Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the Woods - (Slavic Folklore Explained)

if you go down to the woods today you're sure for a big surprise if you go down to the woods today you'd better go in disguise for every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain because today is the day that teddy bears have their picnic except there are no teddy bears in this forest and the early picnic is you and your children deep inside the center of this forest you'll find a clearing a small patch of land separate from the rest marked by a picket fence made of human bones there you will find the hags hut where there is a phrase you need in order to enter turn your back to the forest your front to me if your children are indeed alive then I wish you the best of luck for this is her forest if you are too late then it doesn't matter because very few ever return and those who do never go back and they never speak of what they saw at least most of them some foolishly believe that they can help others before she comes back to finish what she started whereas the rest believe what they saw wasn't real the boogeyman is just a story told to scare children and she is no different baba Yaga is just the name or is it most of us remember those stories we were told as children that attempted to scare us into behaving ourselves whether it was the boogeyman a Christmas demon or a cannibalistic witch in the woods they all had the same intention today we are indeed diving back into the wonderfully weird world of Slavic folklore with the tale of Baba Yaga or Baba Yaga for anyone planning on leaving a John wick reference now is your time to leave your pencil related comments down below if you've been following a channel for some time then you may know that Baba Yaga was actually the third video that I ever made but looking back at it now that video is terrible and it doesn't really do the story any justice so here we are with what I can only hope is a far more compelling script and some awesome original artwork created specifically for this video which is only made possible by you guys and girls who keep coming back but with that introduction and explanation out of the way let's get back to today's video baba Yaga is a name that appears all across the Slovak territories of Europe but the origin and meaning of this name much like Slavic folklore in general is a bit all over the place now as someone who doesn't speak any of these Slavic languages babushka is the first word that comes to mind but that may also just be because it's the only word I remember that isn't a curse word the word Bubba itself seems to be rooted in several Slavic languages and today it's commonly used to refer to an elderly woman or one's grandmother just like babushka in all the forms of Russian it was used to refer to a midwife and even a fortune-teller so it's hard to take any real definitive meaning other than woman the second part of the name Yaga or Yaga is even more ambiguous than the first meaning anything from anger and horror to which evil and serpent this led many to believe that barber could have simply helped to distinguish or identify a female character so I guess an evil or scary elderly woman is as bad as close as we can get to a direct translation with Baba Yaga we have a very interesting and unique character because her story is not the classic one-dimensional boogeyman or a guess boogey woman s story that you may have come to expect it's almost like telling your children that if they misbehave Baba Yaga the evil old hag will come and eat them but if they're good she's a sweet old grandmother figure who will help them the characters in these stories may almost be the polar opposites to each other but it shows that there is more to Baba Yaga than just an evil sight despite how different these two approaches are the goal of these stories is ultimately the same to make children behave whether that's through the fear of consequence or an alluring incentive listen here little Timmy you Betty those Brussels sprouts or that creepy old woman across the street is gonna eat your heart and grind your bones into dust to snort later you want that to happen no eat your vegetables but if you're a good little Timmy who eats all of his Brussels sprouts then baba Yaga will help you when you're in need to pretty different approaches but the goal is the same to stop little Timmy being a turd now I know some of you may not like the idea of death threats bribery and scaring kids into behaving themselves and you're probably right it's not exactly the most healthy practice I'm sure nowadays taking your child's phone away and telling them no more fortnight Timmy is the equivalent to the modern-day boogeyman but that's nowhere near as fun or interesting so who was Baba Yaga and what was her story the first recorded mention of her name was by the Russian author Mikhail Lomonosov in his work Rossi skirt gramatica which pretty much just means Russian grammar here McHale mentions her names twice with one of these being in a section where the Slavic deities are compared to the Roman deities their inspiration was presumed to have come from but Baba Yaga appears by herself reinforcing the notion that she was a unique Slavic creation void of any Greek and Roman influence as the years went by stories of an old bony hag who lived in the woods began to spread her house stood on two chicken legs and she rode around through the forest in a Jay in pestle and mortar and this is why I enjoy Slavic folklore because it's so unapologetically weird that is hard to not be amused by it when you think of which is the most generic image that comes to mind probably involves a pointed hat a black cat and a broomstick to ride around on but not the Slavs instead baba-yaga climbs inside of her giant mortar and uses her equally as big pestle to steer which when you really think about it is actually quite efficient because when you're kidnapping children and grinding their bones to dust you're gonna want to have your pestle and mortar at hand when you finally catch one of the little gremlins she does still carry around a broom but this is the sweep away any trash you may have left so disgruntled villagers can't find her in the different stories and narrative she appears in Baba Yaga does have several depictions with some quite interesting symbolism behind them she may have a frail shape but her teeth are sharp enough to nor threw bones and sometimes even depicted as being metal her legs are often extremely skinny which lends to one of her nicknames boney leg this is often thought to imply some kind of demonic influence or power because of a poem by Nikolay necklace of in 1840 the poem was titled Baba Yaga the bony leg in this poem he says the devil cooks 12 evil women into one to be just as evil as himself and the result is Baba Yaga who goes out into the world to do evil and returns to hell for her reward necro sauce description is as follows she has fangs and nostril hairs so long they hang down to her breasts she has huge ears horns on her forehead and holes instead of eyes were in a toad skin cap and a snakeskin coat clearly nekrasova Sora is more of a demon than a sweet old lady an interesting piece of symbolism comes from her house or hut which stands on two chicken feet and is able just to get up and walk away at any time strangers also can't just walk into their house without saying the phrase turn your back to the forest at your front to me whether this cause the door to appear or simply unlocks the front door is down to your own imagination but the first certainly has a more magical feel this phrase was also thought to stop the house when it's moving through the forest when it comes to Baba Yaga's house the obvious question is why does it have chicken feet I remember when I first heard the story I just brushed it off as well everyone loves chicken obviously but when you look at it from a more symbolic point of view it makes a tad more sense Bubba a guy's often shown as either a grandmother or croon figure and then there's her more sinister side which is ugly dangerous and wild regardless of which you'd expect both those figures to be somewhat resourceful a grandmother using whatever she can find to feed her family and the same can be said for someone isolated living in the woods there's no choice but to be self-sufficient so how the hell does all of this tie into chicken feet well the feet would have been seen as an undesirable part of the chicken and I'm sure there are people out there who are just like what is this guy talking about chicken feet are delicious and I'm sure they are but when it came to royalty heroes and the wealthy they would have had their choice cut the wings the breasts or the thigh but the less desirable parts of the chicken such as the feet would have been either thrown out or given to the peasants and no that isn't me calling you a peasant if you eat chicken feet you're just the weirdo who eats chicken fee so Bobby a guy then building her house out of unwanted scraps is a testament to her resourcefulness and maybe it's meant to show regardless of how something may appear everything has its use there are some however who believe these chicken feet were actually just stilts and this belief stems from the indigenous people of Siberia who would store their food in small huts supported on stilts to keep their supplies away from animals the roots of these trees may at times resemble chicken feet there's also some symbolism behind her pestle and mortar which at first glance may just seem like a weird choice to travel around in for those who don't know a pestle and mortar is often used to grind all sorts of things but mostly herbes and spices so it would have been used by physicians and others attempting to make medicine but it also would have been used by those practicing witchcraft so the pestle and mortar can be seen as symbolizing her two personas one of the most famous stories she appears in is the fairy tale vassilisa the beautiful witch was part of a collection of tales collected by Alexander Afanasieff as you may have guessed the story centers around a young girl named a vassilisa when she was eight years old her mother passed away and left her a small wooden doll she told vassilisa that issuer's ever in need of help all she had to do was feed the doll and it would aid her when her mother died she gave the Dolson food and it came to her and comforted her eventually her father moved on and married once again but this stepmother was a wicked and cruel woman who worked vassilisa to the bone but with a wooden doll by her side she was able to perform each task that was asked of her as the name of the story tells us vassilisa was extremely beautiful and she was often visited by young men who expressed their interest her stepmother rejected all proposals from these suitors because her daughters were older and thus they should be married first but none of the suitors would choose them over vassilisa and so she was stuck at home slaving away her father being a merchant had to embark on a rather long journey and her stepmother took advantage of this selling their home and moving them into a dark and gloomy forest on one particular evening each girl was told to put out all of the fires in the house except for one candle however one of the older daughters put out this candle by mistake and the vassilisa was held responsible her stepmother then sent her to retrieve the lights they had lost from Baba Yaga's Hut the young girl was unsure as to whether this was a wise idea because she had heard tales of Baba Yaga before and these only filled her with dread so she took out her wooden doll and fed it some crumbs it calmed her nerves and then advised her to go see Baba Yaga early the next morning she began her journey as she ventured further into the forest she came across a man dressed in all white ride in a white horse who paid her no attention not long after another man rode by this time dressed in red with a red horse she then came across a fence made of human bones that surrounded a house that stood on two chicken legs as she stood there contemplating whether or not she should go inside a third rider came by this time dressed in black and with him came nightfall the skulls that made up the fence began to glow but vassilisa determined to retrieve the light remained by the fence until Baba Yaga came flying by in her pestle and mortar only to find a young girl waiting for her she agreed to give Vasily's to the fire that she came for but only if she completed a series of tasks first this also came with the caveat that if she failed then she would kill the child but to her credit she accepted this offer these tasks however were no different to what she was doing fire stepmother and consisted of cleaning cooking and doing laundry but when those chores were done she would have to separate poppy seeds from the soil and the good corn from the rotten corn the sheer amount of work that needed to be done was too much for vassilisa who was exhausted she began to lose all hope until her doll came to her aid once again completing the work while she slept at the crack of dawn the white horsemen rode by followed by the red in the afternoon and the black horsemen in the evening with this last horseman Baba Yaga returned home she inspected the work done by vassilisa and had no complaints with her she had three pairs of severed hands that inspected the corn for her she then explained that the white Rider was day the red was the Sun and the black Rider was the night knowing that a task she set the girl were almost impossible she inquired as to how she was successful vassilisa replied with her mother's blessing this enraged Baba Yaga and she told the girl that she would have no one of a blessing of any kind in her house she gave her a skull ant and full of burning coal from her fence and sent her on her way home when vassilisa returned home she found out that her stepmother and stepsisters were unable to light any of the candles or fires in their home they tried bringing lamps and Porter's from outside but the second they stepped inside they were snuffed out the calls that she bought with her in the skull however burn bright so bright that they engulfed her stepmother and stepsisters burning them to ashes she then buried the skull underneath her house so it could cause no more harm vassilisa then moved to the capital and became a cloth maker where her exceptional skills meant she would work for the royal family and eventually marry a prince this sari is interesting because it fits the description of bhabhi ago we mentioned earlier she isn't entirely evil as she's willing to help vassilisa but she has to earn it and then we see the slightly darker side when she tells the girl that if she cannot perform these tasks then she'll kill her the reason she had such an aggressive reaction to vassilisa mentioning her mother's blessing may have something to do with the stories of Baba Yaga being the devil's grandmother so naturally she would have an aversion to the idea of blessings and all sorts of things that would ward off evil we also see the introduction of the horseman in this story I know when I mentioned the three horsemen in the previous video a lot of people seem to think I had them confused with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but they don't seem to have much relation the three horsemen are instead symbolic of the day the Sun and the night it's common for Baba Yaga to be described as having control over the elements within the forest and the horsemen are a pretty good example of that what also stood out to me were the parallels between this story and other popular fairy tales such as Cinderella you have the underappreciated main character the wicked stepmother making her do chores and the ugly stepsisters another story that instead highlights the idea of Baba Yaga as this triple Crone figure that we see in games such as The Witcher 3 is the maiden of SAR which follows a merchant son named Ivan as he visits the home of all three bubble guards when he arrives at the first house he is greeted by a very old woman he asks her if she knows where the thrice tenth Kingdom is to which she responds that she does not but her sister may Ivan continues to the forest until he comes across a hut identical to the first but inside is a much younger looking woman and he asks her the same question she also tells Ivan that she doesn't know and maybe her other sister may know but she also warns Ivan that this system may try to eat him if this should happen she tells Ivan to ask her sister for three horns and her permission to blow them the first must be blown softly the second louder and the third even louder after some time Ivan comes across the same hut once again and inside is the youngest of all three sisters as the other sister predicted she plans to kill Ivan and eat him he pleads with her to give him the three horns and seen though harm in doing so she does he blows on the first softly then louder with the second and as loud as he possibly could with the third blowing these horns caused the house to be swarmed by hundreds of birds among these birds is a giant Firebird which tells Ivan to jump on its back so they can escape before he's eaten and they do so and that is the end of the story in the witcher 3 you have a quest line that centers around the ladies of the wood or the three crowns which appears to be a reference to the stories of Baba Yaga as three sisters when we first see them in a tapestry they appear as young and beautiful but later in person they are all decrepit and quite repulsive on their person we see severed hands and toy dolls referring back to the story of vassilisa but we also see other body parts of children as well as talk of eating young boys and girls there's even a rider dressed in a black suit of armor that does their bidding none of this is really a surprise because CD Projekt RED are very good when it comes to integrating traditional folklore into the witcher and the scenes with these three Crone's are a testament to this i think the most recent depiction we see of Baba Yaga in the mainstream is the Hellboy movie where to say she isn't the most pleasant looking individual is the understatement of the year without spoiling too much she's a one-eyed hag wooden legs and a taste for human children Bubbe our guys a figure shrouded in mystery we don't really know how old she is or where she came from it's this ambiguity that makes her a great character and she has featured in numerous animations and movies where she appears as both the villain and as a more helpful individual though some question if she was ever meant to be seen this way implying she only helps when it's in her own interest there are even some questions over her status as a witch because although she has been labeled as such and may even behave and possess some of the qualities you'd expect there are many factors that do not fit the stereotypical image we also have no definitive answer as to where these stories originated from many of the written mentions and stories came from Russian scholars but there are references to a figure named JZ Baba from the Western Slavs and Baba charisma or Baba Yaga from the southern Slavic region so it's pretty safe to say that she appeared everywhere amongst the Slavic people in various different forms and by a host of different names so which interpretation do you prefer an evil witch who devours children a kind old lady who helps those in need or a self-serving elderly woman who is neither good nor bad but merely driven by self-interest maybe you prefer the three sisters that appear in The Witcher and the story of Ivan let me know in the comments below and if you are someone who grew up with these stories I'd love to hear from you as always I've been your host mythology and fiction explained reminding you to eat your Brussels sprouts especially if your name is Timmy you

Channel: Mythology & Fiction Explained

Views: 896,402

Keywords: Baba Yaga, mythology and fiction explained, baba yaga witcher 3, baba yaga hellboy, vasilisa the beautiful, who is baba yaga, slavic folklore

Id: FJ0w6TyTeVk

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 27 2019