Top Ten Things to Know About Baba Yaga the Witch
Joy Preble
Author of the DREAMING ANASTASIA series, Sourcebooks
(DREAMING ANASTASIA, 2009; HAUNTED, 2011; ANASTASIA FOREVER, 2012)
- She is the most
famous witch in Russian fairy tales/folklore. In most (maybe all) Slavic languages,
‘Baba’ means ‘old woman.’ The ‘Yaga’ is also from Slavic roots, but it’s a
bit more varied in the stories of its etymology. But the easiest way to
think of her name is Grandma Yaga. In the DREAMING series, I have
Anastasia refer to her as Auntie Yaga, which I thought an interesting
little twist. I imagined the witch as asking her captive Anastasia to call
her this, perhaps as a joke, perhaps to give Anastasia the sense that the
Baba Yaga is gentle, perhaps even benign, which couldn’t be farther from
the truth!
- Many authors
have used her in their stories—from picture books like Babushka Baba Yaga
by Patricia Polacco to genre fiction by Orson Scott Card and Neil Gaiman.
There’s even a Buffy the Vampire Slayer novelization with Baba Yaga in it!
She’s in movies, cartoons, anime… you name it and the old girl has
appeared in it! My books are in very good company.
- Baba Yaga lives
in a hut that stands on chicken legs so that it can help her evade her
enemies. (This is such a great visual that it’s been taken over in other
stories too. If you’ve seen the anime film, Howl’s Moving Castle, Howl’s
house also runs around on chicken legs! This is the folklore that image
comes from) In some stories, including mine, pikes with the skulls of her enemies
surround her house like a fence. Cool, huh? And when she travels, she rides in a
huge mortar (that big black that you use to grind spices… those big black
bowls they put guacamole in sometimes look like it, too!) and she stirs
the air with a huge pestle. (That’s the grinding tool)
- The idea of
‘grinding’ from that pestle in #3 connects to another fact about Baba
Yaga: her forest is a place of change and transformation. Once you enter
her forest, you will not come out the same… even if you survive. Baba Yaga
is all about duality both in appearance and behavior. Like all strong women, she’s complex.
She may use her considerable power for good. Or she may grind your bones
and stick your head on her fence. She’s mercurial and powerful and she
can’t quite be defined. I found this particularly fascinating in terms of
women and power, which is definitely a motif that runs throughout the
series. Societies tend to marginalize old women, to define them by beauty
lost, to de-sexualize them. But Baba Yaga won’t stand for that and I love
that about her. I thought about this a lot in building her backstory,
which continues in ANASTASIA FOREVER. I wanted to know exactly how she
became who she is when Anne meets her. Exactly why she agreed to protect
Anastasia for the Brotherhood. And I loved the complexity of what
developed from that!
5.
Lots of people have written amazing articles
about Baba Yaga! A good place to start if you want to read more is here: http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrBabaYaga.html
- Physically, Baba
Yaga is very tall. She has iron teeth and a huge nose and these enormous
removable hands that detach from her body to do her bidding. I use all of
these physical factors in my series.
- In many Baba
Yaga tales, she has three horsemen who serve and protect her. Each rides a
different color horse – one black, one red, and one white, reflecting
different times of the day.
- In most of the
folktales, Baba Yaga has boundaries that she cannot cross. Although I do
have her appearing in Anne’s real world, this is still a factor in the
DREAMING series, both literally with a river that runs through her forest
as well as metaphorically in terms of Anne. There is only so much Baba
Yaga can tell Anne. The rest Anne must figure out on her own terms.
- In her stories, she is never defeated.
Ever. She always comes back!
- And here is how
I envisioned Anastasia first talking about Baba Yaga, my version of the
Vasilisa story that used in DREAMING ANASTASIA:
"In
the story, there was a girl. Her name was Vasilisa, and she was very beautiful.
Her parents loved her. Her life was good. But things changed. Her mother died.
Her father remarried. And the new wife - well, she wasn't so fond of Vasilisa.
So she sent her to the hut of the fearsome witch Baba Yaga to fetch some light
for their cabin. And that was supposed to be that. For no one returned from
Baba Yaga's. But Vasilisa had the doll her dying mother gave her. And the doll-
because this was a fairy tale and so dolls could talk - told her what to do.
Helped her get that light she came for and escape. And when Vasilisa returned
home, that same light burned so brightly that it killed the wicked stepmother
who sent Vasilisa to that horrible place. Vasilisa remained unharmed. She
married a handsome prince. And lived happily ever after.
When
I listened to my mother tell the story, I would pretend I was Vasilisa the
Brave. In my imagination, I heeded the advice of the doll. I outwitted the evil
Baba Yaga, the fearsome witch who kept her enemies' heads on pikes outside her
hut. Who rode the skies in her mortar and howled to the heavens and skittered
about on bony legs. Who ate up lost little girls with her iron teeth.
But
the story was not as I imagined...."
You can find Joy Preble:
Interesting character! Thanks for sharing!
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