Talk:Baba Yaga

Deleted edits?

I do not understand why my recent edits about Baba Yaga's roots in Slavic mythology have been promptly deleted. These are well documented in virtually every serious Russian-language work on pre-Christian Russia, and these theories are supported both by archeological and folkloristic research. I'm especially dumbfounded as these changes came from a user who appears to have little to no background in the subject. The current article is little beyond a word for word translation of the first Russian-language web search for 'Baba Yaga' - which happens to be the most amateurish and poorly written article even on the first page of search results. (by 24.168.64.231, who is User:Luthier now. Mikkalai 05:50, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC))

Below is the piece in question, false from top to bottom. She is always described as having a 'bone leg', i.e. one leg having decomposed to the point where all flesh is lost. Her traditional dwelling almost perfectly describes a classic pre-Christian Slavic burial, which looked like a small house on top of a tree stump. In all the fairy tales she also invariably attemps to devour the hero. All combined, she could be understood as at some point being a cannibalistic corpse that inhabits her crypt. Some of the apparently more ancient tales appear to hint at related rituals, with her being calmed by food offerings or incantations.

• She is always described as having a 'bone leg'
  • Only in Russian, and not always and because of the rhyme: "Baba Yaga — kostyanaya noga".
• one leg having decomposed to the point where all flesh is lost.
  • Speculations. Some records mention wooden or silver leg. Could be simply a prop or an artificial limb. Also, "bone leg" is a folk term for the result of poliomyelitis: flesh atrophy. Ever seen? I did.
• Her traditional dwelling almost perfectly describes a classic pre-Christian Slavic burial, which looked like a small house on top of a tree stump.
  • False. I will write into the article what "a hut on chicken legs" is: a kind of "labaz". Was pretty common in Siberia among uralic(finno-ugric) and tungusic peoples. Looks exactly as the name hints.
• In all the fairy tales she also invariably attemps to devour the hero.
  • False.
• All combined, she could be understood as at some point being a cannibalistic corpse that inhabits her crypt.
  • Combined falsehoods lead to horror movie.
• Some of the apparently more ancient tales appear to hint at related rituals, with her being calmed by food offerings or incantations
  • Yeah? Which ones are that?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union a huge amount of bullshit may be found on internet about supposedly "ancient Russian mythology". Any speculations without references to recorded folklore will be mercilessly deleted. Mikkalai 05:50, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Spirited Away

It was always my assumption that the character Yubaba in Spirited Away was based on Baba Yaga, tho I have no proof. Can anyone prove/disprove this? --Tydaj 02:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I thought of the scene where Yubaba changes into a bird and flies off just like how Baba Yaga turns into a crow like in the Vasilisa story.--Lzygenius 13:57, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know... The way the article puts it seems a bit far-fetched. Though there may be similarities, saying that Spirited away is a retelling of the Vasilisa story is a bit too presumptious, if you ask me. I have read some Japanese sources on the anime, including a couple of interviews with Hayazaki, and none mentioned Jaga baba. In fact, contrary to most of his anime, this particular one is profoundly Japanese in nature - along with The princess mononoke, of course. You've got to understand that "baba" in Japanese means the exact same thing it does in Slavic languages - a hag, so Yubaba's name cannot be taken as a hint at Jaga baba. I'm neutralising the entry in the article - making into something along the line of "these two stories have some similarities". --213.172.254.15 08:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Baba Yaga in the Hungarian folklore?

Thou I am Hungarian I never heard of Baba Yaga being part of the Hungarian folklore. So the sentence that according to it she was once a fairy who later became a witch sounds noncence to me. Still, I might be undereducated in spesific areas and naturally I can't know all Hungarian fairy tales, so I would like to see references to this statement. Can anyone provide it? Thanks! - Serinde 17:06, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Baba Yaga in Fables

While I agree that the depiction of Baba Yaga in the Fables series is very different from that of the usual folk tales, I must point out that the entire point of Fables is to take established folk characters and place them in very different circumstances so you can see how different they act. The Fables character of Baba Yaga is clearly intended to be the same as that of the traditional folk tales, with the implication that had Baba Yaga truly existed, this is what she may have gone on to do. Its inclusion in the no relation to the "real" Baba Yaga but the name list seems to imply that Fables merely co-opted the name for a different character entirely. I think this is misleading at best. - 70.49.33.51 00:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Well, I'd have to agree with you here. If they're going to include the appearances of Baba Yaga in Hellboy and such, I'd say the one from Fable is as good as any other. Witch? Check. Chicken-legged House? Check. Three Riders? Check. Powerful? Check. Evil? Check. The only difference was that she made herself look like Red Riding Hood as part of a plot. As valid as the others, in my opinion.- --LightWarden 22:31, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Some western author's fantasies is just a marketing ploy to sell, a trick ages old. BTW the actual text says "little or no relation", so there is some slack. Still there is no was to "prove" that in Fables is the "same" Baba Yaga or it is "different one". The basic understanding is that a "Real" baba yaga is a body of authentic folklore. If she is taken out of the traditional context, baba yaga is "different" by default, unless an expert writes otherwise and wikipedia quotes him. mikka (t) 06:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Removal of "Baba Yaga in arts"

I originally came to wikipedia to look up Baba Yaga as I liked the myth and wanted to explore it in all it's forms, and see what else it had inspired. . . so I was quite concerned when I discovered that half of the entire article that must have taken users much time and effort to compile had simply been deleted.

If the "baba yaga in arts" references section is "executed without trial" like this, new seekers of that knowledge will no longer be able to explore and learn for themselves as I did.

That's the whole beauty of an encyclopedia such as this - That it allows everyone to learn and explore in their own way! Please do not simply delete large chunks of work that other users have spent a lot of time and effort adding.

Nothing detracts from the article more than deleting the single largest portion of said article!

If someone does not wish to explore that aspect of "Baba Yaga" they don't have to use the links, but please at least give them the freedom of choice.

Eating people

Although I don't know about the above claims of her 'invariably trying to devour the hero' and so forth at the top of this talk page, many of the stories I've seen her in have brought up her reputation for eating children, particularly bad ones, and in many tales (such as Vasilisa the Beautiful) she threatens to eat those who don't meet her requests. Perhaps this should be mentioned somewhere in the article? --Aquillion 18:10, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The key word here is "invariably". In quite a few fairy tales she actually helps the hero out. `'mikka (t) 00:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Bartok the Magnificent

I'm not totally up to date on Baba Yaga folklore and don't know how accurate it is, but someone should make a mention of the Baba Yaga appearance in the sequel to Anastasia called Bartok the Magnificent. She's an integral part of the storyline in that animated feature. the sleeper 06:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Its in Polular Culture.- Justyn Skowronek

chicken leg

Baba Jaga in Polish folklore differs in details. For example, she has a house on one chicken leg. Bad witches living in gingerbread houses are also commonly named Baba Jaga As I know russian fairy tales, the Baba Yaga ha a house on a chicken leg in the Russian folklore, too. At least, I know som russian fairy tales with this element. --Hutschi 09:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Laundry list

Articles are preferable to lists according to Wikipedia guidelines. I prefer to see the notable occurrences in prose form. Pop culture needn't avoid being mentioned, but all the minor references can be summed up in a sentence or two rather than each being mentioned explicitly. If someone must have an exhaustive list, then start List of references to Baba Yaga. —Michael Z. 2006-06-28 19:15 Z

I don't mean to suggest that some pruning and prosifying wouldn't be helpful--just that the laundry list was preferable to a drastic edit that threw out too many babies with the bathwater. Nareek 21:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Cabin on Chicken Legs

That's not actually vandalism--it clearly is a good faith attempt to improve the article. However, with no sources, it would seem to be original research. Nareek 06:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

If no has heretofore pointed out the similarity between Uralic cabin-building techniques and Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut, then this is exactly the sort of thing prohibited by the no original research rule. It's clever, but it's not what WP is for. Nareek 18:11, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not original research. It is from Russian sources. I don't have this rich fantasy to invent such ingenious explanation in the area (or ethnography and folklore) where I don't have neither expertise nor hobby. (As you may see, this article is so low on my radar that I notice your reversals only twice a year :-) I simply stumbled upon an interesting fact while reading and added it. It was added long time ago when requests for quotations was not so stringent, and unfortunately I did not record sources. Deletion of such a big piece added by a reputable author which was never accused of original research during his over 50,000 edits is simply a disrespect. I will try to find the source again. `'mikka (t) 05:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The edit has nothing to do with your personal credibility, so no personal disrespect is implied. Wikipedia is not and cannot be based on the credibility of individual editors. Nareek 10:34, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Neither it cannot depend on ignorance on individual editors. Are you expert in Russian ethnography and mythology that you can be say it is outright bullshit and must be deleted on sight? I wrote I will try to find the source. Have patience. You may demand references, but there are less drastic ways to do so rather than deleting huge pieces. And you seem to know them. `'mikka (t) 16:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Origins?

some discussion on where such legends come from might be good. I stumbled across this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A823402 but I'm not nearly knowledgable enough to guess if it's accurate.

This link has no indication of authorship and has the following disclaimer in very fine print at the bottom: "...The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the BBC..." Therefore it cannot be a valid reference. At best it may give some clues for further research. `'mikka (t) 05:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

ok, but so it may simply be one theory, and not an accurate one at that... however do archeologists/anthropologists have any idea where the concepts came from aside from an etemology of the name?Darker Dreams 17:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

also seen

baba yaga also appears in the computer game "Quest for glory". -zuck

---

Relation to Spirited Away ???

Does anybody have a citation for the fact that Spirited Away is a retelling of the Baba Yaga story? I find this highly unlikely and without a citation I am inclined not to believe it. The Crow 21:22, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and with things like this, we have to be bold and put the onus on the editor to find a source and not simply add what might be original research and just hope someone will source it later.--Dmz5 06:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I would agree, If not retelling, i'd say it has a lot of similarities. But to be fair, there are hundreds of fairy tales in different cultures where you have the same ingredients of the story. So unless there is a quote out there where Miyazaki says "Spirited Away is a retelling of Baba Jaga", or "Spirited Away was inspired by Baba Jaga", then it is not a retelling of or inspired by that story. If you're gonna try to prove that it is despite the existance of such a statement, you're in deep waters. 21:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Amazing. I remember Baba Roga.

Funny how this is still alive and well in modern Slav traditions. I'm Macedonian. During my childhood, my parents (and grandma, at times) would usually taunt me with myths of Baba Roga, the old lady that hid in the closet and ate little kids that misbehaved and didn't listen to their elders. I remember a few other characters, Baba Meca (Bear), and some local ones. However, I didn't know until recently that this was such a widespread tradition among Slavs. Interesting, very interesting. There so much detail to this folklore that totally flew over my mind, partially because of constant, yet unexplained, exposure to such myths. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jotsko (talk • contribs) 04:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

Yaga and Roga may not be equivalents

The equivalence of Baba Yaga - Baba Roga is doubtful. Please, find some reference to substantiate this. Roga is an old form of village punishment in Serbia (I think it has to do with humiliating someone by putting him in place of an ox). --Jaksap 03:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Baba Roga and Baba Yaga are versions of witches, but their description and legends about them differ. "Roga" in Baba Roga indicates that she has horns. Not so for Baba Yaga. Jaksap 03:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Babka Yozhka?

Does anyone know who/what "Бабка Ёжка" is? I can't seem to find any information. Esn 11:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It is derived from "Baba Yaga" by adding the belittling suffix "k" to both words. It has no real meaning in any context, but can be used as a nonsense word (I do vaguely remember some verse/song in which the plural form of "Бабка Ёжка" was used, but that wasn't very high quality stuff). It doesn't just mean "little Baba Yaga", since the very concept is of an old hag. There *is* a pretty good book called "Little Baba Yaga", but it uses the proper three words, not any suffixes. So, imagine if you will a chibi version of Baba Yaga - that's what "Бабка Ёжка" is, and it makes about as much sense. Maurog 21:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

On etymology, to consider

1. Jaga:Jadzia—Polish
2. Baba Jaga—Polish
3. ęga—Proto-Slavic
4. jęk—Polish [could well be jęg in Old Polish; compare nękać:nędza, łąki:łęgi] ("cry"), inca ("dolor")—Old English, ekki ("sorrow")—Norse; ("cry-dolor-sorrow")
5. [jęg]:jędza ("nasty woman")—Polish

Possible meaning: Baba Jędza, i.e. "nasty granny", rather than Baba Jadzia—"granny Hedwig."

Reaffirming the Vasmer's proposal?

—6birc, 00:56, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

IMO all these etymologies are too far-stretched and fail the Occam's Razor test. In Polish language it is simply a contraction of the female name: Jadwiga - Jadzia, Wisia, Iga, Jaga, Jagusia, Jagna, Jagienka. So nothing unusual that some jedza was "babcia Jaga". Now, wait, isn't it what the article says? `'юзырь:mikka 01:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

BTW Vasmer proposed nothing. In his book he puts all this dolor and sorrow into "further etymology" section of the article about the word, i.e., further possible connections (derived from possible common root) rather than roots themselves. This was some educated guesswork, rather than established knowledge. Not to say it was written 100 years ago. `'юзырь:mikka 02:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Jadwiga—an unconvincing etymology, for three reasons

The theory of a diminutive for Jadwiga is unconvincing if the figure and name of Baba Jaga are ancient ones. This is because, contrary to the discussed Wikipedia article, (a) the name Jadwiga is German, not Slavic, even if used in Poland since the Middle Ages—purely due to Polish-German liaisons and not even apparently expanding to other Slavic populations. Therefore, and also for the two other reasons—namely (b) the Vasmer's suggestive remark and my own realisation of (c) the existence of the nearly synonymous (to Baba Jaga) word jędza in Polish, so strikingly well fitting the forementioned suggestion—I would favour the latter for the etymology of Baba Yaga.

Still, I keep in mind that Wikipedia is no place for one's own original research or, even less, for enforcing one's intuitions (subjective sensations, "feelings"—of truth) on others. This is why I only made a loose suggestion, so that someone else maybe finds a more formal case to represent (or disprove) my intuition.

Are there, on the other hand, any reliable sources claiming Jadwiga as the etymology mentioned here on Wikipedia and making it more authoritative than the one preferred by me? I must admit that I haven't scrutinised the article this far yet.

—6birc, 07:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. However, Jaga could've existed as a name in Polish long before Jadwiga came into fashion. In this sense, this could be a "fake diminutive" (consider folk etymology) of the German name Jadwiga and, as such, a genuinely Slavic etymology for Baba Jaga.