Who is Baba Yaga?
Baba Yaga lives deep in the forest, where the world of the living ends. Her hut stands on chicken legs and keeps turning until you say the right words. She has iron teeth, and instead of riding a broom she flies in a mortar, steering it with the pestle. She uses the broom to sweep away her tracks. In some tales, skulls decorate the fence around her house.
Enemy and helper
In many tales, Baba Yaga wants to eat the children who come to her. In others, she gives the hero advice, a horse or a magic object. Anyone who is polite, knows the rules and completes the tasks she sets can come through an encounter with her. The best-known example is Vasilisa, who is sent to Baba Yaga by her stepmother and returns with fire.
Origins and sources
Most of the familiar stories appear in the collection of Russian folktales that Alexander Afanasyev began publishing in 1855. The folklorist Vladimir Propp read the visits to Baba Yaga as traces of ancient initiation rites: whoever enters her hut crosses the border into the realm of the dead and comes back changed. In 2004, Andreas Johns devoted a full study to the contradictory figure of Baba Yaga.
Episode on this topic
- Baba Yaga: She Lives in the Forest, Eats Children, and Is Still a Heroine (in German)
- Related: Domovoi, Kikimora
Further reading
- Alexander Afanasjew: Narodnye russkie skazki, 1855–1863.
- Vladimir Propp: Die historischen Wurzeln des Zaubermärchens, 1946.
- Andreas Johns: Baba Yaga. The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale, 2004.