The Tales of Baba Yaga | Dark Mythologies

Resources:

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:15 Who is Baba Yaga?
3:25 Vladamir Propp's Morphology of Folklore
6:39 Russian Folklore
8:56 Psychoanalytical understandings of Baba Yaga
11:45 The story of Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave
24:24 Baba Yaga in Adult Stories
25:50 Conclusion

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[Silverbirchleaf]

Watching John Wick, I had to explain to someone why I laughed at him being referred to as Baba Yaga, remembering those illustrations of the old crone in the barrel from my childhood

[ЛилияРенова-фб]

9:26 In russian language addressing an old woman as "mother" is a normal thing. It doesn't mean she is your mother. It's like saying ma'am but in a less polite way. It doesn't really mean anything

[ChristopherSadlowski]

Yeah, I love seeing Slavic myths getting a little attention! When I was a kid we lived in a very rural area, and as such, I spent quite a lot of time playing in the woods. My Polish grandma would warn me of Baba Yaga, telling me if I strayed too far into the woods and away from the house she might show up and snatch me. I...mostly didn't listen to that advice. But I did keep it in the back of my mind to not wander too far into areas of the woods I hadn't explored yet just in case I got lost and couldn't find my way back. So, I guess in a way the scare tactics worked.

[spc]

Fascinating look at Baba Yaga. I remember when I was a pre-teen (now 77) there was a monthly magazine which included tales of Baba Yaga. Thank you for this lesson.

[Nastiqc]

Not sure if anyone has commented this yet or whether you have previously talked about it, but this is a version about baba Yaga we were told in school about:
Firstly, the chicken legs. Because of the similarity of words they became “chicken legs” later on, but they were actually “charred legs”. A house on charred legs with its entrance facing away from the village (and towards the forrest) is one of the ways people were buried. So baba Yaga basically lives in a grave. This is also supported by the fact that one of her legs is a bone and her nose has grown into the ceiling (so the ceiling may just be very close to the nose, not her nose being long). She is a medium between lives of the living and the dead, and she may well have been “a relative” that died, but still holds a connection to the living.

[once]

I'm Polish and it's interesting to me how Baba Yaga is a big part of our folklore as well. For example, in our version of Hansel and Gretel the witch is explicitly stated to be Baba Yaga (which I only realised isn't in the og years later). She's also in our version of "Green light, Red light" game (in Polish it's "one, two, three, Baba Yaga is watching")

[tiredoldfraggle]

You've no idea how much I enjoyed this. The weather outside is a foul damp chill that gets in your bones. A stiff drink and some fire side folklore has made a proper evening of it.

[rosemarygilman]

You are the most amazing storyteller! The many voices you used for the different characters were so good you could do this professionally! I loved it!!!

[nickrhodes]

A middle aged man is once more the child listening to entrancing stories on Jackanory, thank you deeply for that Cinzia

[essi]

We DEFINITELY need more of your storytelling.❤

[CERULEANSPIRAL]

I was told that my grandfather or one of his siblings (unclear- I was told the story ages ago ) was born early and to keep them warm they put the baby in the oven on low. His parents were from Germany. My grandfather was born in 1926.

[Pandaemoni]

In the original version of the Brothers' Grimm Hansel and Gretel, it was the children's biological mother who sent them off to die in the woods, rather than a stepmother. It is not clear to me whether their later change to make that character a stepmother reflected or was modifying previously existing folklore.

[silvia]

My mother worked in this souvenir shop and they had this humongous statue of Baba Yaga, like, at least a meter tall. I was petrified when I first saw it and had nightmares for 2 weeks.

[non-applicable]

My grandmother had many Slavic folktale books, I remember reading them on the floor fondly.

[eleventy]

Way long back ago, I was part of school band that did a few parts of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. One of the movements we played was The Hut on Chicken's Legs, music based on the stories of Baba Yaga. It was an odd, jittery, and constantly moving piece. I think it's due to the unusual feel of that music that, since then, I've had a curiosity of the folk character that inspired it.

[vanyakalinka]

Vassilissa is one of my favorite heroines in folklore. She was both brave and physically beautiful.

[birmagustafsson]

After reading "Hamlet's Mill" by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend I saw clearly the evidence of Baba Yaga being a godess of old, the mistress of the northern star, where the whole sky circles. The clues to this was her vehicle, a pestle and morter, where the morter is the vaulted night sky and the pestle is the north pole, the slanted pole which pointed to the north star. Also in one version of Vasilissa meeting Baba Yaga she meet three riders on the way, a red, a black and a white, as representatives of night, morning and day. Baba Yaga also has twelve skulls on sticks around her house on one chicken leg - another clue to the north pole pointing to the still point in the night sky, where the godess of the world sits. The book is very worth reading, especially if you're interested in myths of the cosmos in legends. Thank you so much for this video, I love tales, legends and myths!!

[aliciatucker]

I would say that the seeming good or evilness of Baba Yaga has to do with a combination of factors that are specific to protagonist's social, emotional, and gender expectations of their current cultures in relation to nature. In this version of Vasalissa, Vasealissa is intuitively drawn to nurturing those around her and thus she is displaying an insightful, caring and selfless character where Baba Yaga serves as the neglectful, aggressive, and demeaning owner. In a version I was told as a child, the story is continued and expanded to include Vasalissa's child and his adventures. In it his is not specifically given a name but referred to by epithets that tie him to Vasalissa. For short reference here I'll call him Vasa.
As a child Vasa, though raised by his good and gentle mother, is quite a churlish and spoiled child. He beats his cat, maid, horse and curses all around him when they don't do what he wants. As a teen he is sent by his father as an embassador to a neighboring kingdom and rather than bringing peace he beats the messenger and threatens the king. Knowing her son, Vasealissa sends a message to Baba Yaga asking for help. On his return to his kingdom Vasa encounters a golden feathered serpent. Thinking that its lair must be filled with treasure he chases it to the doorstep of Baba Yaga's house. Once inside Vasa discovers that the serpent is Baba Yaga herself. She cages him, telling him that only when he has learned kindness, gentleness like his mother and has the heart of a true leader will he be free. She feeds him gruel and dried bread. As he sits there for days on end he notices that in the house there is a nest of ants, a gount cat and nest of tiny hummingbirds. Time passes and he befriends the animals, the ants and cat with his bread and the hummingbirds with fruits that the ants bring to him. As his strength grows and he learns his friends talents he learns their speech. Together they plan to break free of Baba Yaga and her house. When she comes in carrying a large bussel of groceries intending to sit and eat a lavish meal in front of him, he springs from his cage with a host of ants running into the corners of the house, the cat hops on her head, making her kick the hearth puting out the fire(the heart of the home), the birds now able to fly chase her out of the house. Vasa now free can only think of returning to his home and apologize to his family, kingdom in hopes of preventing war. Vasalissa and her husband are thrilled to see him, his father fearing him killed by the other kingdom or lost and dead in the wilderness no matter how Vasalissa tried to assure him things would work out. For, the truth is, that while it appeared to Vasa that the animals were harming Baba Yaga and her house, the ants tickled the house making it run around, the hummingbirds tickled Baba Yaga making her howl in laughter and the cat made her sneeze. The last thing mentioned is that Vasalissa in thanks, brings a bussel of food and a giant jug of milk to the door of Baba Yaga's house looking up into the sky sees a Golden feathered serpent flying overhead and smiles.
As can be seen, Baba Yaga is a means to right the balance of good and evil. Her neutrality just like the natural world around her interacts with the civilized world but is not a part of it, hence her wandering status in the stories. She also embodies a sense of fear and mystic because of her otherness, she is neither young or old, human or animal, friend or foe, neighbor or foreigner. She is in and apart of the limbo space. Because of this she can be an agent of change in its purest form. Baba Yaga is one of my favorite fable characters, thank u for talking about her!

[AMoniqueOcampo]

Once again, we enter the real of Dark Academia.
BTW: I love your new illustrated avatar. You really know how to set a scene!

[lauratukey]

I love the baba yaga stories and how they vary depending on who is reflected in them

So another example of "kids in the oven " is literal baby lambs and goats that get lost out in the cold put into a lowly warm oven would sometimes revive them and "bring them back to life "