Also called Baba Jaga, Ježibaba, Grandmother Bony-Legs.
The tale
Baba Yaga lives deep in the forest in a hut that turns on chicken legs, and she flies in a mortar, steering with the pestle and sweeping away her tracks with a broom. In the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, collected by Afanasyev, a cruel stepmother sends the girl to the witch for fire. Baba Yaga sets her impossible chores, which she finishes with the help of a little doll her dying mother gave her. When Vasilisa asks only about the white, red and black horsemen and not about the hands in the house, the witch lets her go with a glowing skull that burns the wicked stepfamily to ash.
When they are met
- when you face a hard test
- at the turn of the year into winter
- at dusk, when the black horseman rides
Staying on their good side
- courtesy and a plain answer when she questions you
- honest hard work, done without complaint
- food and a bath offered to a weary traveller, as the tales demand
- keeping your own counsel about what you saw
Honouring them, or keeping safe
- Read Vasilisa the Beautiful aloud on a winter evening and think about what you are being tested on.
- Take on a neglected household chore and do it thoroughly, as Vasilisa did in the hut.
- Keep a small doll or token that stands for your intuition, the way Vasilisa kept her mother's doll.
- Before a big decision, ask yourself only the questions you truly need answered, as she warns against asking too much.
What their tales teach
- finding courage for an ordeal
- trusting your intuition
- growing up and leaving old fears behind
- knowing when not to ask too many questions
Symbols
- a hut on chicken legs
- a mortar, pestle and broom
- a fence of bones topped with glowing skulls
- the three horsemen of dawn, day and night
Best known from Aleksandr Afanasyev's 19th-century collection of Russian tales; she can be a villain or a grim helper, depending on the story.
More Slavic folklore
- Domovoi The grandfather who lives behind the stove
- Leshy The master of the forest
- Rusalka The maiden of river and birch
- Kikimora The spinner in the dark corner
- Koschei the Deathless The sorcerer whose death is hidden
- Kostroma The straw maiden of spring and summer
- Dodola The rain-bringing girl of summer
- Kolyada The spirit of midwinter carolling