the fence, and fire burned inside the skulls at night. The door to the izba had a jaw bone as the handle and the jaw had razor sharp teeth, and the lock was made of teeth, and there are just so many things at her house to accidentally cut yourself on that you have to be careful. Every morning Baba Yaga and the white horseman, red horseman and black horseman leave with her. Baba Yaga flies in a mortar and pestle, sweeping away her tracks with a birch broom. The white horseman symbolizes dawn, the red symbolizes day or dusk (it is unclear when comparing various sources), and the black symbolizes night. Often times she appears in stories when a protagonist has to perform a task that will lead to death. Vasilisa's step mother sent her to Baba Yaga's to get fire, because the step mother thought Vasilisa would be eaten. Petrushka went to Baba Yaga because the Tsar ordered him to go to "I-Know-Not-Where" and get "I-Know-Not-What." This was the Tsar's scheme to get rid of Petrushka so the Tsar could have his wife. But Baba Yaga does not eat him. Sometimes she even gives the visitors magickal tools if they do a few chores. Though, I have found other versions of these stories in which she is actually forcing them to be her slaves, then they steal the tools from her and run away. I don't know if the forced work story is older or newer, but and interesting twist, does she give willingly, or do you have to steal from her. She is the grandmother of all. I think she maybe a different version of Mokosh, a Russian deity whose holiday is November 2nd. home |
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