Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga (Czech Baba Jaga, Slovak Baba Jaga, Polish Baba Jaga, Slovene Jaga Baba, Macedonian Баба Рога, Russian Бáба-Ягá, Bulgarian Баба Яга, Ukrainian Баба Яґа, Serbian: Baba Roga) 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 or simply grandmother in Bulgarian (баба).
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.
According to some versions of the myths, Baba Yaga ages a year every time someone asks her a question. This is why she is often portrayed as a cranky old hag - she is frustrated and angry about having been asked so many questions. The only way for her to de-age herself is by drinking a special tea she brews from blue roses. Heroes who bring her a gift of blue roses are often granted wishes as reward for their aid.
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 another version of the same story recorded by Aleksandr Nikolajevitj Afanasjev in Narodnye russkie skazki (vol 4, 1862) Vasilisa is given three impossible tasks that she solves using a magic doll her mother gave to her.
Three horsemen serve her, one white, one red, and one black. She calls them "my Bright Dawn," "my Red Sun," and "my Dark Night," respectively. They control day-break, sun-rise, and night-fall.
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)
- Jack Frost, an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which Baba Yaga and her chicken-legged house appear.
- Baba Yaga (musical release, 1999, by Norwegian folk musician Annbjørg Lien)
- Enchantment (a novel by Orson Scott Card)
- The Sandman, Stardust, 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.
- Baba Yaga also appears as a character in the Science Fiction novel Belarus (link to Amazon.com) by Lee Hogan
- Koshka's Tales (Stories From Russia) by James Mayhew features Baba Yaga as the main plot's antagonist. (ISBN 1-85697-121-X)
- Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away (originally titled Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) Spirited Away is a retelling of the above folk story, presented in Japanese folk culture wrappings. Here the girl Vasilissa is named Chihiro, spirited away into Baba Yaga's service.
- The ninth piece in Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition Suite for the piano. The music conjures the image of Baba Jaga trudging through the forest with her pestle, and of the spirits surrounding her.
- The symphonic poem Baba Yaga Op. 56 by Anatoly Lyadov. The music depicts Baba Yaga summoning her mortar, pestle and broomstick, then flying off through the forest.
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 computer role playing game 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 role-playing game, 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
- In the 1998 Film Lawn Dogs as a fabled witch in the woods.