The Tales of Baba Yaga

RECENTLY I RECEIVED a request to write about Baba Yaga from a friend I’ve never met. The tales of Baba Yaga appear to predate the written word in the Slavic regions of the world; and her stories have survived into Russian, and some eastern European, folk literature to this day. As you might imagine, much regarding her has been altered by cultural changes, some of which were forcibly enacted by the coming of new religion to the region, and the rest of which has appeared more recently by the irreverent means that is the popular culture, which turns gold to painted tin and truth into meaningless metaphor, and all to glorify the ridiculous notion that humanity has power over everything and is greater than the Universe itself, and which turns gods into superheroes and villains that can be vanquished and explained by human science. Baba Yaga’s name is of great interest, as the etymology of the word Baba has led to the modern Russian word Babushka, which is akin to grandmother. I believe Baba Yaga to be the first and true grandmother of all of us, and so I find the name fitting; it is a role of chastiser and protector who sees, through her wisdom, what our actual needs are even when we don’t know it for ourselves. The name Yaga has received mostly dead-ends in terms of its origins: I absolutely refute the idea that it means ‘evil’, in particular because the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ did not exist in much of the ancient world: these were ideas that developed over time, largely from religious sources that began to control even sources of folk wisdom, much to the great loss for all of us. Now we have to dig for Inner Truth in everything, even who our great grandmother is, until, rather like a Russian nesting doll, we eventually get to the tiniest self of all, found in the very center of extraneous material: for truth nowadays is always small and hidden, and always worth the trouble to find it. As far as I’m concerned Yaga is a name, her name, and that is enough. That it is synonymous with unpleasantness... well, that depends on why you approach Baba Yaga and what you actual hope for in the meeting. In the tales of Baba Yaga, one discovers that she lives in a hut on fowl’s legs: it is a dancing hut, in fact, as it spins in circles, making entering it rather hazardous. Even approaching it at all is fraught with danger, as it is said to be surrounded by a fence made of bones, having flaming skulls at the top of the bony posts at intervals throughout it. If anyone of bad intention were to try and enter through the gate (or climb over it), the skulls nearest would blaze up and the offender would combust spontaneously, caught in the flames coming from the skulls. You really have to want to visit your grandmother, you know, and not merely to bring her pies in a basket. It is an earnest act and one that demands solemn earnestness on the part of the visitor. If your intentions are honorable and you come with humility, you have little to fear: when not, don’t expect to get away too easily—that fence is not made up of wooden posts! There are meant to be hundreds if not thousands of variations of tales about Baba Yaga, most diluted and polluted by concepts of ‘evil’ and ‘ugliness’. One cannot call the Grandmother a ‘witch’, unless one means a wise-woman of the greatest order; it is a pity that many have recalled the frightening aspects of Baba without comprehending in any way what she truly offers us and who she really is. In some tales, there appear to be three of her, all sisters, and each one more powerful or terrible than the last. I doubt this is actually true: it is a common motif in mythology to have a triune goddess representing young, middle age and elder-hood, but probably all aspects of the same goddess: it is a way for Baba to instruct us. One always has the feeling that when someone escapes her, it is because she has provided the means of escape, as a young man who asks to blow three horns in her house whilst she is getting ready (she says) to eat him, and she allows it, so that a great quantity of birds arrive and he escapes on the back of a firebird; though not before she seizes it by the tail, keeping a handful of feathers. It is as if she was saying, ‘See, I could have got hold of you if I’d wanted,’ as indeed she could. Perhaps the most popular tale of Baba Yaga is called ‘Vasilisa the Wise’, which, when translated by the English in the 19th century acquired the title ‘Vasilisa the Beautiful’ as Victorian men could not get their heads around a wise young woman, and so downgraded her to the merits of her looks (and they haven’t stopped this trend even to this day, mores the pity). So the tale ‘originally’ has no mention of Vasilisa’s appearance, only that she lived with her father after her mother died and she was relatively happy till he remarries and the new wife brings her own daughters to live there. When the father is away, they scheme to rid themselves of Vasilisa, and to that end allow all the lights and fire to go out. Claiming they have no means to relight them, they send the girl through the dark woods on the way to Baba Yaga’s fearsome hut to beg for a light, hoping she would be killed and eaten. One of the skulls at the gate asks her why she is there and she tells it she seeks fire from Baba Yaga. The gate allows her entrance and the hut in the midst of the clearing is very still. She knocks and is allowed to enter. When questioned by the crone, she answers truthfully. Baba makes her perform various tasks, all of which she accomplishes by the aid of her mother’s blessing in the form of a doll left to her, after which Baba Yaga gruffly gives her a bone with a flaming skull at the end and sends her away, quite aware, one can see, of the truth of Vasilisa’s circumstances and the threat awaiting her at the house. When she gets there, the three women are dumbstruck that this pale girl has returned at all. When she raises the fire-skull to offer it to them, flames pour out of it consuming the three and the house alike. The tale ends here, with Vasilisa escaping. The Victorians marry her off to some idiotic prince, but that never happened, here or anywhere. When a comparison was being drawn up of Slavic and classical gods, goddesses and other figures, no equivalent was found to the Baba Yaga: no, she is in a class by herself. She is as old as death. Perhaps she is Old Age itself, with all its attendant horrors, not the least of which is Death itself, waiting there patiently in the end. I sometimes feel that the true lesson from an encounter with Baba is that we are reminded of death simply by meeting her—whether she frightens us by threatening to consume us—or that she gives us a gift we ask for innocently and in good faith, only to find that the gift itself uses fire to purify and exorcise the demons that plague our life. For if Vasilisa had stayed at her home, it would have meant her own untimely end; and it took her Grandmother’s gift to set the place afire and consume those who sought her life, so she could run from it finally, by the light of the burning house. She had no way to know that this would happen—she sincerely brought the fire back that she’s been sent to retrieve. Ah, but Baba Yaga knows best. Baba Yaga is very great, very wise and very powerful. I may have met her once; and I know I will again, some day... Peace always, ~Reifyn

Fluffums

HERE IS A little vid of Fluffums out for a walk back from the shops with his two servants. You may notice that one is carrying a loaf of bread for the kitty's mouse-sandwiches, while the other is carrying Marmalade, Fluffum's favourite pink bunny. When a car arrives from behind, Fluff leaps in the air and performs an amazing acrobatic feat to turn and face the potentially dangerous automobile. A fine day out. Let's hope we too will always land on our feet...