Who is Baba Yaga in Slavic mythology. Character history. The real legend of Baba Yaga in various mythologies
The most extraordinary and bright negative hero of the Russians folk tales considered Baba Yaga. In all fairy tales, her image changes dramatically, and in some of them Baba Yaga turns into a hospitable hostess. This is a cunning and at the same time funny character of a mysterious old woman, from whom you can always expect new surprises.
What do you know about Baba Yaga
What do we know about Baba Yaga from the fairy tales we read as children? This is an old woman with a hump who never walks, but uses her flying stupa to move around. Her hair is always disheveled, her clothes are dirty, and her nose is long and hooked. Baba Yaga has become a kind of embodiment of the forces of evil that constantly seek to harm people.
Initially, the prototype of Baba Yaga was found in Slavic mythology, as an evil forest sorceress, in her power all whirlwinds, blizzards and winds, as a guardian and guide between “this” and “another” world. In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is not a warrior, she has a bone leg, animals and birds obey her. The mysterious witch lives in the deepest forests, and her hut, in which everything has fallen into disrepair, stands on chicken legs. The old woman spends most of her time in the forest, collecting various roots and medicinal herbs to make special infusions.
The most common images of Baba Yaga in fairy tales
In most Russian folk tales, Baba Yaga plays the role of a kidnapper. Most of all, she likes small children, whom she constantly strives to steal and put in the oven. This is exactly the image of Baba Yaga shown in the fairy tale “Geese-Swans”, where the servants of the cunning sorceress stole Ivanushka for her next dinner. Here Yaga is shown to be very cunning, evil and merciless, because she wants to eat not only Ivanushka, but also Alyonushka.
Much less often in our fairy tales you can find the kind Yaga, who strives to bestow magical things on her guest. To do this, the brave young man needs to pass a difficult test and answer the questions of Yaga herself. This is exactly the image shown in the Russian fairy tale "Baba Yaga", written by Afanasyev. She gives elegant dresses to the girl for good service, but also punishes her for any mistake by breaking her bones. Such a Yaga can be responsive and give good advice other heroes, but still, at any opportunity, her evil nature will manifest itself.
Baba Yaga is a multifaceted character in Russian folk tales who can change dramatically. But the image is so colorful and bright that no one can forget the mysterious Baba Yaga!
The lost image of Baba Yoga, which is Yaginya- this is the image of a kind and wise woman, light Goddess pointing the right way. The Russian Baba Yaga (as described in later fairy tales) is different in that she is represented as a bony old woman who threatens to eat travelers and children. Slavic Baba Yaga is a beauty, wise with great knowledge of the Vedas and life experience, possessing magical skills and knowing how to compassion. Slavic mythology suggests different names for Yagini - Yagunya, Yaginishna, Aga Yaginishna, Yaga (derived from - Yoga, affectionate - Yozhka). Burya Yaga is a nickname for the swift flights of the Goddess on her fiery mortar.
Yaginya is supposedly the daughter of ordinary people, adopted after their death by the Goddess Makosh. But there are myths about her marriage - Baba Yoga was the wife of Veles, the God of Magic, wisdom and the Three Worlds. In the same myth, they tell a terrible story - later Yaginya was tormented by Veles’s mother, Amelfa, the daughter of the Heavenly Cow Zimun, and Veles, in order to save Yaguni’s life, voluntarily went to Nav.
The Slavic Baba Yaga should be called in full - “ Slavic Baba Yoga". That is, she is a woman who has yogic knowledge and knows about the movements of forces in the Universe. Baba Yoga became a Goddess who helped people see their path - even later fairy tales show that Baba Yaga gave magical objects to travelers and saved children.
How is Yaginya represented among the Slavs?
The Slavs loved Yaginya very much, because she was the wife of Veles, who also had a direct connection with the prophetic forest. She suited the mighty Veles as a life partner in all the incarnations that they experienced. This is what the stories tell us about their meeting:
The yagina was the mistress of the borders and the keeper of the lands of the Explicit. Without her knowledge, not a single soul could set foot in the Forest. Makosh could not marry off her willful daughter for a long time, because her agreement with her was this: only the one who defeats the young goddess in a fair and equal battle will become her beloved husband. Many people wooed the beautiful Yagina, but the girl’s heart did not lie to anyone, as if she was waiting for her time. And she waited until Veles himself met her on the way.
He walked across its lands, but he didn’t want to open the gates by force, but as it should be - with the invitation of the hostess. And they fought, but not to death, but for love. Because Yaginya, who knows everything, knew that she was destined by fate to become an eternal and faithful wife for Veles.
And Veles and Yaginya settled on the borders of the Worlds, and from their house the roots of all the plants on earth stretched, and all the rivers flowed.
Some believe that Yaginya and the word “Goddess” have a consonance for a reason. By all standards, as a woman, she surpassed many heroes and male spiritual leaders. She managed to go through her inner change in such a way that she acquired the skill of walking between worlds, as if going from the bedroom to the upper room! There is a belief that only men can do this, but we repeatedly see the opposite - there are women who have become Goddesses. Yaginya is the Goddess of Paths in the Reality World. And it seems that we see echoes of this image in the portrait of the old forest hermit.
Attributes and symbolism of Yagini
WITH 10 to 16 February Slavic tribes and clans remember Yaginya together with the Great and Wise Veles.
Our ancestors imagined Mother Yaginya as a beautiful woman, wearing golden running shoes, light and clean clothes, light brown braids, braided and hidden under Slavic jewelry.
Her constant attributes were not only a ball, a stick and a wooden mortar, which are presented in late Russian fairy tales, but also an apple on a plate, showing everything that was happening in the area. Friendship with birds - eagle owls, owls and animals that live in the thicket of the forest.
Researchers of Slavic mythology believe that Yagunya was nicknamed Mother precisely for her immense love for children. Our Slavic ancestors believed that after the next great war There were many orphans left between different births. Difficult and dark times of the reign of evil entities, ignorance, darkness and enmity were coming. Before the onset of this terrible era, Yaga sought to take into her Skete (abode) as many orphans of the Slavic and Russian clans as possible. There she already taught them the Vedas and the knowledge that she herself possessed. The goddess did everything so that her children would not be affected by the ignorance of the new era of times.
What role does Baba Yaga play in Slavic mythology and what is the story of this hero? Since childhood, we know that this is a decrepit sorceress or witch, a negative hero who lives on the outskirts of the forest and steals babies. But is the image presented by fairy tales true, and did Baba Yaga really exist?
In the article:
Baba Yaga in Slavic mythology is the character we know
Baba Yaga performed by Georgy Miller
Baba Yaga is a formidable Slavic sorceress. The witch has a variety of artifacts in her arsenal: a mortar, a broom, an invisibility cloak, and running boots.
Fairy tales describe Baba Yaga's habitat like this: a high fence made of human bones around the hut, there are skulls on the fence, a human leg plays the role of a bolt, and the lock is a mouth with sharp teeth. The sorceress herself is half-blind, with metal teeth and a bone leg.
An evil and insidious witch is always trying to lure someone into her house, roast babies in the oven and tries to kill good fellows.
In fact, such an image is far from unique and is found not only in Slavic, but also in Scandinavian, Turkic and Iranian mythology. There is even a similar witch in African legends.
However, should we believe the image that fairy tales formed for us in childhood? Everything becomes a little clearer if we remember ancient society and matriarchy. In ancient times, in order to become an adult, it was necessary to master certain skills and prove that a person really mastered them.
If we talk about matriarchy, then such a decision (whether a person has become an adult or not) is made by a woman. Matriarchy ended, but the function of the main woman remained. It is quite logical to assume that such women henceforth became priestesses who were forced to go into the forests.
With the end of matriarchy, the priestesses become hermits and already live separately from other people. They also continued to experience “pretenders for adulthood.”
Have you ever wondered what situations fairy tales describe if the main character is a man? Being captured by a witch, he must complete some tasks. In fact, they were quite simple; to pass the test you had to catch someone, bring something, chop wood, defeat someone.
Couldn’t a man prove in this way that he was accomplished as a warrior, as a person capable of finding food for himself and protecting his future wife and clan?
If we talk about the women found in such fairy tales, they are mainly princesses, special beauties and needlewomen. If we look at these girls, we will understand that it was precisely such women who could become the wives of princes, or who themselves aspired to some significant role in society.
Ordinary relatives clearly could not test such applicants. It was the senior priestess who had to do this. In this case, the tasks assigned by Baba Yaga were also natural: cook, sew, clean.
Thus, we can come to the conclusion that Baba Yaga really existed. However, this was a collective image of all those priestesses whose goal was to help people and not harm.
Baba Yaga - caring bereginsa
Despite the fact that such a character seems uncomplicated and simple, there are other theories that describe this heroine of Slavic myths from a completely different perspective.
According to one of them, this woman was a caring and wise guardian, and the name Yaga is a transformed word “Yashka”, that is, “lizard”, the progenitor of all things that surround us. Nowadays, a word close to this is known - “ancestor”. According to this version, this witch is considered the ancestor.
There is a legend that previously the sorceress was a good witch, a bereginya. When Christianity was radically adopted in Rus', they tried in every possible way to spoil and destroy everything that was good, bright and pure that had ever ennobled paganism.
Therefore, the beregins who helped people were attributed negative traits: disgusting appearance, evil intentions. Therefore, we can assume that initially Baba Yaga among the Slavs was a kind character, caring and undoubtedly very important.
For example, do you remember that the evil old woman from fairy tales tried to bake babies? If you look deep into this ritual, you can discover amazing details. In ancient times, the ritual of baking children was widespread. This was done for both magical and practical purposes. It is worth noting that this ritual was popular even until the beginning of the 20th century.
The ritual of baking a child was resorted to if the baby was frail, premature, had rickets, atrophy and similar diseases. This ritual is performed by a grandmother-healer. The baby was coated with dough, placed on a shovel and briefly put into the melted stove three times. Now you can see the fairy tale in a different light, in which Baba Yaga tried to save the child and help him get stronger.
There was also an opinion that in this way you can burn away all the diseases that come out into the street with smoke through the chimney, and the baked child will become healthy and strong.
What is known about the witch's habitat? Legs of the hut in which he lived fairy tale character, called “chicken legs”. Various decodings indicate that this can be understood as “legs, supports of the kuren,” which were often used in the construction of the hut.
Is Baba Yaga actually the goddess Makosh?
The above theories regarding the origin of Baba Yaga are far from the only ones. If we turn to Slavic myths, we will recognize another, very strange and seemingly unreal legend.
According to her, Baba Yaga is far from a terrifying witch who lives in a remote hut in a dark forest. A legendary character, a dark witch and the wife of Veles himself. This prompts the idea that, perhaps, behind the appearance of Baba Yaga there is actually hiding, who was the wife.
As you know, Makosh was one of the central figures in Slavic myths; she was especially popular among female representatives. She was considered the deity of luck, fertility and grace.
A sorceress living between two worlds
Since Yaga lived for a long time on the outskirts of the forest (on the border between the world of people and the dark forest - the world of the dead), this influenced her future fate. She lived all the time on the border between reality and reality.
Perhaps that is why ordinary people attributed to her the traits of a sorceress who lives between two worlds. This information explains that the witch has a bone leg, because it is part of the afterlife. In this case, Baba Yaga is like the living dead.
Often, when describing the image of this character in ancient Slavic mythology, people mentioned that she has iron teeth. This indicates that Baba Yaga cannot be called a creature from Navi with one hundred percent certainty. This is due to the fact that such a metal has long served as one of the main weapons against dark forces, along with silver.
However, she also cannot be considered among the living, since she can speak with plants, animals, commands the elements, and has various magical attributes in her arsenal.
Many of us became acquainted with Baba Yaga in our cradle, when Afanasyev’s “Russian Fairy Tales” were read to us. The evil, big-nosed old woman in rags is known to us from children's cartoons and movies. In her adult life, Baba Yaga has not disappeared from us, she just powdered herself, dressed up and put glasses on her nose. Let's figure out why she is in our lives, why she has a bone leg and what she wants when she screams and nags us.
1. Baba Yaga
“Near this house there was a dense forest, and in the forest in a clearing there was a hut, and in the hut lived Baba Yaga; She didn’t let anyone near her and ate people like chickens.”
Baba Yaga still lives today on the outskirts of the forest in a hut on chicken legs, which is sometimes also “propped up with a pie” and “covered with a pancake.” The house is surrounded by ancient trees near a forest lake, surrounded by a fence made of human bones. In her yard live guides of souls to the afterlife, dogs, and prophetic birds-predictors, crows. Baba Yaga is always busy with something, constantly cooking something in her alchemical oven. And if it goes out into the world, it appears out of nowhere and doesn’t go anywhere without witchcraft. In one of the fairy tales, her appearance before the heroes looks like this: “Suddenly it became clouded and clouded, green appeared in the eyes - the earth became a navel, from under the earth a stone, from under a stone Baba Yaga, a bone leg, riding on an iron mortar, an iron pusher he’s driving, the dog is babbling behind him.” Baba Yaga herself is a kind of couple to Koshchei the Immortal - they are either an elderly divorced couple, or brother and sister, or just bosom friends. The name Yaga is related to the Polish jedza and Czech jezinka - “forest woman”: something like the female hypostasis of Leshy with the function of controlling snakes. There is an opinion that this woman was the wife of the Serpent from under the Kalinov Bridge, with whom the heroes endlessly fought. And in the Turkic languages there is the spirit of the ancestors “babai aga” (translated as “old grandfather”), consonant with Yaga. Baba Yaga is the deity of our chthonic ancestors.
First conclusion. Don’t be surprised when an old witch or goblin looks at you from the mirror in the morning: this ancient chthon is calling you from the depths of the collective unconscious to adventure towards your own integrity.
2. Chthonic creature
Baba Yaga is invariably associated with the forest. The forest, like the ocean, personifies the human unconscious, the inner lunar kingdom. The forest is limitless in relation to a person, you can get lost in it, you can live in it, or you can die in it. The Greek goddess of the moon Diana lived in the forests, away from the eyes of mortals, where she indulged in unbridled hunting. One day, a hunter saw Diana and her maiden hunting retinue swimming in a forest lake. This sight is not intended for the eyes of mortals, so Diana, noticing the hunter, set his own dogs on him and they tore him to pieces. The secret of the forest is hidden from people, and a meeting between a person and the bearer of this secret is usually fraught with death. The same idea is expressed in the first part of Goethe’s Faust: having evoked the chthonic spirit of the Earth, the scientist cannot even look in its direction. The embodied nature turns out to be terrible and causes panic in a mere mortal. The trees in the forest do not calm down for a minute, they constantly whisper something and communicate with each other - only an ordinary person cannot understand the whisper of the unconscious, so the hero who decides to go into the thick of the dark side will be given magical assistants at the checkpoint of the grandmother's hut. But when she is not helping young heroes make their way through another world, Baba Yaga steals and eats children and young people.
Second conclusion. When you see an evil fury in front of you, spraying poisonous saliva, remember: this is her pagan nature speaking. Don’t try to shout down the demoniac: the whole other world is on her side. If you have something to look for in her, be patient, smile and praise her home, outfit and social skills. You will get yours. If you just happened to pass by, run, because otherwise you will die in a meaningless fight with chthon.
3. The dual nature of Baba Yaga
Living on the border with the unconscious (or the afterlife), Yaga herself belongs to two worlds at the same time: one leg is ordinary, and the other is bone, dead. Baba Yaga does not always personify evil; in fairy tales she has several faces. Yaga the Warrior, Yaga the Kidnapper and Yaga the Giver are three hypostases in which she, respectively, threatens the hero, takes something from him and gives something to him. You can fall into the clutches of Baba Yaga in two ways: through your own carelessness or just like that. Once upon a time there lived a man who knew no evil. He began to wonder what kind of dashing thing everyone was talking about? I went to look for the dashing man, met the same onlooker, and the two of them ended up with Baba Yaga. She immediately fried and ate the onlooker, and the hero was eventually able to escape only after losing a finger. Then he walks around and shows his mutilated hand to his fellow villagers: he took a dashing sip. Baba Yaga teaches fools what they ask. Nature kills insolent people who do not know what they want, but are looking for a meeting with its forces. Baba Yaga often appears in the lives of characters as an evil fate. It seems as if the heroes are completely innocent of anything: here is a boy fishing on a lake, all around is peace and quiet, and then angry birds fly in, as in the Hitchcock film of the same name, and take him straight to the hut of the old patroness of the mysteries, who gathers tightly for him have lunch. The boy did not have time to do anything for which he should be punished, it was simply his time to become an adult and undergo initiation.
Third conclusion. Experience shows that you shouldn’t look for crazy women: those who come to them with common sense will die from it, and the internal chaos will grow so that mermaids will appear in it - and you will be fit only for spring plowing and sleeping on the stove nine months a year . Both young and mature Baba Yaga will find you on her own: without putting any effort into this hurricane in your life, you can, with a clear conscience, try to carry your innocence through the madness of this situation. If you remain persistent, you will receive the princess when the villain surrenders.
4. Initiation
The initiation rite always involves the symbolic death of the old personality of the initiate, followed by rebirth in a new capacity, most often with a new name. Nowadays, a kind of initiation is when a teenager receives a passport and identification code: a person acquires a mystical name, in our case a serial number, and becomes a full member of the tribe. In ancient times, initiations were treated more harshly: in order to receive a passport-tattoo, a young man had to pass a serious exam - both physical and psychological. Often during this examination the young man was injured, and in some tribes, in order to achieve the right to be a husband, the young man had to undergo the rite of circumcision. To receive something, you must first give.
Baba Yaga is traditionally considered a priestess who initiates young people into adulthood. That is why she threatens children, single young men and unmarried girls: those who have not yet turned into full-fledged people. A hero setting off on a journey to the other world must allow Baba Yaga to steam himself in a bathhouse not for pleasure at all: the ritual washing of the deceased is an indispensable attribute of moving to the next world. And the request to feed is not idle hunger, but an imitation of a wake with ritual dishes: pancakes, peas and kutya. The very image of Yaga and her home - lying in a hut without windows and without doors on the stove, and her nose has grown into the ceiling - resembles a dead man in a coffin.
In ancient times, a special hut was built in the forest, in which the initiation ceremony for boys took place. The father took his son to the forest and left him alone so that he could find this initiation hut on his own. In it, the boy faced severe trials, after which he received the status of an initiate. “The visible symbol of such initiation is the cutting of the skin of the back from the neck down. Sometimes belts were passed under the skin of the back and chest, by which the boys were suspended.” Initiation is always associated with the experience of death, and therefore its indispensable attribute is mortal fear. At initiation ceremonies, they explain to a teenager that life is serious, at every opportunity it strives to tear off your skin or burn you in an oven, so remember about this hut in the forest and that Baba Yaga can appear from under a stone any time.
If Yaga is not tearing the skin off the backs of the subjects “for the belt,” then she is busy putting children in a ladle to fry them in the oven. Her figure is related to the folk grandmothers-midwives, who could coat a premature baby with dough and stick it into a warm oven on a bread shovel, symbolizing a woman’s womb, so that the baby would “arrive” like a pie.
Fourth conclusion. If you're thirty and you're still a half-baked pie, it's time to go on a baking adventure. Go to a nature reserve, work as a watchman, forester or reservoir caretaker. Let your beard grow, take a walk at night, and study Manly Palmer Hall's Encyclopedia of Symbols. When something happens, after which you crap the devil, you can return home: from now on, everyone will obey you without hitting the table with your fist.
5. Hut
The hut is not just hidden in a magical forest - until the hero utters the magic words, it does not appear before him in its true form. Initially, the hut faces the hero with its back and its front with the forest, and he must correctly ask it to turn around. Perhaps this is a clue to the sexual context of initiation? Wooden house, windows and doorways are traditional symbols of the female womb. To get inside the hut, you need to “know the magic of opening doors,” know a special spell, the magic of gestures (the hero sprinkles the doors of the hut with water), and also appease the animals guarding Yaga’s house. For a modern young man, even in this age information technologies one should not neglect ancient tales about monsters waiting for him on the threshold of sweet love. Male initiation was a symbol of entering the age of puberty - after it a man could kill and love. The art of murder was taught by men, and the wisdom of love by women. There is an opinion that the “witch” who was involved in initiations lived alone, away from the villages, like a temple priestess. A hut full of dangers with a stove in which you can burn to the ground is the personification of the fears of the so-called vagina dentata - a toothy womb that needs to be tamed in different fairy tales in different ways, sometimes by force, sometimes by cunning, sometimes by affection.
The hut, like the mystical land of Shambhala or the White Lodge in David Lynch's Twin Peaks, is revealed only to the right person at the right time. You can’t just search the forest and find a hut - you have to be a fool, a hero, or, at worst, a child, in order to get an interview with Baba Yaga: all three are united by spontaneity and determination, the absence of cowardice and doubt. Or you may find yourself in this cursed place by the will of evil fate. The same “Twin Peaks” mentions “a house in the forest where music is always playing,” and in Baba Yaga’s house the hero often hears the magic harp playing. In this case, the boy becomes like Odysseus, Baba Yaga and her magical jazz band turn into sirens, and the forest becomes the sea along which the hero returns home.
Fifth conclusion. There are many doors in the world. Not all of them can be opened with keys, and even strength and assertiveness will not always help. With a pure heart and a savvy mind, you will discover everything you need and get where you need to go.
6. Yaga's test and reward
The hero who gets to Baba Yaga can defeat her only by appealing to the natural instinct of the grandmother. When the evil Yaga comes out to meet the young man and is about to eat him, he is not at a loss and in response asks him to feed him - they say, what kind of conversation is there on an empty stomach? “What a fool I am, I began to ask the hungry and the cold,” Baba Yaga herself is happy to feed the daring guest. As soon as the hero appeals to matriarchal values and reminds Yaga of her feminine nature, she immediately changes her attitude. The hero was not put off by Yaga's appearance, her shrunken leg and old unpleasant face. He did not disdain her otherworldly food - only in a few fairy tales the hero pretends to eat and throws food on the floor, mostly he is really happy with the treat. After the meal, the satisfied mistress of the hut asks the young man about this and that, additionally testing him on the topic of “friend or foe,” and then rewards him with a gift. Basically, the mystical old woman gives the young man a magical horse, a strong stallion. The horse in Slavic culture was both a symbol of fertility and a connection between worlds, and therefore played an important role in the wedding ceremony (which was in many ways similar to the funeral ceremony). So the horse foreshadowed the young man’s imminent marriage, and in one of the fairy tales Yaga gives the hero a horse so that he can defeat Koshchei the Immortal. Alternatively, he could get one of Yaga’s daughters as a reward, but history is silent about how the relationship with the bone-legged mother-in-law develops. In any case, the old woman personifies the female maternal principle in its pagan form: the power of Mother Nature, which nourishes and destroys, rewarding only those who have their own power.
Sixth conclusion. When you meet a witch, remember: behind her toothy, screaming face lies a motherly nature. There is nothing more cunning and simpler than to reason with the old hag with your own vulnerability. Don’t turn your nose up, don’t shy away from what seems scary, but calls to you. Life, like nature, can be scary, but if it doesn’t kill you, it means it most likely loves you - so work on reciprocity.
7. Baba Yaga and the red maidens
If Baba Yaga is in a bad mood, she steals children and rapes men. But basically she lives an ordinary old woman’s life - during the day she flies into the forest, in the evening she has a hearty dinner and goes to bed on the stove, sometimes she fights with harmful neighbors. But, in general, he doesn’t bother anyone and peacefully manages the forest. Usually she has several daughters, whom she keeps in a kind of slavery. How else can one explain that as soon as the young man gets into the hut with the intention of killing Yaga, her daughters are right there with instructions on how to properly cut off their mother’s head. As a rule, after the murder of the old villainess, the wedding of all her daughters follows, and the main character invariably gets the youngest and most beautiful daughter. The young man lives more peacefully with his dead mother-in-law, but it is not clear what to do with Grandma’s genes? Apparently, having a dashing husband, who often has a half-animal nature, somehow balances the problem of the legacy of the bone leg. Women's initiation takes place with less adventure than men's, and is more connected with the ability to do needlework, homework and humility. Vasilisa the Beautiful manages to escape from Yaga’s captivity only by proving that she is a skilled housewife: “When I leave tomorrow, look, clean the yard, sweep the hut, cook dinner, prepare the laundry, and go to the bin, take a quarter of the wheat and clean it from nigella." In many fairy tales, in order to receive the blessing of a wife from Baba Yaga, a girl needs to unquestioningly fulfill all her demands for several days, carry an old woman on her hump, for example. Or pound water in a mortar until exhaustion: this action is a symbol of the interaction of the masculine and feminine principles and the birth of a new life.
Seventh conclusion. If you intend to get married, remember that there is no one for you best friend before the wedding and the worst rival after - than the mother-in-law. If, in the status of a young man, Yaga's mother-in-law, with proper polite and humble treatment, reveals all the control buttons for her future wife, then after the wedding she will become the button for destroying your marriage. Therefore, the mother-in-law must be metaphorically destroyed: for this, the hero has a treasure sword, a symbol of male strength and a powerful mind.
She ran to a deep abyss, picked up a cast-iron board and disappeared underground.
Ashikhmina Ekaterina
Baba Yaga
Summary of the myth
Baba Yaga- in Slavic mythology, an old forest sorceress, a witch. According to the fairy tales of the Eastern and Western Slavs, Baba Yaga lives in the forest in a “hut on chicken legs”, devours people; the fence around the hut is made of human bones, on the fence there are skulls, instead of a bolt there is a human leg, instead of locks there are hands, instead of a lock there is a mouth with sharp teeth. Thanks to the folk epic, the image of Baba Yaga has come down to us in many myths and legends, the way our ancestors painted it.
One of the many fairy tales about Baba Yaga tells us about a peasant family in which Grandfather became a widower and married another wife. He left behind a daughter from his first wife. The evil stepmother disliked her stepdaughter and decided to get rid of her. When her husband left, her stepmother sent her to her aunt for a thread and a needle. And this aunt was Baba Yaga, “the bone leg.” But the girl was not stupid, she sensed something was wrong, and first went to her dear aunt, who told her what to do and gave her a ribbon - for the birch tree, butter for the gate, bread - for the dogs, meat - for the cat. The girl came to Baba Yaga, she made her weave, and ordered her worker to heat the bathhouse and wash the girl so that she could eat her for breakfast. The girl realized what was happening, she was sitting there, neither alive nor dead. She kindly asked the worker to let her go and give her a handkerchief. Then the cat decided to attack her, but the girl fed him some meat. In gratitude, he helped her escape and gave her a magic comb and towel.
The girl took a towel and a comb and ran. The dogs wanted to tear her apart, but then she threw them some bread, and they let the girl through. The gates wanted to slam shut, but she poured oil under their heels, and they let the girl through. Birch wanted to quilt her eyes, but she tied it with a ribbon, and she let the girl through. Having discovered that the girl had run away, Baba Yaga became angry with her servants. They answered her by saying that no one had ever treated them as kindly as this girl.
Baba Yaga, the bone leg, quickly sat down in the mortar and set off in pursuit of the girl.
And the girl bowed her ear to the ground and heard that Baba Yaga was chasing and was about to overtake her: she took and threw the towel - the river became so wide, wide! Baba Yaga came to the river and gnashed her teeth in anger, returned home, gathered her bulls and drove them to the river. The bulls drank the entire river clean. And again Baba Yaga set off in pursuit.
The girl bent her ear to the ground and heard that Baba Yaga was already close: she threw her comb - a forest appeared, so dense and dense! Baba Yaga began to gnaw at it, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not gnaw through it and returned back. When the grandfather returned home and heard his daughter’s story, he became angry with his wife and drove her out of the house, and he himself
As a girl I began to live and live and make good things.
Images and symbols of myth
The image of Baba Yaga in fairy tales is made up of various details.
Firstly, the Yaga-giver, to whom the hero comes. She questions the hero (or heroine), hands over a horse and rich gifts.
Secondly, the kidnapping yaga carries off the children whom she is trying to fry (followed by escape and rescue).
Thirdly, the warrior yaga flies to the heroes’ hut, fights with them, and sometimes punishes them (cutting the belt from their back).
Folklore has always sought to depict the mistress of the hut on chicken legs, certainly in an ugly form, as they usually imagined evil spirits to be. Either a horn, or a huge nose to the ceiling, drooping breasts to the waist, blindness, or even an animal sense of smell.
The most striking sign of Baba Yaga is her bone leg. Less often in fairy tales the golden leg is mentioned. In the ancient beliefs of the peoples who spoke Indo-European languages, the living soul of a person was contained in the foot. Its container was a special small navya bone. If the leg is not living, but bone or gold, then before us is no longer a person, but only a spirit or “nav”. Nav, according to Slavic beliefs, is the soul of an ancestor, a deceased person. Baba Yaga was thus presented as a creature of the afterlife, a mediator between the kingdom of the living and the dead, a mythological character devoid of a living soul.
A stupa in Slavic mythology is a transport of dead, inanimate characters. In the funeral rites of ancient Europeans, a mortar and pestle were placed in graves 4 thousand years ago. The broom or pestle characteristic of Baba Yaga serves as a kind of movement stimulator. Yaga hurries with a pestle in flight and covers her tracks with a broom.
The broom is an object directly associated with the feminine principle, as well as with the magic of cleansing power in the minds of the ancients. For example, according to ancient tradition, at a funeral the entire path from the house to the grave had to be swept with a broom. Otherwise, the deceased will find his way home from the churchyard, return, and start harming people.
No less important is the hut on chicken legs. In popular fantasy, it was modeled after a Slavic graveyard, a small house of the dead. The house was placed on pillar supports. In fairy tales they are presented as chicken legs, also not by chance. Chicken is a sacred animal, an indispensable attribute of many magical rituals. The Slavs placed the ashes of the deceased in the house of the dead. The coffin itself, the house or graveyard of such houses was presented as a window, a hole into the world of the dead, a means of passage into the underworld. That's why fairy tale hero constantly comes to the hut on chicken legs, that is, he finds himself on the verge of life and death.
In fairy tales, Baba Yaga can live in various places. Most often in a dense forest. Yaga's other abode is located beyond the fiery river, behind the Kalinov Bridge. The river of fire is the border between the “white light” and the afterlife. Baba Yaga is like a border guard, guarding the passage to a magical land. It was no coincidence that the Kalinov Bridge also ended up in our fairy tales. The bridge, according to the beliefs of the ancient Indo-Europeans, separates the real and magical worlds. Only a righteous person can walk along it in order to get into the kingdom of God and not perish in hell. And viburnum berries are stored under the snow for a long time. Therefore, the viburnum bush in the fantasies of ancestors seemed to connect the annual cycles of nature’s reproductive life (spring, summer, autumn) and its temporary death (winter).
Communicative means of creating images and symbols
The image of Baba Yaga is associated with legends about the hero’s transition to the other world (the Thirtieth 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 variant of the image of a fairy-tale old woman can be considered the ittarma dolls dressed in fur clothes, which are still installed today in cult huts on supports.
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. 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.
The prototype of Baba Yaga could have been 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.
Many fairy tales that have survived to this day reveal to us the full image of Baba Yaga. These are works such as: “Geese-swans », « Princess Frog », « Vasilisa the Beautiful », « Marya Morevna », « Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin », « Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what ». Most of them were filmed. More often than others, the role of Baba Yaga was played by Georgy Millyar.
The image of Baba Yaga was widely used by authors of modern literary fairy tales- for example, Eduard Uspensky in the story “Down the magic river" The childhood and youth of Baba Yaga in modern literature are first encountered in the story “Lukomorye” by A. Alaverdiev. Later, Alexei Gravitsky’s story “Berry”, V. Kachan’s novel “The Youth of Baba Yaga”, M. Vishnevetskaya’s novel “Kashchei and Yaga, or Heavenly Apples”, etc. were written.
Social significance of the myth
Baba Yaga is not only one of the most popular characters in Slavic mythology, but also the most charismatic; she is perhaps the most popular woman of all the many magical heroines of Russian fairy tales. She is traditionally associated with evil spirits, appearing in the image of an evil witch, but often we see how she helps good fellows in search of the princess, and does this selflessly.
Baba Yaga is the keeper of various magical crafts. Vasilisa the Beautiful learned how to weave and sew superbly from her. Baba Yaga's character is strict. He will define the task in the evening and then check whether it has been completed. Carelessness and laziness cannot be tolerated - he will punish. And the fact that her lessons are very difficult, excuse me, because her students are not ordinary ones - they are all young sorceresses. Therefore, in our fairy tales, in the image of Baba Yaga, the qualities of a positive and negative character seem to be intertwined.
In childhood, every child has heard at least once the fairy tale about Baba Yaga and remembers how their parents frightened them with it when the child did something wrong or disobeyed his elders. Having matured, we realize the full flavor of this mythical character.
At children's matinees or at Russian festivities dedicated to any holiday, one cannot do without such a bright hero as Baba Yaga. It will twist the plot of any action, test the brave and strong in battle, and, of course, generously reward the worthy.
“I will pray, I will bow to Baba Yaga and her daughters. Oh, you, Yaga Baba’s daughters, dry the servant of God Nastasia to me, a good fellow, with brooms, notice all the traces, knock with sticks, light the fire in the copper ovens so that she can bake That’s how Nastya’s love glowed for me, like a fiery copper furnace, at every time, at every hour.” Ancient love spell
