The details vary from one household to another. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia, the Bogeyman is called Babaroga, baba meaning old woman and rogovi meaning horns, literally meaning old woman with horns. According to folktales, Babaroga likes to steal naughty children and to bring them to her lair. She is represented as very ugly, hunchbacked old woman with horn on head, who live in dark caves. Similar Hags īabaroga (not to be mistaken with Baba Yaga!) is creature known among Southern Slavs. It is referenced in a children's game of the same name, which involves one child being blindfolded, and other children trying to avoid being caught. Poland – "Baba Jaga" or "Muma" is a monster (often portrayed as a witch living in the forest) that kidnaps badly behaving children and presumably eats them. She lives in forest hut which has chicken legs.Ĭhildren are warned in Russia that Babayka (or Baba Yaga) will come for them at night if they behave badly. In majority of tales, she is represented as an evil being who ride either broom or mortar, wields a pestle and scares and eat children, however in very few tales she gives her wisdom to protagonists. As we become more aware of the need to respect nature, and of our own fragility when we don’t, Baba Yaga’s powers are returning.Baba Yaga is a witch, known in Eastern Slavic countries. On Instagram, #babayaga has over 100,000 posts, and Yaga’s no-nonsense personality appeals to the younger generation of women who see her as a feminist idol who does as she pleases. Recently, Baba Yaga has been experiencing a revival, both within and outside Russia. Once Christianity came to Rus - the medieval Slavic culture that preceded modern Russia - forced onto the pagan population by Prince Vladimir in a political bid to unite the lands, Yaga’s transformation from a complex deity into a cannibal witch was complete. You couldn’t control nature, and that was part of Yaga’s beauty.Īs our relationship with nature shifted, becoming more consumerist, demanding more guarantees, so did our relationship with Baba Yaga. In the matriarchal society in which she originated, Yaga was accepted as part ofthe natural way ofthings. Controlling weather has been a dream of humankind for thousands of years, but Baba Yaga was unpredictable and uncontrollable. And that, it seems, was the origin of her downfall. Although historians do not agree on a specific version of Yaga’s origins, it is clear that she could bring on wind, rain, hurricanes, and thunderstorms. Yaga’s desire to fry children can also be explained as an old tradition of wrapping sick or premature babies in thick dough in a warm oven as if in an incubator.
Here, Yaga resembles the Greek legends of Charon who carries the souls of the newly dead over the Styx, or Persephone,the How the evolution of a Russian myth reflects the country’s relationship with nature. Others believe Yaga to be the ancient Slavic deity Uson’sha Vievna, the goddess of death, wife of the god Veles. This could explain the hut, a style of building that is not suitable for Russian winters but perfect for warmer lands that get regular flooding. There are several theories about the exact origins of Baba Yaga: some historians believe that Yaga is a derivative of the Sanskrit word yagya, meaning sacrifice, and that Baba is from a Sanskrit word meaning sage, father, or ascetic. Instead, she often appears as one of three female archetypes in Slavic mythology: a powerful warrior an old crone and a young woman who helps others through magic and advice. Even in some of the folk tales, which are relatively modern by comparison, Yaga doesn’t always act according to her terrifying image.
In the ancient Slavic myth of Yaga she was portrayed very differently, representing mother nature, the divine female, and the weather.
Baba yaga serial#
Described in this way, she seems the archetype of a complex serial killer. She cooks children in her oven, her hut is a portal to the world of the dead, her fence is made of human bones and, above all, she is totally unpredictable. Whatever evil character traits you can think of, the modern depiction of Baba Yaga has them. Baba Yaga is a feature of many Russian folk tales and is usually portrayed as an old witch who lives in a hut on chicken legs.
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