Baba Yaga - Mythillogical Podcast

On today’s episode, Charles and Crofty cross the thrice-nine lands to delve into the lore of one of Slavic mythology’s most enigmatic figures, and discover that her roots run far deeper than the wicked witch of popular culture.

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[TheHistocrat]

This podcast is now also available on Spotify, iTunes and Stitcher! You can find it at the links below:

[Saffron-sugar]

Discussion of Baba Yaga begins at
13:05

[ThatBernie]

These Mythillogical episodes are great for sending me right to sleep, they're so cozy... but then in the morning I just want to watch it again and hear everything I missed!

[Horvath_Gabor]

I never noticed this before, but listening to theses Baba Yaga stories made me realize she has quite a lot in common with the "Goddess of the Underwold" archetype. In particular, Hel, Ereshkigal, and Izanami have many parallels with her, such as the rotting/unsightly appearance, or setting up very specific conditions for fulfilling tasks, which can either reunite loved ones, or permanently separate them.

It's quite fascinating that all of these myths, separated by distance and time, all seem to draw on some kind of ancient proto-religion's iconography. It's like the "Slaying of the Serpent" motif, but less obvious.

[elenak]

I am a native Russian, and you guys just NAILED it. Thank you so much!

[reptillianaesthete]

This makes me so happy to see. My grandmother is an immigrant from Poland and i grew up with stories of Baba Yaga. My first tattoo was actually a big arm piece of her and her house.

[StanislavG.]

15:47 - The oven is also a character sometimes... or a vehicle :)

The Russian oven - "petch", is what you may call a "mass heater". It is very traditional across the Slavic culture. At colder regions the oven was constructed with a flat top, to serve as a bed for the cold winter nights, called a "lezhanka"

[fauxshowyo]

Slavic mythology has some really cool stuff. Would you guys be interested in doing Icelandic/Norse stuff in the future as well? Trolls and all that really fun stuff.

[thenewkhan]

In Poland, there's also a children game "Raz, dwa, trzy, Baba Jaga patrzy!" (means: "One, two, three, Baba Yaga is looking"). It's similar to english Statues/Grandmother's Footsteps. I loved to play it with my grandparents. It was fun but otherwise Baba Jaga was definetely the scariest creature from their bedtime stories. Old, ugly, skinny witch who lives in forests and eats children. Adults in Poland also liked to tell their naughty children things like: "if you won't be nice behaving/silent, Baba Jaga will come and take you". Worked pretty well on me, lol.

[Jefimija]

In south Slavic mythology there is a similar character called Baba Roga - Horned grandma. She is described as having a large horn on her forehead and is commonly used to scare the mischievous kids "If you don't behave Baba Roga will come and take you". There is no folk stories or myths with her in them other than that.

[julialindejulia]

Being Russian, having grown with the tales about Baba Yaga, it’s quite unexpected to listen to the podcast about our “national character” in English. By the way, the stress is on the second syllable: YagA.

[lydiarowe]

This presentation has been a delight..coming from Russian heritage it has given me incentive to follow more folklore tales that are ancient..thankyou both..look forward to seeing more of your podcasts..🐈‍⬛

[joelangelsanchez]

Referring to the “daughters” around 25 minutes; I believe these are the daughters of other people’s daughters, along the lines of “Your farm will have a bountiful harvest, in exchange for your daughter.” And they are usually similar to slaves in the tales I’ve heard & read.

[florianmarinescu]

In Romanian folklore and fairy tales we have our own rendition of Baba Yaga, she is called Baba Cloanța (ugly old woman, teethless old woman) or Muma Pădurii ( the evil woman of the forest). Great work, really interesting !

[FeHearts]

If you look at older depictions of medieval witches you will see female witches riding broomsticks and male witches or warlocks riding pitchforks. This is because broomsticks and pitchforks are common household objects associated with women and men respectively.

[Jessica-jknv]

My favorite episode! This is the second time I've listened to it. As an American with eastern European grandparents, I absolutely love these stories of folklore. More please!

[athenassigil]

I love how fictional and mythological characters, like monsters, heroes and even legends based on an actual person take a life of all their own in our collective consciousness. It's like our imaginations are geared for the fire of creativity. I first encountered ol' Baba Yaga in 1978 when I first played D&D....AD&D First Edition for the purists...her Hut was an item you could acquire...but then I remember saying, "What's a Baba Yuga?" The quest lead me to her rich tradition of tales in the Slavic World, plus all my Russian and Polish friends would tell me of her....and now I'm here....a good listen to hear these two Brits discuss this Grandmother of the grim

[anastasiyabksi]

It's so interesting to see how the characters I grew up with and are so regular to me interest so many people. Every description or explanation I heard so far are accurate, but there is always busy that something missing. I like that now people are looking into her dual nature, more than anything I think she represents life. It's all about how you approach it, it can be dangerous, it can be tricky but if you do everything correctly you can learn a lot from it and walk away with the girl and the Golden Needle in the haystack.

[fedt]

Scrolled through a whole comment section (although without checking a replies) to check if maybe someone already mentioned this, but haven't notice anything, so here's some more info on the probable mythological-anthropological origin for the Baba Yaga.
First of all - there is some evidence that large part of it originated in Finno-Ugric cultures and was later spread through cultural exchange and in more modern times combined with Slavic stuff and common-european concepts.
I think best part to start would be Baba Yaga's Hut on a bird legs - it's most probably originated from burial tradition from cultures that lived in the forested and swampy areas there elevated hut-like structures would be constructed either using trees, like a child's treehouse or on the stilts-pillars, there bodies would be placed. It was situated on some distance from the settlement and entrance would be placed opposite side - facing the forest, in believe that if some corpse would be reanimated as a bad spirit (which is universal concept for humans across the world I believe) it would wonder towards the forest and wouldn't find a way into the settlement.
Older women are believed to be commonly responsible for a preparation of the body, so first role of the Baba Yaga may be just a caretaker lady, which later transformed into a psychopomp deity. This older women usually were responsible for traditional herbal medicine and stuff - so there is mortar and pestle comes from and later associated with witch concept.
Part with the cannibalism might have come from a instance there some bad or mean old woman was buried and as it's common with vurdalak-vampire lore - was believed to be reanimated as a bad flesh eating, child abducting monster or bad spirit.
And of course later fairytales are just mashup of tales from other cultures.
Sorry for my not perfect English, not my native language, hope it would be helpful or interesting for someone.

[bobmcbob]

I didn’t realize “the morning is wiser than the evening” was a folkloric thing. My dad always told me that when he was trying to get me to stop studying, drawing, or talking to him, and go to bed. Like those exact words, in Serbian, or well, the morning is smarter than the evening. IDK if it’s a pan Slavic idiom or if it may come from some exposure to Russian folktales. Serbs do often learn Russian folktales as well as our own and my great grandpa lived in Russia for a time. He was sent to a concentration camp long before my dad was born but he may have passed stories he heard his second wife, a Russian, tell his kids in Russia, on to his kids from his third marriage after he came back to Yugoslavia, though my paternal grandpa wasn’t the bedtime story type but it could not have been whole stories but rather just the idiom that got passed on.