Baba Yaga<o:p></o:p>

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In Russian folklore there are many stories of Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch with iron teeth.

"Baba" means "grandmother" or "wise old woman." Jaga or Yaga is believed to mean "horror", "wrath", or "snake".

Baba Yaga's name shows her duality. She is at once a grumpy old hag and also the giver of good fortune. This duality might remind someone of the two-faced Roman god Janus who represents past and future. Baba Yaga is the giver of gifts or adulthood and also the giver of death. I personally think that by telling young kids fairy tales of Baba Yaga, Slavic parents teach them not to judge a book by its cover, that everything has two sides to it, that people aren't always pure nor always evil.

Baba Yaga is also known as Baba Yaga Boney Legs, because, in spite of a ferocious appetite, she is as thin as a skeleton. In Russian that's: “Baba Yaga Kostianaya Noga�? She is pictured as a hag, an ugly woman with long gray hair.

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Not being a boringly-conventional witch, she does not wear a hat, and has never been seen on a broomstick. She travels perched in a large mortar with her knees almost touching her chin, and pushes herself across the forest floor with a pestle.

She can also fly through the air in the same manner. Being a somewhat secretive lady, she sweeps away all traces of herself with a broom made of silver birch.

Baba Yaga lives in a hut deep in the forest. Her hut seems to have a personality of its own and can move about on its extra-large chicken legs. Usually the hut is either spinning around as it moves through the forest or stands at rest with its back to the visitor. The windows of the hut seem to serve as eyes.

All the while it is spinning round, it emits blood-curdling screeches and will only come to a halt, amid much creaking and groaning, when a secret incantation is said. When it stops, it turns to face the visitor and lowers itself down on its chicken legs, throwing open the door with a loud crash. The hut is sometimes surrounded by a fence made of bones, which helps to keep out intruders! The fence is topped with skulls whose blazing eye sockets illuminate the darkness.

When a visitor enters her hut, (not too often) Baba Yaga asks them whether they came of their own free will, or whether they were sent. (One answer is the right one!)

Thankfully, she appears to have no power over the pure of heart, such as Vasilisa (popular heroine of Russian folktales, a beautiful and truly nice girl) and those of us who are 'blessed' (protected by the power of love, virtue, or a mother's blessing.)

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Baba Yaga rules over the elements. Her faithful servants are the White Horseman, the Red Horseman and the Black Horseman. When Vasilissa asks her who these mysterious horsemen are, she replies: 'My Bright Dawn, my Red Sun and my Dark Midnight.' Amongst her other servants, are three bodiless and somewhat menacing pairs of hands, which appear out of thin air to do her bidding. She calls them "my soul friends."

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Although she is mostly portrayed as a terrifying old crone, Baba Yaga can also play the role of a helper and wise woman. The Earth Mother, like all forces of nature, though often wild and untamed, can also be kind. In her guise as wise hag, she sometimes gives advice and magical gifts to heroes and the pure of heart. The hero or heroine of the story often enters the crone's domain searching for wisdom, knowledge and truth. She is all-knowing, all seeing and all-revealing to those who would dare to ask. As can be seen in numerous tales, she either appears as a helper or as an enemy. It all depends on how one (almost always a child-youth) approaches her. If the child-youth approaches Baba Yaga with disrespect, she will usually bake them in her oven or turn them into stone. Some believe that she may have ruled over symbolic death, the initiation into adulthood when children let go of their playthings and are born anew as adults and responsible members of society. With stories portraying Baba Yaga in both the “bad�?and the “good�?aspect, Slavic parents teach their kids that not everything is what it seems and that the outcome of the situation is largely dependent on you and your attitude.

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In the story of Wassilissa the Beautiful told by Post Wheeler, we see Wassilissa entering the hut of Baba Yaga as a girl and leaving as a young woman, eligible for marriage. We are also introduced to Baba Yaga's three servants: a white knight (bright morning), a black knight (dark night), and a red knight (the day's red sun). (See Iron John by Robert Bly.)

The home of Baba Yaga is at once a cemetary and a place for divinatory magick. This makes her, many believe, an ancient goddess of the underworld. She is said to be a guardian spirit of the fountain of the Waters of Life and of Death. Baba Yaga is the Arch-Crone, the Goddess of Wisdom and Death, the Bone Mother. Wild and untamable, she is a nature spirit bringing wisdom and death of ego, and through death, rebirth.

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Encyclopedia Mythica describes her this way:<o:p></o:p>

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In a number of East European myths, a Baba Yaga (there are more than one) is a cannibalistic witch who lives in a hut on the edge of the forest. The hut stands on chicken legs and will only lower itself after Baba Yaga said a certain rhyme. A picket fence surrounds the hut and she places the skulls of her victims on it. For transportation Baba Yaga uses a giant mortar which she drives at high speed across the forest floor by steering the pestle with her right hand and sweeping away all traces of her passage with a broom in her left hand. A host of spirits often follows her.

Baba Yaga is often represented as a little, ugly, old woman with a huge and distorted nose and long teeth. She is also called Jezi-Baba or Baba Yaga Kostianaya Noga ("bone-legs"), referring to the fact that she is rather skinny. She is regarded as the devil's own grandmother.

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In old Hungarian folklore, Baba ("old woman") was originally a good fairy but was later degraded to a witch. A Baba Yaga is a hard bargainer, and will threaten to eat those who do not fulfil their part of an agreement.