Fairy Tales: Baba Yaga

In Russian folklore, there is a story that contains elements of both “Cinderella” and “Hansel and Gretel.” This is a story about the wickedly powerful Baba Yaga, a creature that is neither all good nor all evil, but scary as hell itself.

In this story, there was a man who had a beautiful daughter that he loved dearly. His wife dies, and after a while he becomes very lonely and starts to look around for a new wife.

He soon falls in love with another woman and they marry. As often happens in such situations, the woman does not like his daughter. She is nice to the girl when the man is around, but as soon as he leaves, she talks down to the daughter and beats her.

One day, the man leaves for several days on business. As soon as he is gone, the wife sends the girl to the Baba Yaga, who is the evil step-mother’s sister, which perhaps explains why she is so mean, on the pretext of getting a new shirt.

However, people know that the Baba Yaga, an old woman with bony legs, likes to eat children. The girl pretends to walk in the direction of the Baba Yaga’s house, but as soon as her stepmother looks away, the girl turns in the other direction and walks to her real aunt’s house.

There, she says:

“Oh, Auntie — Auntie, my mother, she wants to send me to the Baba Yaga’s house, she wants me to be eaten!”

But her aunt tells her what to do. She says that at the Baba Yaga’s house, there will be an aggressive cat, mean dogs, a gate that bars the way, and a birch tree that will try to lash out her eyes with its branches. However, if the girl gives the cat ham, if she gives the dogs bread, if she gives the gate oil for its hinges, and if she ties a ribbon around the birch tree, they will not harm her.

The girl packs in everything that she needs and leaves. In the deepest part of the woods, at the Baba Yaga’s hut, which stands on large chicken legs, the girl says she is there for a shirt, and Baba Yaga invites her in. Baba Yaga tells her to come sit in front of the fire and to weave some loom to make a cloth for her shirt. The girl begins to weave. Baba Yaga then calls her maid over, and tells her to build a fire, heat some water, and clean the girl, since she stinks and to soften her up so that Baba Yaga can eat her. Then, Baba Yaga leaves.

The girl watches as the maid throws more logs on the fire, she takes off her own kerchief and gives it to the maid. The poor maid has never received anything in her life before. The maid puts it on and preens in front of the mirror. With the maid distracted, the girl looks for a way out of the hut. Off in the corner, she meets a cat that can talk. The cat attacks her with its claws out, but the girl gives it the piece of ham. After the cat has finished the meal, he offers to help her. The cat gives her a comb, a piece of white cloth, and tells her how she can escape through a hole in the hut.

The girl slips through the hole and when she hits the ground, she runs as fast as she can. However, she runs right into the dogs. She gives them the bread and they tell her to keep running, while they devour it. At the gate, she oils its hinges, and it swings open for her.

She runs until she comes to a clearing in the woods where she finds the birch tree, which lashes out at her eyes with its limbs. She ties a ribbon around the trunk, and the tree’s branches springs into the air. It says:

“Look how beautiful I am! Look at my waist! Go that way, dear.”

It points its branches in the direction that leads out of the forest. The girl keeps running as fast as she can.

Baba Yaga comes back to the hut, swings open the door, hungry for the girl, only to see the cat playing with the loom in front of the fire. Furious, she asks the cat why it did not stop the girl from escaping. The cat says Baba Yaga never gives her anything, but the girl gave her a delicious piece of ham. Baba Yaga turns to the maid and asks her why she did not stop the girl.

The maid says:

“You’ve never so much as given me an old shirt. Oh, she gave me a lovely kerchief — don’t I look pretty?”

”Ghmpf!” Baba Yaga snorts. She has an enormous mortar and pestle that she can use to grind her way through the forest, a strange way to travel indeed. She hops in it and starts chasing after the girl, while sweeping her tracks away behind her with a broom, something that seems to me like an unnecessary waste of time. Eventually, she reaches the dogs, and asks:

“Dogs! Why did you not stop her?”

They say: “ You have never given us anything, not even stale bread, but the girl, the girl gave us fresh bread, delicious fresh bread to eat.”

The gate tells her that she never gave it anything, but the girl oiled its hinges. The tree tell Baba Yaga that it let the girl go because she tied a pretty ribbon around it, while Baba Yaga never gave it anything.

”Ghmpf!” Baba Yaga snorts. She keeps grinding along, and surprisingly, she soon catches up to the girl. When the girl hears her coming, she drops the piece of white cloth behind, and it becomes a wide river when it hits the ground.

Baba Yaga’s mortar is too heavy to cross, so she goes back all the way to her hut and brings her oxen, who drink the river dry so that she can cross. Soon enough, she closes in on the girl again, so she must have been going wickedly fast in her mortar. As she gets close, the girl throws the comb behind her. The comb’s prongs stick in the ground, and the comb turns into a thick forest, so thick that Baba Yaga can’t see through it. Infuriated, she begins to bite her way through the forest.

About this time, the girl’s father comes home to his house and asks his wife where his daughter is. His wife says she doesn’t know, but shortly after, the girl comes in. The stepmother is thunderstruck. The girl tells her father everything.

The girl says: “I think the Baba Yaga is still trying to eat her way through that forest now.”

She looks at her stepmother, and so does her father. It was as if he was seeing her as she really is for the first time. Then, perhaps because it is a Russian story, the father and daughter kill her. Although it was not the last that the girl saw of Baba Yaga, it was the last the father and the girl ever saw of the evil stepmother.

This is one of a number of tales about Baba Yaga in Russian folklore. But she is an ambiguous character. In some stories she helps people and in others she is the baddie. In this story, the real villain is the girl’s stepmother. Baba Yaga is not always a witchy cannibal. In the next story, “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” she saves the girl from being mistreated at home, again by her mean step-mother.

In these fairy tales, step-mothers are almost always the villains. Some psychologists have speculated that, since children have a hard time reconciling the fact that their loving mother, on whom they depend for love, nurture, and food, also sometimes have to punish them, be mean to them. By taking all the negative characteristics and placing them in the character of the step-mother, it supposedly helps children to work through this mental conundrum.

Vasilisa the Beautiful

goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a merchant who was married for twelve years and had a beautiful daughter, Vasilísa the Fair. Sadly, her mother died when the girl was eight years old. On her death-bed the mother called the girl to her, and gave her a doll. Her mother says to her:

“Vasilísushka, hear my last words. I am dying, and I will leave you my mother’s blessing and this doll. Keep this doll always by you, but show it to nobody, and no misfortune can befall you. Give it food and ask it for advice. After it has eaten, it will tell you how to avoid your evil.”

Then the wife kissed her daughter and died.

The merchant was a handsome man and many ladies were interested in becoming his new wife, and he soon married a widow who had two daughters about the same ages as Vasilísa. However, Vasilísa was the prettiest girl in the entire village, and her stepmother and her new step-sisters turned green with jealousy. They tormented her by giving her lots of work to do, hoping that she will grow thin and ugly, and be ravished by the wind and the sun. Poor Vasilísa lived a very hard life.

However, Vasilísa used the doll to help her. She fed the doll, who then gave her good advice, consoled her, and helped her do the work. Vasilísa grew up, and all the young men in the village tried to woo her. None of them were interested in her step-sisters, which made her step-mother hate her even more. Her stepmother told Vasilísa’s suitors:

“I will not give my youngest daughter before I give the elders.”

This put them off.

One day the merchant has to go away on a long business trip. The stepmother sends Vasilísa into the woods nearby, because it was well known that Baba Yaga, who eats men like poultry, lives there. However, Vasilísa comes back safely every time, because the doll shows her a way that avoids Baba Yaga’s hut.

One night the three daughters were working when one of them puts out the light on purpose. The two step-sisters say:

“What is to be done now? There is no fire in the house and our work is not finished. We must get a light from the Bába Yagá.”

“I can see by the needles,” says one. “I also am not going, for my knitting needles give me light enough” says the second. “You must go and get some fire. Go to the Bába Yagá!” they tell Vasilísa and push her out of the room. Vasilísa asks advice from her doll. He says:

“Fear nothing,Vasilísushka. Do what they say, only take me with you. As long as I am with you BábaYagá can do you no harm.”

She puts the doll in her pocket, crosses herself, for she was a pious Christian, and walked out into the dark forest.

Suddenly a white knight on a horse gallops past, spreading light as he moves. She walk further, and suddenly another horseman, all in red, rides past her, and with him the sun rose. Vasilísa walks on through the night and the whole of the next day. That evening she comes to a meadow where Bába Yagá’s hut stands. The fence round the hut is made out of human bones. Skeletons on stakes glared at her with their empty eyes. The doorways and the gate are made out of feet, the bolts are hands, and instead of the lock there is a mouth with sharp teeth.

Scared, Vasilísa walked closer. Suddenly another horseman, all in black, rushes past her. He jumps to the door and vanished, turning it into night. However, it does not stay dark for long. The eyes in the skeletons on the fence glisten, lighting the area around the house as bright as if it is day.

Vasilísa trembles with fear. Suddenly she hears a terrible noise in the forest. The trees creak and she hears the dry leaves being crushed. Bába Yagá moving inside the mortar and using her pestle, bursts out of the woods. She sweeps away all traces of her steps with a broom. She stops at the door to her hut, sniffs the air, and says:

“Fee, Fo, Fi, Fum, I smell the blood of a Russian mum!

Who is there?”

Vasilísa, steps forward, bows low, and says:

“Mother, I am here. My stepmother’s daughters sent me to you to ask for fire.”

“Very well,” says Bába Yagá, “I know them. Stay with me, work for me, and I will give you fire. Otherwise I shall eat you up."

Vasilísa follows Baba Yaga into the house. Baba Yaga orders her to fetch some food. After they ate, she tells Vasilísa that in the morning she must clean the courtyard, brush out the room, prepare dinner, do the washing, go to the field, harvest a quarter of oats, and sift it all out, all before she, Baba Yaga comes home. Otherwise she will eat her up.

Once Baba Yaga falls asleep, Vasilísa feeds the doll and tells her what the she must do. The doll says:

“Have no fear, Vasilísa, thou fair maiden. Eat, pray, and lie down to sleep, for the morning is wiser than the evening.”

Early the next day the white horseman races by and it becomes dawn. Shortly after the red horseman passes, and with him, the sun rises. Bába Yagá leaves in her mortar. The doll quickly does all the work.

“Oh, my saviour!” says Vasilísa, “You have helped me in my great need.”

The doll say: “You now have only to get dinner ready.”

That evening the black rider brings the night, but the eyes in the skulls begin to glow, lighting the area around the house. Shortly after Baba Yaga arrives. She asks:

“Is it all done?”

Bába Yagá looks around and is angry to find that she cannot fault Vasilísa in any way. Baba Yaga calls three pairs of hands to take the oats away. That night Baba Yaga orders Vasilísa to do the same, but to also take the hay on her field, and clean away any trace of soil on it. Again, Vasilísa gets everything done with the help of the doll.

That night, over supper, Vasilísa says she wants to ask Baba Yaga some questions. Baba Yaga say:

“Ask, but not every question turns out well: too knowing is too old.”

That probably means that if you know too much you will become old too soon. Vasilísa asks who the white horseman is. Baba Yaga tells her it is the bright day. Vasilísa asks who the red horseman is and Baba Yaga tells her he is the red sun. Vasilísa then asks who the black rider is. Baba Yaga says he is the dark night and that they are all her faithful servants.

Baba Yaga asks her how she managed to do all the work.

“By my mother’s blessing!” says Vasilísa.

Baba Yaga says:

“Ah, then, get off with you as fast as you can, blessed daughter; no one blessed may stay with me!”

Baba Yaga takes a skull with burning eyes from the fence, puts it on a staff, gives it to Vasilísa and says:

“Now you have fire for your stepmother’s daughters, for that was why they sent you here.”

Vasilísa runs home as fast as she can. She reached the house by the evening of the next day. She is about to throw the skull away, when is says to her:

“Do not throw me away. Bring me up to your stepmother’s house.”

She does as she is told. Her step-mother and her daughters receive here friendlily. They take the skull into the room, and its burning eyes looks into the eyes of the stepmother and her daughters and burns their eyes out. The eyes of the skull follow them everywhere, and in the morning they are burned to cinders. Only Vasilísa survives unharmed.

Vasilísa buries the skull, locks up the house, and goes into the town where she asks to stay with a poor old woman until her father returns. To pay the old lady back for her kindness, Vasilísa, with the help of her doll, spins and weaves a fine linen cloth, which she gives to the woman to sell. The old woman takes the cloth to the Tsar’s palace. The Tsar is impressed with it and rewards the woman richly for it.

The Tsar asks the old women to make some shirts for him out of the beautiful cloth, but the woman tells him only a maiden can do. The Tsar assents and the old woman give the task to Vasilísa. She does it, and the Tsar is so impressed with his new shirts that he asks to see the artist who created it.

Vasilísa washes herself and combs her hair; she dresses in her best clothes, and goes to the Tsar.

When he sees her, he falls in love with her. He says:

“No, fairest damsel; I will never part from you. You must be my wife.”

She accepts. The Tsar took her by the hand, put her next to him, and insisted on wedding her immediately. When her father comes home, he is delighted to hear about her good luck. Vasilísa also took care of the old woman, who lived with her, and the doll remained in her pocket for the rest of her life.

So even though she is still a scary, evil, witch-like character, the Baba Yaga punishes the stepsisters and the stepmother in the story of “Vasilisa the Beautiful”. I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes evil can do good deeds.

She is very different from the John Wick character, which is also known as “Baba Yaga,” in the eponymous movies. I still would not like to come across her in the dark woods, not ever, no way.

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Bibliography

Afanasev, A. N. (1915) Russian Folktales. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., ltd. London

Harvey, H.B. (2017). A Children’s Guide to Folklore and Wonder Tales. The Teaching Company. Chantilly.