"Hut, hut, get up to the forest with your back, and in front of me …", "First feed me, give me drink and put me to sleep …" - who does not know these words from Russian folk tales? And all this applies to our today's heroine - Baba Yaga, the most ancient representative of Slavic mythology.
From the very beginning, Baba Yaga was presented to people as a terrible woman with a snake's tail. She was engaged in the fact that she guarded the entrance to the underworld and escorted the souls of dead people to the afterlife. Death transfers the dead to Baba Yaga, and she feeds on their souls. She also commands witches and serves Satan.
In ancient times, there was a belief that Yaga could live in an ordinary village in the guise of a simple woman, and few people guessed that she was a real witch, and not a peaceful peasant woman. Basically, Baba Yaga lives in a dense forest. The ancient Slavs were very afraid of dense impenetrable forests, considering them to be the border between two worlds - the world of the living and, of course, the world of the dead. Perhaps that is why Russian folk tales retained the idea that Baba Yaga eats human flesh, and the fences around her hut are made of human bones and skulls.
Baba Yaga - what is she like?
In fairy tales, Yaga can be found in three incarnations:
Baba Yaga the Kidnapper. He is engaged in kidnapping small children and taking them either to his hut or to an open field. Some children manage to escape from her hut on chicken legs thanks to their ingenuity.
The second Baba Yaga is Bogatyrsha. She has a sword-kladenets, and she fights with this sword with heroes on equal terms.
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Yaga the Giver. This is a good-natured old woman who meets a guest, feeds, drinks, soars in the bath, helps with advice and shows the way forward. Also, this Baba Yaga gives a good fellow a magic ball, which helps to find the right path.
Baba Yaga never walks on foot - apparently, the years are not the same. She has a versatile and extraordinary transport - an iron mortar and a pomelo, with which she covers her tracks during the flight. In the service of the Yaga, usually only those creatures that either pose a threat or possess some kind of sacred knowledge. For example, black cats, frogs, snakes, crows and even the Cat Bayun.
In Slavic mythology
According to Slavic mythology, this sorceress looks like this: a hunched-over old woman, long unkempt hair, a huge crooked nose, a bone leg, and a broom in her hand. Dressed in a shirt without a belt. In some places, bones protrude from her torso. Yaga spends all her free time on the stove, weaving canvases or spinning a tow, and constantly sharpens her teeth. The old woman very subtly senses the approach of a person and frowns: "Phew, it smells of the Russian spirit."
In some tales, Baba Yaga is credited with sisters who live in different parts of the world across the distant lands. In theory, she lives with her daughters, who turn into mares when they feel the appearance of a person. Then Yaga gives his guest a service. Most often, the service is to protect those same mares. After the end of the service, the generous Baba Yaga presents her guest with magic gizmos - a tangle that knows all the roads, a flying carpet, walking boots, a self-cutting sword. It can even give a swift, fire-breathing horse.
Alternative version
There is also a belief that in fact Baba Yaga is a one-legged creature. And if you believe mythology, then one-legged means belonging to snake-like, bestial creatures, which we talked about at the beginning of the article.
In various Russian provinces, this mythical old woman was represented in different ways. For example, according to the peasants of the Yaroslavl province, Yagaya lives in a forest or in a swamp with her daughter Marinka, dresses in white clothes, and has a warrior on her head. And, by the way, here Yagiha does not fly, but runs very fast, chasing herself with a broomstick.
In the Arkhangelsk province, people believed that Baba Yaga was an unclean force, a witch who had no husband. Sits at home, mainly on the stove column. Her legs are on the benches, her head is completely on kakuha. And breasts on the shelves. Here Yaginishna flies in her stupa and, know yourself, devours people.
An ordinary old woman in our time can also be called Baba Yaga, for the appropriate appearance (crooked nose, hunched gait, sparse teeth and shaggy hair) or for the fact that she is engaged in fortune telling, witchcraft, love spells, spells, conspiracies. Superstitious people associate such women with witches and avoid them.
It is impossible to give an unambiguous characterization to such a character as Baba Yaga, because in some fairy tales she roasts children in the oven, putting them on a shovel, and in other fairy tales she feeds, drinks, soars in the bath, puts to bed, and after that she also generously gives magical gifts.
The outdated names of Baba Yaga, which are practically not used in literary works and in colloquial speech - Yaginishna, Yagaya Baba, Egebitsa, Yagaya, Yagikha, Yagabikha.