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Baba Yaga the Kind
Like I said in this post, in Russian fairy tales Baba Yaga can range from helpful to occasionally murderous to actual cannibal, but @the-importance-of-being-wilde wanted to know about stories where she is friendly. So here are the ones I know:
The Three Kingdoms
The hero Ivashko Lie-on-the-Stove is sent to Baba Yaga for help after a quest gets him stranded far away from home. He calls her “little grandmother” and she lends him her giant eagle to fly back to Russia. However, this is Baba Yaga’s eagle, so she instructs him to take enough meat with him to feed it every time it got hungry, or it might start snacking on Ivashko himself… (Don’t worry, he only loses a bit of his shoulder before he gets home and even that gets magically healed.)
The Maiden Tsar
I know this is about Baba Yaga, but the Maiden Tsar sails around with a fleet of ships accompanied by her thirty foster sisters just to court an extremely beautiful merchant’s son named Ivan. It’s awesome. Of course the lovers get divided and the Maiden Tsar lets Ivan know that he can find her in the thrice tenth kingdom. Ivan cannot find it, but he does find Baba Yaga’s hut and asks her for help. She says she does not know, but perhaps her younger sister does. Her sister is described as “another Baba Yaga”, but she does not know either. She tells him to go to their youngest sister and warns him that she might get angry and want to eat him, but that if he quickly begs her for three horns and asks her permission to blow upon them everything will be alright. Sure enough, this happens and when he does blow the horns a large firebird comes to fly him to the trice tenth kingdom. (Where Ivan makes amends to the Maiden Tsar and manages to win her love again.)
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I really love the idea of Baba Yaga: an old witch who lives in a house with chicken legs. Are there any Baba Yaga stories you know of where Baba Yaga isn't evil? If not, what are your ideas on a friendly Baba Yaga
Oh I agree, Baba Yaga is a great character! She features in broader Slavic folklore, but I know her mostly from Russian fairy tales. There she mainly shows up in three forms: helpful Baba Yaga, cannibal Baba Yaga and… let’s call her maybe-murderous Baba Yaga:
The helpful type gives heroes good advice and useful gifts. (E.g. The Three Kingdoms, The Maiden Tsar, King Bear, The Sea King and Vasila the Wise, Go I Know Not Wither, Bring Back I Know Not What, Ilya Muromets and the Dragon.)
The cannibal type wants to trap people to cook in her stove and eat. (E.g. “Baba Yaga”, Baba Yaga and the Brave Youth, The Prince Danila Govorila.)
The maybe-murderous type is only helpful when the hero performs the right kind of behaviour. (E.g. “Baba Yaga”, Maria Morevna, Vasilisa the Beautiful, and Ilya Muromets and the Dragon, again.)
In some stories there is more than one Baba Yaga, in which case they are sisters.
She is sometimes called “Baba Yaga the Bone-Legged”, in whatever form she takes. The dangerous Baba Yaga’s often fly around in a mortar, wielding the pestle as a magic rudder. The cannibal and maybe-murderous types often have a fence around their house made from human bones or decorated with skulls.
The iconic little hut on chicken feet is usually the first thing a hero ever sees of Baba Yaga and multiple stories state you must greet the house thus: “Little hut, little hut, turn your back to the forest and your front to me.” That way you can go in.
I will make a separate post to tell you some more about specific stories where Baba Yaga is friendly!
This was a commissioned label for a custom tea blend from Adagio Teas. and by commission I mean that in exchange for making this I earned a five pound bag of fresh pecans. Totally worth it. It is currently have hiding out in the freezer until the basil comes out this summer and I can make pesto with it. SO MUCH PESTO!
i so love them omg