The hut on chicken legs is one of the most recognizable images in Russian fairy tales.
This is a kind of "frontier post" between the ordinary world and the other world, the mysterious Yaga lives in it, it is impossible to get around and bypass it.
But why is the residence of the forest sorceress still standing on "chicken legs"?
Version number 1. The house has the features of a totem animal (bird)
In his book The Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale, Vladimir Propp gives examples from the life of a tribe living on an island near Indonesia, where initiation into adulthood was carried out in a hut, the entrance to which was called the "shark's mouth." That is, to pass initiation, you need to be conditionally eaten by a shark (in another tribe - a crocodile, etc.).
So hut = totem animal. Over time, only individual attributes of the animal remained at the hut, namely the legs.
Here is what Propp writes:
Promotional video:
In the Russian version of the rite, the house no longer "eats" anyone on its own, but the owner of the hut Yaga still has certain gastronomic preferences.
Version number 2. Not chicken legs, but "chicken"
According to the second version, neither chicken nor totem animals have anything to do with it. In the end, why then weren't the hut "attached" some more solid feet - bear or wolf?
As we know, a hut in the forest, put on a support, is also a variant of the tomb that was widespread in ancient times. The ashes were placed in a hut "without windows without doors", and the legs were "smoked", that is, fumigated with smoke. Over time, the ancient funeral rite was forgotten, and the "chicken" legs turned into chicken legs.
