Yaga in night flight
Artist Viktor Korolkov

Baba Yaga or Yagibikha, Yagishna is the oldest character in Slavic mythology. Initially, this was the deity of death: a woman with a snake tail who guarded the entrance to the underworld and escorted the souls of the deceased to the kingdom of the dead. In this way, she is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Greek snake maiden Echidna. According to ancient myths, from her marriage to Hercules, Echidna gave birth to the Scythians, and the Scythians are considered the most ancient ancestors of the Slavs. It is not for nothing that Baba Yaga plays a very important role in all fairy tales; heroes sometimes resort to her as the last hope, the last assistant - these are indisputable traces of matriarchy.

According to another belief, Death hands over the deceased to Baba Yaga, with whom she travels around the world. At the same time, Baba Yaga and the witches subordinate to her feed on the souls of the dead and therefore become as light as the souls themselves. They used to believe that Baba Yaga could live in any village, masquerading as an ordinary woman: caring for livestock, cooking, raising children. In this, ideas about her come closer to ideas about ordinary witches.

But still, Baba Yaga is a more dangerous creature, possessing much greater power than some witch. Most often, she lives in a dense forest, which has long instilled fear in people, since it was perceived as the border between the world of the dead and the living. It’s not for nothing that her hut is surrounded by a palisade of human bones and skulls, and in many fairy tales Baba Yaga feeds on human flesh, and she herself is called the “bone leg.” Just like Koschey the Immortal (koshch - bone), she belongs to two worlds at once: the world of the living and the world of the dead. Hence its almost limitless possibilities.

In fairy tales she acts in three incarnations. Yaga the hero possesses a treasure sword and fights on equal terms with the heroes. The abductor yaga steals children, sometimes throwing them, already dead, onto the roof of their home, but most often taking them to her hut on chicken legs, or into an open field, or underground. From this strange hut, children, and adults too, escape by outwitting Yagibishna. And finally, Yaga the Giver warmly greets the hero or heroine, treats him deliciously, soars in the bathhouse, gives useful advice, presents a horse or rich gifts, for example, a magic ball leading to a wonderful goal, etc.

This old sorceress does not walk, but travels around the world in an iron mortar (that is, a scooter chariot), and when she walks, she forces the mortar to run faster, striking it with an iron club or pestle. And so that, for reasons known to her, no traces are visible, they are swept behind her by special ones, attached to the mortar with a broom and broom. She is served by frogs, black cats, including Cat Bayun, crows and snakes: all creatures in which both threat and wisdom coexist.

Even when Baba Yaga appears in her most unsightly form and is distinguished by her fierce nature, she knows the future, possesses countless treasures and secret knowledge. The veneration of all its properties is reflected not only in fairy tales, but also in riddles. One of them says this: “Baba Yaga, with a pitchfork, feeds the whole world, starves herself.” We are talking about a plow-nurse, the most important tool in peasant life. The mysterious, wise, terrible Baba Yaga plays the same huge role in the life of the fairy-tale hero.

Alexey Remizov. Glowing Skulls

Once upon a time there lived an orphan girl. Her stepmother did not like her and did not know how to get rid of her. One day she says to the girl:
- Stop eating bread for free! Go to my forest grandmother, she needs a charwoman. You will earn your own living.
- When should we go? – the girl asked.
- Right now! - the stepmother answered and pushed her out of the hut. - Go and don’t turn anywhere. As soon as you see the lights, grandma’s hut is there.

And it’s night outside, it’s dark – you can’t even poke your eyes out. The hour is approaching when wild animals will go hunting. The girl became scared, but there was nothing to do. She ran away without knowing where. Suddenly he sees a ray of light appearing ahead. The further you go, the brighter it becomes, as if fires had been lit nearby. And after a few steps it became clear that it was not fires that were glowing, but skulls impaled on stakes.
The girl looks: the clearing is studded with stakes, and in the middle of the clearing there is a hut on chicken legs, turning around. She realized that the forest stepmother was none other than Baba Yaga herself. Now he will jump out of the hut - and then the end will come for the poor thing.

She turned to run wherever her eyes were looking - she heard someone crying. He looks at one skull and large tears are dripping from the empty eye sockets. And our girl was kind and compassionate.
-What are you crying about, human being? she asks.
- How can I not cry? - the skull answers. “I was once a brave warrior, but I fell into the teeth of Baba Yaga.” God knows where my body has decayed, where my bones are lying. I yearn for the grave under the birch tree, but apparently I don’t know the burial, like the last villain!

Here the rest of the skulls began to cry, some were a cheerful shepherd, some a beautiful maiden, some a beekeeper... Baba Yaga devoured them all, and impaled the skulls on stakes, leaving them without burial.
The girl took pity on them, took a sharp twig and dug a deep hole under the birch tree. She put the skulls there, sprinkled earth on top, covered them with turf, and even put a bouquet of forest flowers, as if on a real grave.
“Thank you, kind soul,” he hears voices from underground. “You put us at ease, and we will repay you with kindness.” Pick up a rotten thing on the grave - it will show you the way.
The girl bowed to the ground at the grave, took the rotten thing - and well, run away!
Baba Yaga came out of the hut on chicken legs - and in the clearing it was pitch black. The eyes of the skulls do not glow, she does not know where to go, where to look for the fugitive. She whistled for the mortar and broom, but they got lost in the darkness and returned back. So Baba Yaga was left without any profit.

And the girl ran until the rotten fire went out and the sun rose above the ground. Here she met a young hunter on a forest path. He liked the girl and took her as his wife. They lived happily ever after.

Alexey Remizov. Pouring rain

Baba Yaga is going to bake bread. The old woman decided to get married - to take the horned devil - Horse - as her husband. He is known to be a little jackdaw: he rules everything.
The bathhouse undead perched themselves in joy: the bathhouse undead in the dampness are created from human remnants, and therefore the passion is curious. Now she will climb over the Hyena Mountains to feast in a hut, laugh, eat, mix everything up, scare everyone - such an undead thing.
And how much fun she had: old Domovoy stayed on the beans - Yaga showed him her nose. He also planned to marry Yaga!
And Domovoy’s grandfather did not remain in debt: he played a joke on Yaga.
- We need to beat you, dissolute, and beat all the upholstery into you! - Yaga cries, walks around the stove.
- Grandma, why are you crying?
- How can I, Baba Yaga, not cry, I can’t plant grains: The brownie stole a shovel. And cries. Yaga’s tears cannot be stopped: if the bread goes sour, the Verkhovy will kill him.
- Grandma, don’t cry so bitterly: we will find you a shovel. And the tears just keep flowing - full of drops flowing.
- Hey, help! We will find a shovel and throw it on the roof: Yaga will smile and the rain will stop.

In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga has several stable attributes: she can cast magic, fly in a mortar, lives in the forest, in a hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence made of human bones with skulls. She lures you to her good fellows and small children and roasts them in the oven (Baba Yaga is a cannibal). She pursues her victims in a mortar, chasing them with a pestle and covering the trail with a broom (broom). According to the greatest specialist in the field of theory and history of folklore V. Ya. Propp, there are three types of Baba Yaga: the giver (she gives the hero a fairy-tale horse or a magical object); child abductor; Baba Yaga is a warrior, fighting with whom “to the death”, the hero of the fairy tale moves to a different level of maturity. At the same time, Baba Yaga’s malice and aggressiveness are not her dominant traits, but only manifestations of her irrational, indeterministic nature. There is a similar hero in German folklore: Frau Holle or Bertha.

The dual nature of Baba Yaga in folklore is connected, firstly, with the image of the mistress of the forest, who must be appeased, and secondly, with the image of an evil creature who puts children on a shovel in order to fry them. This image of Baba Yaga is associated with the function of the priestess, guiding adolescents through the initiation rite. So, in many fairy tales, Baba Yaga wants to eat the hero, but either after feeding and drinking, she lets him go, giving him a ball or some secret knowledge, or the hero runs away on his own.

Russian writers and poets A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky (“The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf”), Alexey Tolstoy, Vladimir Narbut and others repeatedly turned to the image of Baba Yaga in their work. widespread among artists of the Silver Age: Ivan Bilibin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Alexander Benois, Elena Polenova, Ivan Malyutin and others.

Etymology

According to Max Vasmer, Yaga has correspondences in many Indo-European languages ​​with the meanings “illness, annoyance, waste away, anger, irritate, mourn,” etc., from which the original meaning of the name Baba Yaga is quite clear. In the Komi language, the word “yag” means pine forest. Baba is a woman (Nyvbaba is a young woman). "Baba Yaga" can be read as a woman from the bora forest or a forest woman. There is another character from Komi fairy tales, Yagmort (forest man). “Yaga” is a diminutive form of the female name “Jadviga”, common among Western Slavs, borrowed from the Germans.

Origin of the image

Baba Yaga as a goddess

M. Zabylin writes:

Under this name the Slavs revered the infernal goddess, depicted as a monster in an iron mortar with an iron staff. They offered her a bloody sacrifice, thinking that she was feeding it on her two granddaughters, whom they attributed to her, and that she was enjoying the shedding of blood. Under the influence of Christianity, the people forgot their main gods, remembering only the secondary ones and especially those myths that have personified phenomena and forces of nature, or symbols of everyday needs. Thus, Baba Yaga from an evil hellish goddess turned into an evil old witch, sometimes an cannibal, who always lives somewhere in the forest, alone, in a hut on chicken legs. ... In general, traces of Baba Yaga remain only in folk tales, and her myth merges with the myth of witches.

There is also a version that the goddess Makosh is hiding under Baba Yaga. During the adoption of the Christian religion by the Slavs, the old pagan deities were persecuted. Only deities of the lower order, the so-called, remained in the people's memory. chthonic creatures (see demonology, folk demonology), to which Baba Yaga belongs.

According to another version, the image of Baba Yaga goes back to the archetype of the totem animal, which ensured successful hunting for representatives of the totem in prehistoric times. Subsequently, the role of the totem animal is occupied by a creature that has control over the entire forest with its inhabitants. The female image of Baba Yaga is associated with matriarchal ideas about the structure of the social world. The mistress of the forest, Baba Yaga, is the result of anthropomorphism. A hint of the once animal appearance of Baba Yaga, according to V. Ya. Propp, is the description of the house as a hut on chicken legs.

Siberian version of the origin of Baba Yaga

There is another interpretation. According to her, Baba Yaga is not a native Slavic character, but an alien one, introduced into Russian culture by soldiers from Siberia. The first written source about it is the notes of Giles Fletcher (1588) “On the Russian State”, in the chapter “On the Permians, Samoyeds and Lapps”:

According to this position, the name of Baba Yaga is associated with the name of a certain object. In “Essays on the Birch Region” by N. Abramov (St. Petersburg, 1857) there is a detailed description of the “yaga,” which is a garment “like a robe with a fold-down, quarter-length collar. It is sewn from dark non-spitters, with the fur facing out... The same yagas are assembled from loon necks, with the feathers facing out... Yagushka is the same yaga, but with a narrow collar, worn by women on the road” (V. I. Dahl’s dictionary also gives a similar interpretation of the Tobolsk origin) .

Appearance

Baba Yaga is usually depicted as a large (nose to the ceiling) hunchbacked old woman with a large, long, humped and hooked nose. In popular prints she is dressed in a green dress, a lilac shawl, bast shoes and trousers. In another ancient painting, Baba Yaga is dressed in a red skirt and boots. In fairy tales there is no emphasis on Baba Yaga's clothes.

Attributes

A hut on chicken legs

In ancient times, the dead were buried in domovinas - houses located above the ground on very high stumps with roots peeking out from under the ground, similar to chicken legs. The houses were placed in such a way that the opening in them faced the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest. People believed that the dead flew on their coffins. People treated their dead ancestors with respect and fear, never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble upon themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead person, and children were often frightened with her. According to other sources, Baba Yaga among some Slavic tribes is a priestess who led the ritual of cremation of the dead. She slaughtered sacrificial cattle and concubines, who were then thrown into the fire.

From the point of view of supporters of the Slavic (classical) origin of Baba Yaga, an important aspect of this image is seen as her belonging to two worlds at once - the world of the dead and the world of the living. A well-known specialist in the field of mythology A.L. Barkova interprets in this regard the origin of the name of the chicken legs on which the hut of the famous mythical character stands: “Her hut “on chicken legs” is depicted standing either in the thicket of the forest (the center of another world), or on edge, but then the entrance to it is from the side of the forest, that is, from the world of death.

The name “chicken legs” most likely comes from “chicken legs”, that is, smoke-fuelled pillars, on which the Slavs erected a “death hut”, a small log house with the ashes of the deceased inside (such a funeral rite existed among the ancient Slavs for centuries). Baba Yaga, inside such a hut, seemed to be like a living dead - she lay motionless and did not see the person who had come from the world of the living (the living do not see the dead, the dead do not see the living). She recognized his arrival by the smell - “it smells of the Russian spirit” (the smell of the living is unpleasant to the dead).” “A person who encounters Baba Yaga’s hut on the border of the world of life and death,” the author continues, as a rule, goes to another world to free the captive princess. To do this, he must join the world of the dead. Usually he asks Yaga to feed him, and she gives him food from the dead. There is another option - to be eaten by Yaga and thus end up in the world of the dead. Having passed the tests in Baba Yaga’s hut, a person finds himself belonging to both worlds at the same time, endowed with many magical qualities, subjugates various inhabitants of the world of the dead, defeats the terrible monsters inhabiting it, wins back a magical beauty from them and becomes king.”

The location of the hut on chicken legs is associated with two magical rivers, either fire (cf. Jahannam, over which a bridge is also stretched), or milk (with jelly banks - cf. characteristic of the Promised Land: milk rivers of Numbers or Muslim Jannat).

Glowing Skulls

An essential attribute of Baba Yaga's dwelling is the tyn, on the stakes of which horse skulls are mounted, used as lamps. In the fairy tale about Vasilisa, the skulls are already human, but they are the source of fire for the main character and her weapon, with which she burned down her stepmother’s house.

Magic helpers

Baba Yaga's magical assistants are geese-swans, “three pairs of hands” and three horsemen (white, red and black).

Characteristic phrases

Steppe Baba Yaga

In addition to the “classic” forest version of Baba Yaga, there is also a “steppe” version of Baba Yaga, who lives across the Fire River and owns a herd of glorious mares. In another fairy tale, Baba Yaga, the golden leg at the head of a countless army fights against the White Polyanin. Hence, some researchers associate Baba Yaga with the “female-ruled” Sarmatians - a pastoral horse-breeding steppe people. In this case, the stupa of Baba Yaga is a Slavic reinterpretation of the Scythian-Sarmatian marching cauldron, and the name Yaga itself is traced back to the Sarmatian ethnonym Yazygi.

Mythological archetype of Baba Yaga

The image of Baba Yaga is associated with legends about the hero’s transition to the other world (the Far Far Away Kingdom). In these legends, Baba Yaga, standing on the border of the worlds (the bone leg), serves as a guide, allowing the hero to penetrate into the world of the dead, thanks to the performance of certain rituals. Another version of the prototype of the fairy-tale old woman can be considered the ittarma dolls dressed in fur clothes, which are still installed today in cult huts on supports.

Thanks to the texts of fairy tales, it is possible to reconstruct the ritual, sacred meaning of the actions of the hero who ends up with Baba Yaga. In particular, V. Ya. Propp, who studied the image of Baba Yaga on the basis of a mass of ethnographic and mythological material, draws attention to a very important detail, in his opinion. After recognizing the hero by smell (Yaga is blind) and clarifying his needs, she always heats the bathhouse and evaporates the hero, thus performing a ritual ablution. Then he feeds the newcomer, which is also a ritual, “mortuary” treat, inadmissible to the living, so that they do not accidentally enter the world of the dead. And, “by demanding food, the hero thereby shows that he is not afraid of this food, that he has the right to it, that he is “real.” That is, the alien, through the test of food, proves to Yaga the sincerity of his motives and shows that he is the real hero, in contrast to the false hero, the impostor antagonist."

This food “opens the mouth of the dead,” says Propp, who is convinced that a fairy tale is always preceded by a myth. And, although the hero does not seem to have died, he will be forced to temporarily “die to the living” in order to get to the “thirtieth kingdom” (another world). There, in the “thirtieth kingdom” (the underworld), where the hero is heading, many dangers always await him, which he has to anticipate and overcome. “Food and treats are certainly mentioned not only when meeting Yaga, but also with many characters equivalent to her. …Even the hut itself is tailored by the storyteller to this function: it is “propped up with a pie,” “covered with a pancake,” which in Western children’s fairy tales corresponds to a “gingerbread house.” This house, by its very appearance, sometimes passes itself off as a food house.”

Another prototype of Baba Yaga could be the witches and healers who lived far from settlements deep in the forest. There they collected various roots and herbs, dried them and made various tinctures, and, if necessary, helped the villagers. But the attitude towards them was ambiguous: many considered them comrades of evil spirits, since living in the forest they could not help but communicate with evil spirits. Since these were mostly unsociable women, there was no clear idea about them.

The image of Baba Yaga in music

The ninth play “The Hut on Chicken Legs (Baba Yaga)” of Modest Mussorgsky’s famous suite “Pictures at an Exhibition - a memory of Victor Hartmann”, 1874, created in memory of his friend, artist and architect, is dedicated to the image of Baba Yaga. The modern interpretation of this suite is also widely known - “Pictures at an Exhibition”, created by the English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer in 1971, where Mussorgsky’s musical pieces alternate with original compositions by English rock musicians: “The Hut of Baba Yaga "(Mussorgsky); "The Curse of Baba Yaga" (Emerson, Lake, Palmer); “The Hut of Baba Yaga” (Mussorgsky). The symphonic poem of the same name by composer Anatoly Lyadov, op. 56, 1891-1904 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1878 collection of musical pieces for piano, Children's Album, also contains the piece "Baba Yaga".

Baba Yaga is mentioned in the songs of the Gaza Sector group “My Grandma” from the album “Walk, Man!” (1992) and “Ilya Muromets” from the album “The Night Before Christmas” (1991). Baba Yaga also appears as a character in the musicals: “Koschey the Immortal” by the group “Gaza Strip”, “Ilya Muromets” by the duet “Sector Gas Attack” , and in one of the episodes of the musical “Sleeping Beauty” by the group “Red Mold”. In 1989, the international folk group Baba Yaga was founded in Agrigento, Sicily.

The Na-Na group has a song “Grandma Yaga”, written by composer Vitaly Okorokov with lyrics by Alexander Shishinin. Performed in both Russian and English.

Soviet and Russian composer Theodor Efimov wrote music for the song cycle about Baba Yaga. The cycle includes three songs: “Baba Yaga” (lyrics by Yu. Mazharov), “Baba Yaga-2 (Forest Duet)” (lyrics by O. Zhukov) and “Baba Yaga-3 (About Baba Yaga)” ( Lyrics by E. Uspensky). The cycle was performed by VIA Ariel. In addition, the third song of the mentioned cycle was performed by the Bim-Bom musical parody theater. There is also a song by David Tukhmanov based on the verses of Yuri Entin “The Good Grandmother Yaga” performed by Alexander Gradsky, included in the “Horror Park” cycle.

The image of Baba Yaga is played out in the album “The Hut of Granny Zombie” by the Russian folk-black band Izmoroz.

Development of the image in modern literature

• The image of Baba Yaga was widely used by the authors of modern literary fairy tales - for example, Eduard Uspensky in the story “Down the Magic River”.
• Baba Yaga became one of the main sources for the image of Naina Kievna Gorynych, a character in the story by the Strugatsky brothers “Monday Begins on Saturday.”
• The novel “Return to Baba Yaga” by Natalia Malakhovskaya, where three heroines and three writing styles undergo trials and transformations (going to Baba Yaga), modify the plots of their biographies.
• In the Hellboy comic series by Mike Mignola, Baba Yaga is one of the negative characters. She lives in the underworld at the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil. In the first volume of the series (“Waking the Devil”), the defeated Rasputin takes refuge with her. In the short story "Baba Yaga", Hellboy, during a fight with Yaga, knocks out her left eye. Unlike most modern literary interpretations, Mignola’s image of Baba Yaga does not carry a satirical load.
• The image of Baba Yaga also appears in the graphic story “Mosquito” by Alexei Kindyashev, where he plays the role of one of the main negative characters. The fight between the mythical insect, called upon to protect our world from the forces of evil and the witch, takes place in the very first mini-issue, where the positive character defeats the negative one, thereby protecting the little girl. But not everything is as simple as it seems, and at the end of the issue we learn that it was only a copy created to test the powers of the mythical defender.
• Also, the image of Baba Yaga is found in the modern author of Russian literature - Andrei Belyanin in the cycle of works “The Secret Investigation of Tsar Pea", where, in turn, she occupies one of the central places in the role of a positive hero, namely, a forensic expert of secret investigation the courtyard of King Pea.
• The childhood and youth of Baba Yaga in modern literature are first encountered in the story “Lukomorye” by A. Aliverdiev (the first chapter of the story, written in 1996, was published in the magazine “Star Road” in 2000). Later, Alexey Gravitsky’s story “Berry”, V. Kachan’s novel “The Youth of Baba Yaga”, M. Vishnevetskaya’s novel “Kashchei and Yagda, or Heavenly Apples”, etc. were written.
• Baba Yaga also appears in the Army of Darkness comic book series, where she is represented as an ugly old woman who wants to get the book of the dead - Necronomicon, in order to regain her youth. She was beheaded by one of the deadly sins - Wrath.
• The novel “Baba Yaga Laid an Egg” by the modern Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic uses motifs from Slavic folklore, primarily fairy tales about Baba Yaga.
• The novel “Black Blood” by Nik Perumov and Svyatoslav Loginov Baba Yogas - called the sorceresses of the family - expelled in ancient times by a shaman, Baba Yoga Neshanka, who lives in a charmed place, in a hut on two stumps - reminiscent of bird paws, they turn to Unika, Tasha, for help, and Romar, then Unica herself will become Baba Yoga.
• In Dmitry Yemets’s cycle “Tanya Groter” Baba Yaga is depicted in the image of the ancient goddess, healer Tibidox - Yagge, the former goddess of the ancient destroyed pantheon.
• Baba Yaga is also one of the main characters in Leonid Filatov's fairy tale "" and in the animated film of the same name.
• Baba Yaga is one of the characters in the 38th issue of the comic book “The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman, the events of which take place in the forests of an unexplicitly named country. Other attributes of Baba Yaga in the issue include a hut on chicken legs and a flying stupa, on which Baba Yaga and the main character travel part of the way from the forest to the city.
• Elena Nikitina's Baba Yaga plays the role of the main character, in the form of a young girl.
• Baba Yaga appears in the book “Three in the Sands” of the series “Three from the Forest” by Yuri Aleksandrovich Nikitin. She is one of the last guardians of ancient female magic and helps the heroes.

Baba Yaga on the screen

Movies

More often than others, Georgy Millyar played the role of Baba Yaga, including in the films:

“Adventures in the Thirtieth Kingdom” (2010) - Anna Yakunina.

The name of the Slavic female sorceress became popular in Western Europe. In 1973, the French-Italian film “Baba Yaga” (Italian) was released. Baba Yaga (film)) directed by Corrado Farina (Italian. Corrado Farina) with Carroll Baker in the title role. The film was created based on one of the erotic-mystical comics by Guido Crepax (Italian. Guido Crepax) from the series “Valentine” (Italian. Valentina (fumetto)).

Cartoons

• “The Frog Princess” (1954) (dir. Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, voiced by Georgy Millyar)
• “Ivashko and Baba Yaga” (1938, voiced by Osip Abdulov)
• “The Frog Princess” (1971) (dir. Yu. Eliseev, voiced by Zinaida Naryshkina)
• “The End of the Black Swamp” (1960, voiced by Irina Masing)
• “About the Evil Stepmother” (1966, voiced by Elena Ponsova)
• “The Tale is Telling” (1970, voiced by Klara Rumyanova)
• “Flying Ship” (1979, women's group of the Moscow Chamber Choir)
• “Vasilisa the Beautiful” (1977, voiced by Anastasia Georgievskaya)
• “The Adventures of the Brownie” (1985) / “A Tale for Natasha” (1986) / “The Return of the Brownie” (1987) (voiced by Tatyana Peltzer)
• “Baba Yaga is against it! "(1980, voiced by Olga Aroseva)
• “Ivashka from the Palace of Pioneers” (1981, voiced by Efim Katsirov)
• "Wait for it! "(16th issue) (1986)
• “Dear Leshy” (1988, voiced by Viktor Proskurin)
• “And in this fairy tale it was like this...” (1984)
• “Two Bogatyrs” (1989, voiced by Maria Vinogradova)
• “Dreamers from the village of Ugory” (1994, voiced by Kazimira Smirnova)
• “Grandma Ezhka and others” (2006, voiced by Tatyana Bondarenko)
• “About Fedot the Sagittarius, a daring fellow” (2008, voiced by Alexander Revva)
• “Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmey Gorynych” (2006, voiced by Natalya Danilova)
• “Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf” (2011, voiced by Liya Akhedzhakova)
• "Bartok the Magnificent" (1999, voiced by Andrea Martin)

Fairy tales

"Motherland" and Baba Yaga's birthday

Research

• Potebnya A. A., About the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs. [chap.] 2 - Baba Yaga, “Readings in the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities”, M., 1865, book. 3;
• Veselovsky N. I., The current state of the issue of “Stone Women” or “Balbals”. // Notes of the Imperial Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, vol. XXXII. Odessa: 1915. Dept. print: 40 s. + 14 tables
• Toporov V.N., Hittite salŠU.GI and Slavic Baba Yaga, “Brief communications of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences,” 1963, c. 38.
• Malakhovskaya A. N., The Legacy of Baba Yaga: Religious ideas reflected in a fairy tale, and their traces in Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries. - St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2007. - 344 p.

Games character

• In the game "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" Baba Yaga is one of the famous witches. It is told about her what she likes to eat for breakfast (possibly for lunch and dinner) of small children. She can be seen on a trading card in the group about famous witches, she appears on card No. 1.
• Baba Yaga is one of the characters in the game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
• In the first part of the game “Quest for Glory” Baba Yaga is one of the main enemies of the hero. The old lady later appears again in one of the subsequent games in the series.
• Baba Yaga is mentioned in one of the plot conversations between the Anderson brothers in the game Alan Wake. In addition, the house on Cauldron Lake has a sign that reads "Birds leg cabin", which can be interpreted as a hut on chicken legs.
• In the game "Non-Children's Tales", the character of Baba Yaga assigns quests to the player.
• In the game "The Witcher" there is a monster Yaga - an old dead woman.
• In the games “Go There, I Don’t Know Where,” “Baba Yaga Far Away,” “Baba Yaga Learns to Read,” Baba Yaga is studying a subject with a child, getting into various troubles with him.

see also

Notes

1. Enchanted Castle
2. Jan Deda and the Red Baba Yaga
3. Encyclopedia of supernatural beings. Lockid-MYTH, Moscow, 2000.
4. Propp V. Ya. Historical roots of fairy tales. L.: Leningrad State University Publishing House, 1986.
5. TV channel Yurgan
6. Komi mythology
7. Zabylin M. The Russian people, their customs, rituals, legends, superstitions and poetry. 1880.
8. “Is Baba Yaga a goddess?”
9. Mikhail Sitnikov, Innocently tortured Yaga. The “spiritual avant-garde,” like the Taliban who curse Christians as “cross-worshippers,” tars the mythological Baba Yaga, Portal-Credo.Ru, 07/13/2005.
10. Veselovsky N. I. Imaginary stone women // Bulletin of Archeology and History, published by the Imperial Archaeological Institute. Vol. XVII. St. Petersburg 1906.
11. Some observations on the evolution of the image of Baba Yagiv in Russian folklore
12. Dancing opposite Yaga
13. Petrukhin V. Ya. The beginning of the ethnocultural history of Rus' in the 9th-11th centuries
14. Barkova A. L., Alekseev S., “Beliefs of the ancient Slavs” / Encyclopedia for children. [Vol.6.]: Religions of the world. Part 1. - M.: Avanta Plus. ISBN 5-94623-100-6
15. Marya Morevna
16. Swan geese
17. Finist - Yasnyi Sokol
18. Vasilisa the Beautiful
19. Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin
20. About Slavic fairy tales
21. Decline as a result of the Sarmatian invasion
22. In the collection of A. N. Afanasyev, there is the first version of the fairy tale “Finist’s Feather of the Clear Falcon,” where the triple Baba Yaga is replaced by three nameless “old women.” This option was later processed

Baba Yaga, an image familiar to everyone from childhood, is represented by an evil old woman living in a dense forest. However, in the mythology of the Slavs, Yaginya is seen as completely different.

Who is Yaginya

Yaginya is the daughter of Viy, the ruler of the world of Navi and the named daughter.

Among the Slavs, Yaginya was a wise sorceress with a kind and bright soul, who guarded the boundaries of the worlds.

She had feminine wisdom and was strong in witchcraft. She lived on the border between worlds and had power over the spaces. Yaginya could travel from the world of Navi to Yav calmly, and meet the souls of the dead and transfer them to the afterlife.

Baba Yaga is considered the guardian of the boundaries between the manifest world (revelation) and Navi (the world of the dead).

How it is represented among the Slavs

The image of Yagini varies in different sources. In some she is depicted as a young beauty, fast and strong. There are gold boots on my feet. Their long braids are decorated with various decorations, their clothes are clean and light.

In other sources, this is an adult woman, a mother.

In later sources, an old woman lives alone in an impenetrable forest and steals children to be eaten, but these are already fairy tales from Soviet times.

We turned to Yogi for advice, but she did not help everyone. At first I arranged different tests because great knowledge can cause harm to people if used incorrectly. She taught wisdom only to the worthy.

People came from all over the world to learn her wisdom. And in difficult times, when there was discord and war, Yaga gathered orphans and taught worldly wisdom. Many of those orphans became magicians and priests, and the women became good wives, gave birth to children, and continued the family line.

The modern Baba Yaga differs from its primary prototype. Depicted as a lonely old woman living in a deep forest. However, fairy tales have retained the power of wisdom to this day.

That’s why the Slavs called her Mother Yaginya.

Yaginya is also associated with the initiation rite. When young men were tested before being given a name.

Attributes and symbolism of Yaga

The modern Baba Yaga is the ancient Yaginya (Yogini). That's why their attributes are the same.

• Eagle owl bird of wisdom;
• d long hair as a symbol of strength and femininity;
• the ball shows the way,
• a plate with an apple to see the future,
• stupa for flight;
• yes broom to sweep away evil.

B Aba Yaga as a talisman at home

In the modern world, Baba Yaga in the form of a doll is often used to protect home and family from any negativity. Considering that Yaginya lived on the border of worlds and did not let the essence of Navi into the world of Navi, the amulet is hung above the entrance to the houseand does not let evil into the family. Baba Yaga also serves as a talisman of love and family relationships.

Yagini family

Yagini's father is Viy: ruler of the underworld, mother named Makosh. She took wisdom and skills from both parents.

Baba Yaga is a mysterious creature that is described in many Russian fairy tales. To this day, scientists are concerned about the still unsolved mysteries surrounding this mysterious creature.

Who is Baba Yaga?

Scientists translate the strange name of this old woman in different ways. Some are convinced that “yaga” corresponds in some Indo-European languages ​​to the meanings of “annoyance, illness, mourn.” But from the Komi language “yag” is translated as “pine forest” or “pine forest”, and the word “baba” means a woman. Hence, Baba Yaga is a forest woman.

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Baba Yaga lives in the forest, she flies in a mortar. Practices witchcraft. She is helped by geese-swans, red, white and black riders, and also “three pairs of hands.”

Researchers distinguish three subspecies of Baba Yaga:

• warrior (in battle with her the hero moves to a new level of personal maturity),
• giver (she gives magical objects to her guests),
• and also a child abductor.

It is worth noting that she is not a uniquely negative character.

They describe her as a scary old woman with a hump. At the same time, she is also blind and only senses a person who has entered her hut.

This is a dwelling that has chicken legs,gave rise to scientists' hypothesis about who Baba Yaga is. The fact is that the ancient Slavs had a custom of erecting special houses for the dead, which were installed on stilts, rising above the ground. They built such huts on the border of the forest and the settlement, and placed them in such a way that the exit was from the side of the forest.

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Version 1. Baba Yaga - a guide to the world of the dead

It is believed that Baba Yaga is a kind of guide to the world of the dead, which in fairy tales is called the Far Away Kingdom.

Certain rituals help the old woman in performing this task:

ritual ablution (bath),

“dead” treat (feeding the hero at his request).

Having visited Baba Yaga's house, a person temporarily finds himself belonging to two worlds at once, and also receives some specific abilities.

Version 2. Baba Yaga - a woman healer

In ancient times, unsociable women who settled in the forest became healers. There they collected plants, fruits and roots, then dried them and prepared a variety of potions from these raw materials.

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People, although they used their services, were at the same time afraid of them, as they considered them witches associated with evil spirits and evil spirits.

Version 3. Baba Yaga is an alien

Not long ago, some Russian researchers put forward another very interesting theory. According to her, Baba Yaga was none other than an alien who arrived on our planet for research purposes.

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Legends say that the mysterious The old woman flew in a mortar, while covering her tracks with a fiery broom. This whole description is very resembles a jet engine. The ancient Slavs, of course, could not know about the wonders of technology, and therefore they interpreted in their own way the fire and loud sounds that the alien ship could make.

This interpretation is also supported by the fact that the arrival of the mysterious Baba Yaga, according to the descriptions of ancient peoples, was accompanied by the fall of trees at the landing site and a storm with very strong winds. All this can be explained by the impact of a ballistic wave or the direct effect of a jet stream. The Slavs who lived in those distant times could not know about the existence of such things, and therefore explained it as witchcraft.

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The hut, standing on a chicken leg, apparently was a spaceship. In this case, its small dimensions are quite understandable. And the chicken legs are the stand on which the ship stands.

The appearance of Baba Yaga, which seemed so ugly to people, could have been quite ordinary for alien creatures. Humanoids, judging by the descriptions of ufologists, do not look any more beautiful.

Legends also claim that the mysterious Baba Yaga was supposedly a cannibal, that is, she ate human flesh. From the point of view of the new theory, various experiments on people were carried out on the ship. Later, all this became overgrown with legends and fairy tales that were told to children. This story has come down to us in this form.

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It is difficult to prove something when so many years have passed, but still the mysterious Baba Yaga left her mark on history, not only fabulous, but also, perhaps, quite material. It just hasn't been found yet.

Baba Yaga is a character from Slavic mythology and folklore. He is an almost integral anti-hero of Slavic fairy tales. Often presented as an opponent of the main character of fairy tales and myths. Many researchers never cease to wonder who she is Baba Yaga Regarding Slavic mythology, what kind of goddess or creature is this, and how did the pagan Slavs actually represent Yaga?

In this article I will try to provide strong evidence in favor of the fact that Baba Yaga is not at all a separate creature or a separate goddess who was engaged in some of her duties, but one of the names of the Slavic goddess of winter and death. Perhaps the evidence and comparisons that will be given in one article are quite enough to clarify the image of this mysterious fairy-tale character.

Baba Yaga, in the minds of modern people, is an ugly old woman from fairy tales who flies on a mortar and lives in a hut on chicken legs. We will also analyze these attributes of Yaga further and present them as additional evidence of the image of the goddess of the dead. Old woman Yaga lives in a dark forest, practices witchcraft, communicates with Koshchei and is considered almost the most important Slavic witch.

First of all, it is worth examining the name “Yaga” itself, although, to be honest, etymology is not so important in determining the image of this goddess of the ancient Slavs. Researcher M. Vasmer concluded that Yaga comes from the Proto-Slavic word (j) ega, which means horror, danger, anger. Thus, “Baba Yaga” could be translated as Evil Baba, Dangerous Baba. Other etymologists suggest that Yaga comes from the Proto-Slavic word ega, which means “snake,” which, according to their theory, indicates the chthonic origins of the image of Baba Yaga.

To prove that Baba Yaga is none other than the goddess Mara (Morana, Marena), first of all it is worth examining the habitat, the way of living, and also, so to speak, the “life partner” of Baba Yaga from folk tales.

As you know, Baba Yaga lives in a deep, dense, gloomy, dark and impenetrable forest. Its habitat is a certain house on chicken legs, which is surrounded by a fence made of bones with skulls. To interpret this plot from folk tales, it is worth remembering again the scientific term “katabasis”, about which you can read more in a separate article “”. To briefly describe what katabasis is, it is a phenomenon in world mythology when a hero descends into the underworld or the world of death. This plot comes from Proto-Indo-European mythology, which subsequently, with the settlement of peoples and the natural change in forms of beliefs, began to change, in particular, it moved from the plane of the hero’s journey into the underworld to the plane of the hero’s journey into a dark and impenetrable forest. Apart from the transfer from the dungeon to the dark forest, practically nothing has changed - darkness, complex obstacles, omnipresent dangers and the main goal - the kingdom of the underground king or underground queen, the queen of the world of the dead. As you know, in Slavic mythology the queen of the world of the dead is Morana, so, in all likelihood, the heroes of fairy tales go to the forest to Morana.

The house itself, the attributes of the house and the attributes of Baba Yaga also speak about the patronage of the dead. A fence or palisade, which is made of bones and skulls, is a clear hint that the hero finds himself in the kingdom of death. The very appearance of the house, which is known as the “hut on chicken legs,” is a symbol of the once existing tradition of burying the ashes of people or the remains of people in special ones, which were also called bdyny and golbtsy - a small house that stands on a high stick or leg. Such houses are the prototype of a fairy-tale hut on chicken legs. Some dominoins, especially those that were created in large sizes and stood on several poles at once, had several crossbars at the bottom that made the dominoins stable, which made them look like chicken paws. Such houses were considered the place of residence of the souls of the dead in our world, that is, the house of the dead, which once again classifies Baba Yaga as the patroness of the dead.

It is also worth noting the stupa on which Baba Yaga flies in Slavic fairy tales. A stupa is a fabulous representation of a dugout oak log, which is similar to the stupa in which people were buried in ancient times. That is, in simple words, Baba Yaga flies in a coffin or a funeral oak stupa.

One cannot help but recall Kashchei the Immortal. Koschey is often presented in folk tales as the husband of Baba Yaga, and this is one of the surest proofs that Baba Yaga is Morana. Koschey, also known as Chernobog, is the master of the underworld of the dead. In many pagan beliefs, his beloved, the queen of the world of the dead, sits with him in the underworld. In Greece - this, in Rome -, among the Slavs - Koschey and Moran. The fact that in fairy tales Baba Yaga is called the beloved or wife of the owner of the underworld clearly indicates that Baba Yaga and Morana are one and the same mythological person.

In one of the fairy tales “Ivan Tsarevich and Marya Morevna” Baba Yaga lives “far away lands, in the thirtieth kingdom, not far from the sea beyond the fiery river.” That is, in the language of Slavic mythology, Baba Yaga lives behind the fiery fire, which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. In the same tale we find an interesting mention that, beyond the fiery river, Baba Yaga owns a herd of glorious mares. The question arises: why was such detail preserved in folklore? We can find the answer in the pagan mythology of the Slavs and other peoples, where there is a mention of the abduction by the underground gods of countless herds from the solar or heavenly gods, which is a symbolic abduction of the “heavenly herds - clouds” of winter from summer.

In fairy tales, Baba Yaga is represented with a bone leg! The bone leg again suggests that Yaga directly relates to the world of the dead. Let us remember the etymology of the word “Koschey”, which comes from the word “bone”, that is, Koschey is a bone god, the god of the bone (dead) world.

Another proof is the Maslenitsa traditions that have survived to this day in Croatia. If we burn the goddess of winter and death Morana on Maslenitsa, then in Croatia they burn Baba Yaga on Maslenitsa!

Thus, ethnographic, mythological and fairy-tale material makes it quite clear that under the guise of Baba Yaga, beliefs in the goddess of winter and death Morana have reached us in a veiled form.

Baba Yaga in the film "Morozko" 1964

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