Baba Yaga (sometimes spelled Baba Jaga) is a witch from Slavic folklore that lives in the middle of the forest inside a living hut with a pair of huge and long rooster feet, and who is are dedicated to stealing children and then eating them.
Descriptions[]
Baba Yaga is old, bony and wrinkled, with a blue nose and steel teeth, she has a normal leg and a bone leg, which is why she is often nicknamed "Baba Yaga Paw of Bone". These two legs represent the world of the living and the world of the dead through which she wanders.
History[]
Baba Yaga is a wicked and cruel being, but not totally evil; eats people, usually children. Her teeth allow her to break bones and tear meat easily. Despite consuming large amounts of meat daily, she always looks lean and bony. Baba Yaga flies on a mortar (sometimes a pot) and paddles the air with a silver broom. Baba Yaga does not allow any "blessed" person to remain on her property as long as she knows that the person has a blessing. She lives in a hut that stands on two huge chicken feet that help her move around. The fence of her hut is adorned with skulls, inside which she places candles. The idea of a house with chicken feet could derive from the huts of certain Finno-Ugric peoples, who built them in this way to protect themselves from animals. To enter the house, Baba Yaga says the incantation "Little House, turn your back on the forest and turn towards me." The inside of the hut is always full of meat and wine. It is also guarded by the invisible servants of Baba Yaga, who appear as spectral hands. Baba Yaga also has the white, red and black knights at her service, who control the day, sunset and night. Baba Yaga has appeared in different stories of slavic folklore, and some of them show different facets of her. In some, she helps the people who serve her. In others it is said that he keeps the "Waters of Life and Death", as she is "the White Lady of Death and Renaissance". In others she says that she has two sisters, named after her and with the same appearance. In Bulgaria, children are told that if they misbehave, Baba Yaga (or Dyado Yag, Дядо Яг) will come to take them away with a sack and eat them. It is also associated with black magic. It is also said that she ages a year every time she is asked a question and that to rejuvenate she drinks a tea made from strange blue roses as well as that she enormously rewards those who bring her some. The figure of Baba Yagá probably derives from "the Witch", the third component of the Tripartite Goddess (Virgin, Mother and Witch), symbol of the three ages of women. Baba Yaga is widely used by modern Polish and Russian fairy tale authors. In particular, Baba Yaga appears in Andréi Belanin's book cycle "The Detective Agency of Tsar Goroj (Царь Горох)". Baba Yaga's childhood and youth were first described in the story The Bay (Lukomorie) by A. Aliverdíev.
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