Baba Yaga
Her distinctive traits are flying around in a wooden mortar, wielding a pestle, and dwelling deep in the forest in a hut with chicken legs.
"Baba" is thought to serve two linguistic purposes in tbe phrase: firstly, it adds a familair component to the lesser-known word "yaga", and secondly, it clarifies that the character is female.
In other Indo-European languages, the element iaga has been linked to Lithuanian engti ('to abuse (continuously)', 'to belittle', 'to exploit'), Old English inca ('doubt', 'worry", 'pain'), and Old Norse ekki ('pain', 'worry').
[5] In the narratives in which Baba Yaga appears, she displays a number of distinctive attributes: a turning, chicken-legged hut; and a mortar, pestle, and/or mop or broom.
[1] Russian ethnographer Andrey Toporkov [ru] explains Baba Yaga's selection of tools by numerous pagan rituals involving women.
For example, in a version of "The Maiden Tsar" collected in the 19th century by Alexander Afanasyev, Ivan, a handsome merchant's son, makes his way to the home of one of three Baba Yagas:[10] He journeyed onwards, straight ahead ... and finally came to a little hut; it stood in the open field, turning on chicken legs.
This third and youngest of the Baba Yagas makes the same comment about "the Russian smell" before running to whet her teeth and consume Ivan.
In Afanasyev's collection of tales, Baba Yaga also appears in "Baba Yaga and Zamoryshek", "By Command of the Prince Daniel", "Vasilisa the Fair", "Marya Moryevna", "Realms of Copper, Silver, and Gold" [fr], "The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise", and "Legless Knight and Blind Knight" (English titles from Magnus's translation).
[11] Andreas Johns describes Baba Yaga as "one of the most memorable and distinctive figures in eastern European folklore", and observes that she is "enigmatic" and often exhibits "striking ambiguity".
[12] He characterizes Baba Yaga as "a many-faceted figure, capable of inspiring researchers to see her as a Cloud, Moon, Death, Winter, Snake, Bird, Pelican or Earth Goddess, totemic matriarchal ancestress, female initiator, phallic mother, or archetypal image".
[2] Baba Yaga appears on a variety of lubki (singular lubok), wood block prints popular in late 17th and early 18th century Russia.
A lubok that features Baba Yaga dancing with a bagpipe-playing bald man has been identified as a merrier depiction of the home life of Peter and Catherine.
The "crocodile" would in this case represent a monster who fights witches, and the print would be something of a "cultural mélange" that "demonstrate[s] an interest in shamanism at the time".
In Romanian folklore, similarities have been identified in several figures, including Muma Pădurii ('Forest Mother') or Baba Cloanța referring to the nose as a bird's beak.
In neighboring Germanic Europe, similarities have been observed between the Alpine Perchta and Holda or Holle in the folklore of Central and Northern Germany, and the Swiss Chlungeri.
