Baba Yaga. Alternative origins of the image

Where does the fairy tale live? Yes, everywhere: in a dense forest, in a field, at a crossroads, in the rustling of leaves... A fairy tale was born with a person, and as long as a person lives, a fairy tale lives. Everyone loves fairy tales: both adults and children. They contain many different miracles. Has anyone ever wondered how Baba Yaga got into the fairy tale? Why does she eat small children? Why does she live alone in a dark forest? Who invented it? Is this a fictional fairy tale character? Or maybe Baba Yaga is a mythological creature? A student at the Lomonosov School decided to learn more about this and find answers to his questions. Of course, a first-grader cannot formulate a hypothesis, determine the object and subject of research, so his teacher helped him in this work. The completed research work was successfully presented at the regional educational and research conference of schoolchildren “Youth of Pomorie”.

Subject."The image of Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales."

Target. Analyze the image of Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales and draw a conclusion about its essence.

Tasks. Learn from additional literature about Baba Yaga; conduct a survey on the topic of work among students; read Russian folk tales in which Baba Yaga acts; analyze the image of Baba Yaga and draw conclusions.

Object of study. Baba Yaga.

Subject of study. Russian folk tales.

Hypothesis. Let's assume that Baba Yaga is a fictional character from Russian folk tales.

Research methods. Reflections, reading books, surveys, analysis of results.

I. Main part

1. General characteristics of Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is an old, blind, hunchbacked sorceress with a long nose and disheveled hair. It feeds on human flesh, and is called the “bone leg.”
In the encyclopedia I found the following definition: Baba Yaga is a popular character in Russian folk tales. In the Orthodox consciousness, it is the embodiment of the satanic forces of evil, an expression of hatred for everything Russian (2, p. 113).
Baba Yaga lives in the forest, in a hut on chicken legs, sometimes surrounded by a palisade of human bones. The hut can turn around itself. Different animals live in Baba Yaga's house: black cats, mice, frogs, crows and snakes. They are her advisers and guards.
Baba Yaga does not walk, but travels around the world in an iron mortar (scooter chariot), driving it with a pestle or an iron club. And so that the traces are not visible, she covers them with a broom or broom.
Baba Yaga has magical things: a flying carpet, samogud harp, a treasure sword, walking boots and many others.

2. Baba Yaga - a mythological creature

A fairy tale is always preceded by a myth.
Baba Yaga (Yaga-Yaginishna, Yagibikha, Yagishna) is a very ancient Slavic deity, keeper of the hearth, clan, traditions, children and household.
Baba Yaga (Storm Yaga, Yazya) is an old forest sorceress, a witch who can control whirlwinds and blizzards.
Originally, this was the deity of death: a woman with a snake tail who guarded the entrance to the underworld and escorted the souls of the dead to the kingdom of the dead. Previously, they believed that Baba Yaga could live in any village, masquerading as an ordinary woman: caring for livestock, cooking, raising children - that is, they believed that she was a witch.
But still, Baba Yaga is a creature more dangerous than a witch. She lives in a dense forest, which has long instilled fear in people, since it was perceived as the border between the world of the dead and the living.
Baba Yaga's hut is located in the thicket of the forest or on the edge. The name “chicken legs” most likely comes from “chicken legs”, that is, smoke-fuelled pillars, on which the Slavs erected a “death hut” - a small log house with the ashes of the deceased inside (such a funeral rite existed among the ancient Slavs back in the 6th–9th centuries centuries.)
Another prototype of Baba Yaga could be the witches and healers who lived far from settlements deep in the forest. There they collected various roots and herbs, dried them and made various tinctures, and, if necessary, helped the villagers. But many considered them comrades of evil spirits, since, living in the forest, they could not help but communicate with evil spirits (1, p. 56).

3. The main features of the image of Baba Yaga

E then a woman, an old woman, she has an unusual (most often bone) leg. The bone leg is mentioned in the singular in almost all fairy tales. Therefore, we can assume that Baba Yaga is one-legged.
A bone leg is an attribute of death (the leg of a dead man or skeleton). If a myth says that the deity is not doing well with his legs, then you need to “look for the snake.” Baba Yaga is of snake origin. Baba Yaga's one-legged nature is sufficient reason to assume that she is part of the circle of deities who trace their ancestry to the snake. The name Yaga, scientists believe, also reflects her serpentine nature. "Yaga" comes from the Sanskrit word "snake". Thus, at first Baba Yaga crawled like a snake, then she began to jump on one leg, even later she began to ride on the ground in a mortar and only finally rose into the air with the mortar - thus turning into a purely fairy-tale character (1, p. 62 ).

4. Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales

First, I decided to conduct a survey among elementary school students, because I was interested: what do other students think about Baba Yaga? They were asked to answer the following questions:

1. Who is Baba Yaga?
2. How do you imagine her?
3. Where does she live?
4. What does he do?

23 elementary school students took part in the survey. I wrote down their answers in table 1.

Table 1

Student survey results

1. Who is Baba Yaga?

Fictional character

Witch, sorceress

Elderly woman

Angry grumpy old woman

Old lady with a broom

2. How do you imagine her?

Angry, angry, bad

Cheerful, playful

Aggressive, nervous

3. Where does she live?

In the forest in a hut on chicken legs

In a swamp in a hut

4. What does he do?

Goes to visit Leshy

Flies in a mortar

Brews potions, casts spells

Eats children

Spins yarn

5. What does a bone leg look like?

Made from bone

Looks like a skeleton

Wooden leg

Magic leg

Next, I independently analyzed the image of Baba Yaga. To do this, I read 11 Russian folk tales that talked about Baba Yaga.
In all Russian folk tales, Baba Yaga plays an important role. Heroes sometimes resort to her as their last hope, their last helper. But in fairy tales it either helps or it doesn’t.
The results of my research on the following fairy tales: “Geese-Swans”, “The Frog Princess”, “Vasilisa the Beautiful”, “Baba Yaga”, “Baba Yaga and Zamoryshek”, “Marya Morevna”, “Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin”, “Go there - I don’t know where, bring that - I don’t know what”, “The Enchanted Princess”, “Finist - the Clear Falcon”, “The Tale of Rejuvenating Apples and Living Water” - I wrote down in Table 2.

5. General conclusions

T Thus, in the fairy tales I have read, Baba Yaga appears to be an old, toothless woman with a long nose.
Baba Yaga lives in the forest, in a hut on chicken legs, which turns its back to the forest and its front to the stranger; the fence around the hut is made of human bones, on the fence there are skulls, instead of doors there are legs, instead of locks there are hands, instead of a lock there is a mouth with sharp teeth.
The heroes address Baba Yaga affectionately - “grandmother”. Baba Yaga helps heroes who deserve it, although she cannot stand the Russian spirit. In 6 fairy tales out of 11, Baba Yaga is a positive character, in 5 fairy tales she is a negative character. This means that Baba Yaga cannot be considered only an evil and grumpy sorceress.
Baba Yaga has magical things, and various animals serve her. Chasing the fairy-tale heroes running away from her, she chases after them like a black cloud. In two fairy tales, Baba Yaga dies: in one, she fell into a fiery river from a bridge (“Marya Morevna”), in the other, Ivan Tsarevich cuts off her head (“Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin”). In three fairy tales, Baba Yaga has sisters, in one fairy tale - even children (41 daughters). This tale is unusual in that Baba Yaga does not live in a hut on chicken legs, but in white stone chambers.
Baba Yaga knows the future, has countless treasures and secret knowledge. Baba Yaga is the owner of fire (“Vasilisa the Beautiful”), magical things, knowledge that helps the main character defeat his opponent (“The Frog Princess”).
In all fairy tales, Baba Yaga acts in three incarnations: 1) Yaga the hero (“Ivan Tsarevich and the White Polyanin”), where she fights on equal terms with the heroes; 2) Yaga the Kidnapper (“Geese-Swans”, “Baba Yaga”), where she steals children; 3) Yaga the Giver (in all other fairy tales), where she warmly greets the main character or heroine, gives tasty treats, soars in the bathhouse, gives useful advice, and presents rich gifts.

II. Analysis of research results

Based on the connections between various objects, phenomena, and actions of Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales, we can draw a conclusion about her essence.
Baba Yaga tests people, punishes them (ruins them), gives them a ball (guiding thread), gives advice that contributes to achieving the goal, “feels with her heart,” which means - controls fate.
Baba Yaga kidnaps and eats children and people, is associated with night and darkness, she is served by a black cat, she is always old, half-skeleton (bone leg), she is blind, does not see, but smells with her nose (“smells of the Russian spirit”), lives in a hut without windows or doors, around her house there is a fence made of skulls; the fire given by her can kill, which means it is associated with death and the underworld.
Baba Yaga lives in a dense forest, in a hut on chicken legs (half-animal appearance). Wild animals serve her, geese and swans serve her, which means she mistress of beasts and forests.
Baba Yaga flies on a mortar, geese-swans serve her, she raises the wind with a broom, whistles (whistle is associated with the wind), which means she associated with the air element.
Baba Yaga is subject to morning, day, night (white, red and black riders), which means she is a time lady.
Baba Yaga is in charge of fire (the eyes of the skulls in the fence), lies on the stove, punishes people (destroys), morning, day, night are subject to her, which means she is associated with fire heavenly, underground and domestic. ( Application.)

Thus, my research showed that Baba Yaga is a fictional fairy-tale character. Her prototype is the Slavic goddess of death. The essence of the image of Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales has a deeper meaning than just an angry, grumpy old woman. This the image of the majestic figure of the ancient goddess, commanding Time, Fire, Air, Wild Beasts and Forest, Life and Death, Fate.

My guess was confirmed.

III. Conclusion

During my research, I found answers to many questions. I read a lot of Russian folk tales, learned the meaning of words I didn’t understand, conducted a survey among students on the research topic, and learned a lot about Baba Yaga from additional literature. Based on fairy tales, I drew a conclusion about the essence of the image of Baba Yaga. I really enjoyed analyzing fairy tales. I realized that you should always be very careful when reading any work of fiction, since only thoughtful reading will allow you to make some new discoveries.

Glossary of terms

Baba Yaga is a popular character in Russian folk tales. Typically an evil old woman-witch.

Yaga - to sting, to cause pain, to torment.

“Chicken legs” - this name most likely comes from “chicken”, that is, smoke-fuelled pillars, on which the Slavs erected a “death hut”.

Myth is an ancient folk tale about legendary heroes, gods, and natural phenomena; unreliable story, fiction.

Mythology is a set of myths of a people; the science that studies myths.

A pestle is a short, heavy rod with a rounded end for pounding something in a mortar. Stone, copper, wooden pestle.

A broomstick is a stick with a rag wound at the end, a washcloth, pine needles for sweeping, a broom.

A fairy tale is the oldest folk genre of narrative literature, mainly of a fantastic nature, with the purpose of moralizing or entertaining.

A mortar is a heavy metal, wooden or stone vessel in which grains, bark, leaves, etc. are pounded with a pestle. Stupa with Baba Yaga (in fairy tales about Baba Yaga, who flies in a mortar and with a broom).

We all love fairy tales. We watch them, read them from a very early age, and tell them to our children and grandchildren throughout our lives. Baba Yaga, the Nightingale the Robber, the bun, the cunning fox, the cowardly hare - the characters in fairy tales can be listed for a long time.

Where does Baba Yaga live: in the forest, in a dark closet, in the attic or somewhere else - we first ask this question in childhood, and then we answer the same question for our children. Before answering it, let's figure out what kind of fairy-tale character this is?

In some fairy tales, Baba Yaga appears to us in the form of an old evil witch, living in the forest in a hut on chicken legs and flying in a mortar with a broom. And in other fairy tales, on the contrary, she helps a good fellow: she will show the way or give something magical.

Where did she come to us from? A clear answer to this question has not yet been found.

Where did Baba Yaga come from?

According to one version, Baba Yaga is a guide to the other world and lives in the distant kingdom on the border of two worlds: the living and the dead. The hut on chicken legs is her entrance into the world of people. That is why you cannot enter it until it turns its back to the forest, and its front to it.

Baba Yaga is a living dead man. This hypothesis is confirmed by the following details. It is believed that “chicken” legs come from a modified word “kurnye”, meaning fumigated with smoke. The ancient Slavs buried their dead on pillars, fumigated with smoke, on which they erected a “death” hut, and the ashes were placed in it.

There was another method of burial in ancient times: they were buried in special houses, which were placed on high stumps, and the roots of the stumps came out, somewhat reminiscent in appearance of chicken legs.

Another version of the origin of Baba Yaga is that she is the prototype of healers and witches involved in healing the sick. In most cases, they were unsociable women living in the forest far from human settlements.

The word “yaga” is translated from the Old Russian word “ide” as illness, infirmity. Also, the origin of the word yaga is associated with the word “yagat”, meaning “to shout”; and with the word “yagaya”, which means sick and angry. Apparently, the image of Baba Yaga absorbed all the meanings of these ancient Russian words.

According to the third version, Baba Yaga is the Great Mother, a great powerful goddess and foremother of all living things, a great wise priestess. In ancient Slavic culture, “Baba” is the mother and the main woman, who was the administrator of the most important rite of initiation of young men into full members of the community.

According to this ritual, the boy was taken deep into the forest, where he was trained to become a real hunter, while simulating being devoured by a monster, after which he was resurrected. At the same time, the boy was subjected to physical torture and injury. Both mothers and their sons feared this ritual. Baba Yaga does almost the same thing: she steals children, takes them into the dark forest, fries them, and after all this gives useful advice to the survivors.

Types of Baba Yaga:

There are several types of Baba Yaga:

Baba Yaga the kidnapper. This image introduces her to us as a thief of children, taking them into the forest and trying to roast and eat them. But in not a single fairy tale did she succeed in this;

Baba Yaga the giver. In this image, she receives the hero in her hut. After he has passed all her tests, she presents him with all kinds of gifts and wonderful objects;

Baba Yaga warrior– fights with heroes and defeats many of them. After returning to her hut and finding a stranger there, she begins to beat him half to death. Only those who have supernatural strength or cunning survive in such a fight.

Where does Baba Yaga live?

As many tales as there are about this old woman, there are so many places where she lives: in the forest near a swamp, in a thundering forest, in a hut on chicken legs, flies on a broom, flies in a mortar, etc. It is quite difficult for a modern child to answer this question.

After all, a child can ask counter questions: where is the forest? In which country? In which country is there a swamp? You can answer, of course. To do this, you should dream a little with your child and plunge back into childhood.

The image of Baba Yaga is still one of the most popular fairy-tale characters today. Not a single matinee in kindergarten or New Year's performance at the circus would be complete without this disheveled old woman with unkempt hair, a long nose and a bone leg.

Favorite fairy-tale characters Father Frost and Snow Maiden

If you ask a child: “Who is Grandfather Frost? “, he will answer without hesitation that this is a kind grandfather with a beard and wearing felt boots. He rides in a reindeer sleigh and brings gifts to obedient children, which he takes out of his magic bag. But not everyone knows where he came from and where Father Frost lives.

The prototype of Santa Claus is Saint Nicholas, born in the 3rd century in Asia. He loved little children very much, gave gifts to obedient ones, and punished pranksters. In Holland he enjoyed special honor and popularity. It was in this country that he appeared in the role of Santa Claus. Santa Claus (another prototype of Grandfather) appeared in America in the 19th century. In general, different nations had their own predecessors of Santa Claus, for example, in Germany it is Mr. Nobody, in France it is Grandfather January.

In the old days, our grandfather was called Grandfather Treskun. He was a stern, short old man with a long beard. He ruled the earth from November to March, and everyone was terribly afraid of him. He also had a wife named Winter - an evil old woman. There is no information about the children. But we all know very well the granddaughter of Grandfather Frost - Snegurochka.

We all know the modern Santa Claus very well by his long beard, red fur coat, staff and bag of gifts. He comes to the holiday with his granddaughter Snegurochka. He spends the rest of his time in Lapland.

Girl Snow Maiden

Friendly, bright, smiling, cheerful and sculpted from snow - this is exactly how we know this girl. The image took root only in East Slavic traditions. This character is absent in Russian folk rituals. It is also not found in foreign folklore. All kinds of animals act there as assistants to Santa Claus.

The Snow Maiden is dressed in a blue fur coat trimmed with white trim. Another main attribute of hers is a white braid thrown over her shoulder. On her head is a crown embroidered with silver and pearls, and on her feet are white boots.

She helps Santa Claus sort out letters from children sent to him on New Year's Eve. He is engaged in inventing all kinds of competitions and nursery rhymes for children.

It is unknown where the Snow Maiden lives after the holidays. Only one thing is known - in some distant lands.

In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga has several stable attributes: she can cast magic, fly in a mortar, lives in the forest, in a hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence made of human bones with skulls. She lures you to her good fellows and small children and roasts them in the oven (Baba Yaga is a cannibal). She pursues her victims in a mortar, chasing them with a pestle and covering the trail with a broom (broom). According to the greatest specialist in the field of theory and history of folklore V. Ya. Propp, there are three types of Baba Yaga: the giver (she gives the hero a fairy-tale horse or a magical object); child abductor; Baba Yaga is a warrior, fighting with whom “to the death”, the hero of the fairy tale moves to a different level of maturity. At the same time, Baba Yaga’s malice and aggressiveness are not her dominant traits, but only manifestations of her irrational, indeterministic nature. There is a similar hero in German folklore: Frau Holle or Bertha.

The dual nature of Baba Yaga in folklore is connected, firstly, with the image of the mistress of the forest, who must be appeased, and secondly, with the image of an evil creature who puts children on a shovel in order to fry them. This image of Baba Yaga is associated with the function of the priestess, guiding adolescents through the initiation rite. So, in many fairy tales, Baba Yaga wants to eat the hero, but either after feeding and drinking, she lets him go, giving him a ball or some secret knowledge, or the hero runs away on his own.

Russian writers and poets A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky (“The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf”), Alexey Tolstoy, Vladimir Narbut and others repeatedly turned to the image of Baba Yaga in their work. widespread among artists of the Silver Age: Ivan Bilibin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Alexander Benois, Elena Polenova, Ivan Malyutin and others.

Etymology

According to Max Vasmer, Yaga has correspondences in many Indo-European languages with the meanings “illness, annoyance, waste away, anger, irritate, mourn,” etc., from which the original meaning of the name Baba Yaga is quite clear. In the Komi language, the word “yag” means pine forest. Baba is a woman (Nyvbaba is a young woman). "Baba Yaga" can be read as a woman from the bora forest or a forest woman. There is another character from Komi fairy tales, Yagmort (forest man). “Yaga” is a diminutive form of the female name “Jadviga”, common among Western Slavs, borrowed from the Germans.

Origin of the image

Baba Yaga as a goddess

M. Zabylin writes:

Under this name the Slavs revered the infernal goddess, depicted as a monster in an iron mortar with an iron staff. They offered her a bloody sacrifice, thinking that she was feeding it on her two granddaughters, whom they attributed to her, and that she was enjoying the shedding of blood. Under the influence of Christianity, the people forgot their main gods, remembering only the secondary ones and especially those myths that have personified phenomena and forces of nature, or symbols of everyday needs. Thus, Baba Yaga from an evil hellish goddess turned into an evil old witch, sometimes an cannibal, who always lives somewhere in the forest, alone, in a hut on chicken legs. ... In general, traces of Baba Yaga remain only in folk tales, and her myth merges with the myth of witches.

There is also a version that the goddess Makosh is hiding under Baba Yaga. During the adoption of the Christian religion by the Slavs, the old pagan deities were persecuted. Only deities of the lower order, the so-called, remained in the people's memory. chthonic creatures (see demonology, folk demonology), to which Baba Yaga belongs.

According to another version, the image of Baba Yaga goes back to the archetype of the totem animal, which ensured successful hunting for representatives of the totem in prehistoric times. Subsequently, the role of the totem animal is occupied by a creature that has control over the entire forest with its inhabitants. The female image of Baba Yaga is associated with matriarchal ideas about the structure of the social world. The mistress of the forest, Baba Yaga, is the result of anthropomorphism. A hint of the once animal appearance of Baba Yaga, according to V. Ya. Propp, is the description of the house as a hut on chicken legs.

Siberian version of the origin of Baba Yaga

There is another interpretation. According to her, Baba Yaga is not a native Slavic character, but an alien one, introduced into Russian culture by soldiers from Siberia. The first written source about it is the notes of Giles Fletcher (1588) “On the Russian State”, in the chapter “On the Permians, Samoyeds and Lapps”:

According to this position, the name of Baba Yaga is associated with the name of a certain object. In “Essays on the Birch Region” by N. Abramov (St. Petersburg, 1857) there is a detailed description of the “yaga,” which is a garment “like a robe with a fold-down, quarter-length collar. It is sewn from dark non-spitters, with the fur facing out... The same yagas are assembled from loon necks, with the feathers facing out... Yagushka is the same yaga, but with a narrow collar, worn by women on the road” (V. I. Dahl’s dictionary gives a similar interpretation of the Tobolsk origin) .

Appearance

Baba Yaga is usually depicted as a large (nose to the ceiling) hunchbacked old woman with a large, long, humped and hooked nose. In popular prints she is dressed in a green dress, a lilac shawl, bast shoes and trousers. In another ancient painting, Baba Yaga is dressed in a red skirt and boots. In fairy tales there is no emphasis on Baba Yaga's clothes.

Attributes

A hut on chicken legs

In ancient times, the dead were buried in domovinas - houses located above the ground on very high stumps with roots peeking out from under the ground, similar to chicken legs. The houses were placed in such a way that the opening in them faced the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest. People believed that the dead flew on their coffins. People treated their dead ancestors with respect and fear, never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble upon themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead person, and children were often frightened with her. According to other sources, Baba Yaga among some Slavic tribes is a priestess who led the ritual of cremation of the dead. She slaughtered sacrificial cattle and concubines, who were then thrown into the fire.

From the point of view of supporters of the Slavic (classical) origin of Baba Yaga, an important aspect of this image is seen as her belonging to two worlds at once - the world of the dead and the world of the living. A well-known specialist in the field of mythology A.L. Barkova interprets in this regard the origin of the name of the chicken legs on which the hut of the famous mythical character stands: “Her hut “on chicken legs” is depicted standing either in the thicket of the forest (the center of another world), or on edge, but then the entrance to it is from the side of the forest, that is, from the world of death.

The name “chicken legs” most likely comes from “chicken legs”, that is, smoke-fuelled pillars, on which the Slavs erected a “death hut”, a small log house with the ashes of the deceased inside (such a funeral rite existed among the ancient Slavs for centuries). Baba Yaga, inside such a hut, seemed to be like a living dead - she lay motionless and did not see the person who had come from the world of the living (the living do not see the dead, the dead do not see the living). She recognized his arrival by the smell - “it smells of the Russian spirit” (the smell of the living is unpleasant to the dead).” “A person who encounters Baba Yaga’s hut on the border of the world of life and death,” the author continues, as a rule, goes to another world to free the captive princess. To do this, he must join the world of the dead. Usually he asks Yaga to feed him, and she gives him food from the dead. There is another option - to be eaten by Yaga and thus end up in the world of the dead. Having passed the tests in Baba Yaga’s hut, a person finds himself belonging to both worlds at the same time, endowed with many magical qualities, subjugates various inhabitants of the world of the dead, defeats the terrible monsters inhabiting it, wins back a magical beauty from them and becomes king.”

The location of the hut on chicken legs is associated with two magical rivers, either fire (cf. Jahannam, over which a bridge is also stretched), or milk (with jelly banks - cf. characteristic of the Promised Land: milk rivers of Numbers or Muslim Jannat).

Glowing Skulls

An essential attribute of Baba Yaga's dwelling is the tyn, on the stakes of which horse skulls are mounted, used as lamps. In the fairy tale about Vasilisa, the skulls are already human, but they are the source of fire for the main character and her weapon, with which she burned down her stepmother’s house.

Magic helpers

Baba Yaga's magical assistants are geese-swans, “three pairs of hands” and three horsemen (white, red and black).

Characteristic phrases

Steppe Baba Yaga

In addition to the “classic” forest version of Baba Yaga, there is also a “steppe” version of Baba Yaga, who lives across the Fire River and owns a herd of glorious mares. In another fairy tale, Baba Yaga, the golden leg at the head of a countless army fights against the White Polyanin. Hence, some researchers associate Baba Yaga with the “female-ruled” Sarmatians - a pastoral horse-breeding steppe people. In this case, the stupa of Baba Yaga is a Slavic reinterpretation of the Scythian-Sarmatian marching cauldron, and the name Yaga itself is traced back to the Sarmatian ethnonym Yazygi.

Mythological archetype of Baba Yaga

The image of Baba Yaga is associated with legends about the hero’s transition to the other world (the Far Far Away Kingdom). In these legends, Baba Yaga, standing on the border of the worlds (the bone leg), serves as a guide, allowing the hero to penetrate into the world of the dead, thanks to the performance of certain rituals. Another version of the prototype of the fairy-tale old woman can be considered the ittarma dolls dressed in fur clothes, which are still installed today in cult huts on supports.

Thanks to the texts of fairy tales, it is possible to reconstruct the ritual, sacred meaning of the actions of the hero who ends up with Baba Yaga. In particular, V. Ya. Propp, who studied the image of Baba Yaga on the basis of a mass of ethnographic and mythological material, draws attention to a very important detail, in his opinion. After recognizing the hero by smell (Yaga is blind) and clarifying his needs, she always heats the bathhouse and evaporates the hero, thus performing a ritual ablution. Then he feeds the newcomer, which is also a ritual, “mortuary” treat, inadmissible to the living, so that they do not accidentally enter the world of the dead. And, “by demanding food, the hero thereby shows that he is not afraid of this food, that he has the right to it, that he is “real.” That is, the alien, through the test of food, proves to Yaga the sincerity of his motives and shows that he is the real hero, in contrast to the false hero, the impostor antagonist."

This food “opens the mouth of the dead,” says Propp, who is convinced that a fairy tale is always preceded by a myth. And, although the hero does not seem to have died, he will be forced to temporarily “die to the living” in order to get to the “thirtieth kingdom” (another world). There, in the “thirtieth kingdom” (the underworld), where the hero is heading, many dangers always await him, which he has to anticipate and overcome. “Food and treats are certainly mentioned not only when meeting Yaga, but also with many characters equivalent to her. …Even the hut itself is tailored by the storyteller to this function: it is “propped up with a pie,” “covered with a pancake,” which in Western children’s fairy tales corresponds to a “gingerbread house.” This house, by its very appearance, sometimes passes itself off as a food house.”

Another prototype of Baba Yaga could be the witches and healers who lived far from settlements deep in the forest. There they collected various roots and herbs, dried them and made various tinctures, and, if necessary, helped the villagers. But the attitude towards them was ambiguous: many considered them comrades of evil spirits, since living in the forest they could not help but communicate with evil spirits. Since these were mostly unsociable women, there was no clear idea about them.

The image of Baba Yaga in music

The ninth play “The Hut on Chicken Legs (Baba Yaga)” of Modest Mussorgsky’s famous suite “Pictures at an Exhibition - a memory of Victor Hartmann”, 1874, created in memory of his friend, artist and architect, is dedicated to the image of Baba Yaga. The modern interpretation of this suite is also widely known - “Pictures at an Exhibition”, created by the English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer in 1971, where Mussorgsky’s musical pieces alternate with original compositions by English rock musicians: “The Hut of Baba Yaga "(Mussorgsky); "The Curse of Baba Yaga" (Emerson, Lake, Palmer); “The Hut of Baba Yaga” (Mussorgsky). The symphonic poem of the same name by composer Anatoly Lyadov, op. 56, 1891-1904 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 1878 collection of musical pieces for piano, Children's Album, also contains the piece "Baba Yaga".

Baba Yaga is mentioned in the songs of the Gaza Sector group “My Grandma” from the album “Walk, Man!” (1992) and “Ilya Muromets” from the album “The Night Before Christmas” (1991). Baba Yaga also appears as a character in the musicals: “Koschey the Immortal” by the group “Gaza Strip”, “Ilya Muromets” by the duet “Sector Gas Attack” , and in one of the episodes of the musical “Sleeping Beauty” by the group “Red Mold”. In 1989, the international folk group Baba Yaga was founded in Agrigento, Sicily.

The Na-Na group has a song “Grandma Yaga”, written by composer Vitaly Okorokov with lyrics by Alexander Shishinin. Performed in both Russian and English.

Soviet and Russian composer Theodor Efimov wrote music for the song cycle about Baba Yaga. The cycle includes three songs: “Baba Yaga” (lyrics by Yu. Mazharov), “Baba Yaga-2 (Forest Duet)” (lyrics by O. Zhukov) and “Baba Yaga-3 (About Baba Yaga)” ( Lyrics by E. Uspensky). The cycle was performed by VIA Ariel. In addition, the third song of the mentioned cycle was performed by the Bim-Bom musical parody theater. There is also a song by David Tukhmanov based on the verses of Yuri Entin “The Good Grandmother Yaga” performed by Alexander Gradsky, included in the “Horror Park” cycle.

The image of Baba Yaga is played out in the album “The Hut of Granny Zombie” by the Russian folk-black band Izmoroz.

Development of the image in modern literature

The image of Baba Yaga was widely used by the authors of modern literary fairy tales - for example, Eduard Uspensky in the story “Down the Magic River”.
Baba Yaga became one of the main sources for the image of Naina Kievna Gorynych, a character in the story by the Strugatsky brothers “Monday Begins on Saturday.”
The novel “Return to Baba Yaga” by Natalia Malakhovskaya, where three heroines and three writing styles undergo trials and transformations (going to Baba Yaga), modify the plots of their biographies.
In the Hellboy comic series by Mike Mignola, Baba Yaga is one of the negative characters. She lives in the underworld at the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil. In the first volume of the series (“Waking the Devil”), the defeated Rasputin takes refuge with her. In the short story "Baba Yaga", Hellboy, during a fight with Yaga, knocks out her left eye. Unlike most modern literary interpretations, Mignola’s image of Baba Yaga does not carry a satirical load.
The image of Baba Yaga also appears in the graphic story “Mosquito” by Alexei Kindyashev, where he plays the role of one of the main negative characters. The fight between the mythical insect, called upon to protect our world from the forces of evil and the witch, takes place in the very first mini-issue, where the positive character defeats the negative one, thereby protecting the little girl. But not everything is as simple as it seems, and at the end of the issue we learn that it was only a copy created to test the powers of the mythical defender.
Also, the image of Baba Yaga is found in the modern author of Russian literature - Andrei Belyanin in the cycle of works “The Secret Investigation of Tsar Pea", where, in turn, she occupies one of the central places in the role of a positive hero, namely, a forensic expert of secret investigation the courtyard of King Pea.
The childhood and youth of Baba Yaga in modern literature are first encountered in the story “Lukomorye” by A. Aliverdiev (the first chapter of the story, written in 1996, was published in the magazine “Star Road” in 2000). Later, Alexey Gravitsky’s story “Berry”, V. Kachan’s novel “The Youth of Baba Yaga”, M. Vishnevetskaya’s novel “Kashchei and Yagda, or Heavenly Apples”, etc. were written.
Baba Yaga also appears in the Army of Darkness comic book series, where she is represented as an ugly old woman who wants to get the book of the dead - Necronomicon, in order to regain her youth. She was beheaded by one of the deadly sins - Wrath.
The novel “Baba Yaga Laid an Egg” by the modern Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic uses motifs from Slavic folklore, primarily fairy tales about Baba Yaga.
The novel “Black Blood” by Nik Perumov and Svyatoslav Loginov Baba Yogas - called the sorceresses of the family - expelled in ancient times by a shaman, Baba Yoga Neshanka, who lives in a charmed place, in a hut on two stumps - reminiscent of bird paws, they turn to Unika, Tasha, for help, and Romar, then Unica herself will become Baba Yoga.
In Dmitry Yemets’s cycle “Tanya Groter” Baba Yaga is depicted in the image of the ancient goddess, healer Tibidox - Yagge, the former goddess of the ancient destroyed pantheon.
Baba Yaga is also one of the main characters in Leonid Filatov's fairy tale "" and in the animated film of the same name.
Baba Yaga is one of the characters in the 38th issue of the comic book “The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman, the events of which take place in the forests of an unexplicitly named country. Other attributes of Baba Yaga in the issue include a hut on chicken legs and a flying stupa, on which Baba Yaga and the main character travel part of the way from the forest to the city.
Elena Nikitina's Baba Yaga plays the role of the main character, in the form of a young girl.
Baba Yaga appears in the book “Three in the Sands” of the series “Three from the Forest” by Yuri Aleksandrovich Nikitin. She is one of the last guardians of ancient female magic and helps the heroes.

Baba Yaga on the screen

Movies

More often than others, Georgy Millyar played the role of Baba Yaga, including in the films:

“Adventures in the Thirtieth Kingdom” (2010) - Anna Yakunina.

The name of the Slavic female sorceress became popular in Western Europe. In 1973, the French-Italian film “Baba Yaga” (Italian) was released. Baba Yaga (film)) directed by Corrado Farina (Italian. Corrado Farina) with Carroll Baker in the title role. The film was created based on one of the erotic-mystical comics by Guido Crepax (Italian. Guido Crepax) from the series “Valentine” (Italian. Valentina (fumetto)).

Cartoons

“The Frog Princess” (1954) (dir. Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, voiced by Georgy Millyar)
“Ivashko and Baba Yaga” (1938, voiced by Osip Abdulov)
“The Frog Princess” (1971) (dir. Yu. Eliseev, voiced by Zinaida Naryshkina)
“The End of the Black Swamp” (1960, voiced by Irina Masing)
“About the Evil Stepmother” (1966, voiced by Elena Ponsova)
“The Tale is Telling” (1970, voiced by Klara Rumyanova)
“Flying Ship” (1979, women's group of the Moscow Chamber Choir)
“Vasilisa the Beautiful” (1977, voiced by Anastasia Georgievskaya)
“The Adventures of the Brownie” (1985) / “A Tale for Natasha” (1986) / “The Return of the Brownie” (1987) (voiced by Tatyana Peltzer)
“Baba Yaga is against it! "(1980, voiced by Olga Aroseva)
“Ivashka from the Palace of Pioneers” (1981, voiced by Efim Katsirov)
"Wait for it! "(16th issue) (1986)
“Dear Leshy” (1988, voiced by Viktor Proskurin)
“And in this fairy tale it was like this...” (1984)
“Two Bogatyrs” (1989, voiced by Maria Vinogradova)
“Dreamers from the village of Ugory” (1994, voiced by Kazimira Smirnova)
“Grandma Ezhka and others” (2006, voiced by Tatyana Bondarenko)
“About Fedot the Sagittarius, a daring fellow” (2008, voiced by Alexander Revva)
“Dobrynya Nikitich and Zmey Gorynych” (2006, voiced by Natalya Danilova)
“Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf” (2011, voiced by Liya Akhedzhakova)
"Bartok the Magnificent" (1999, voiced by Andrea Martin)

Fairy tales

"Motherland" and Baba Yaga's birthday

Research

Potebnya A. A., About the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs. [chap.] 2 - Baba Yaga, “Readings in the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities”, M., 1865, book. 3;
Veselovsky N. I., The current state of the issue of “Stone Women” or “Balbals”. // Notes of the Imperial Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, vol. XXXII. Odessa: 1915. Dept. print: 40 s. + 14 tables
Toporov V. N., Hittite salŠU.GI and Slavic Baba Yaga, “Brief communications of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences,” 1963, c. 38.
Malakhovskaya A. N., The Legacy of Baba Yaga: Religious ideas reflected in a fairy tale, and their traces in Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries. - St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2007. - 344 p.

Games character

In the game "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" Baba Yaga is one of the famous witches. It is told about her what she likes to eat for breakfast (possibly for lunch and dinner) of small children. She can be seen on a trading card in the group about famous witches, she appears on card No. 1.
Baba Yaga is one of the characters in the game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
In the first part of the game “Quest for Glory” Baba Yaga is one of the main enemies of the hero. The old lady later appears again in one of the subsequent games in the series.
Baba Yaga is mentioned in one of the plot conversations between the Anderson brothers in the game Alan Wake. In addition, the house on Cauldron Lake has a sign that reads "Birds leg cabin", which can be interpreted as a hut on chicken legs.
In the game "Non-Children's Tales", the character of Baba Yaga assigns quests to the player.
In the game "The Witcher" there is a monster Yaga - an old dead woman.
In the games “Go There, I Don’t Know Where,” “Baba Yaga Far Away,” “Baba Yaga Learns to Read,” Baba Yaga is studying a subject with a child, getting into various troubles with him.

Notes

Enchanted castle
Jan Deda and the Red Baba Yaga
Encyclopedia of supernatural beings. Lockid-MYTH, Moscow, 2000.
Propp V. Ya. Historical roots of fairy tales. L.: Leningrad State University Publishing House, 1986.
TV channel Yurgan
Komi mythology
Zabylin M. The Russian people, their customs, rituals, legends, superstitions and poetry. 1880.
“Is Baba Yaga a goddess?”
Mikhail Sitnikov, Innocently tortured Yaga. The “spiritual avant-garde,” like the Taliban who curse Christians as “cross-worshippers,” tars the mythological Baba Yaga, Portal-Credo.Ru, 07/13/2005.
Veselovsky N. I. Imaginary stone women // Bulletin of Archeology and History, published by the Imperial Archaeological Institute. Vol. XVII. St. Petersburg 1906.
Some observations on the evolution of the image of Baba Yagiv in Russian folklore
Dancing opposite Yaga
Petrukhin V. Ya. The beginning of the ethnocultural history of Rus' in the 9th-11th centuries
Barkova A. L., Alekseev S., “Beliefs of the ancient Slavs” / Encyclopedia for children. [Vol.6.]: Religions of the world. Part 1. - M.: Avanta Plus. ISBN 5-94623-100-6
Marya Morevna
Swan geese
Finist - Yasnyi Sokol
Vasilisa the Beautiful
Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin
About Slavic fairy tales
Decline as a result of the Sarmatian invasion
In the collection of A. N. Afanasyev, there is the first version of the fairy tale “Finist’s Feather of the Clear Falcon,” where the triple Baba Yaga is replaced by three nameless “old women.” This option was later processed

During my childhood, when every self-respecting school held pre-New Year’s matinees (for junior classes) and “discos” (for seniors), an indispensable part of these events were performances by invited artists - sometimes professional, from the local drama theater, sometimes amateurs - mothers, fathers, teachers.

And the lineup of participants was just as indispensable - Father Frost, Snow Maiden, forest creatures (squirrels, hares, etc.), sometimes pirates, Bremen Town Musicians and devils with kikimoras. But the main villain was Baba Yaga. In all sorts of interpretations did she appear before the amazed public - a hunchbacked old woman, a middle-aged woman with bright makeup - something between a gypsy fortune teller and a witch, and a sexy young creature in a dress made of patches and charming shaggy hair on her head. The only thing that remained unchanged was its essence - to do as much harm as possible to the “good characters” - not to let them go to the Christmas tree, to take away gifts, to turn them into an old stump - the list is unlimited.

Who is this Baba Yaga really? Folklore element? A figment of the people's imagination? Real character? An invention of children's writers? Let's try to find out the origin of the most insidious fairy-tale character of our childhood.

Slavic mythology

Baba Yaga (Yaga-Yaginishna, Yagibikha, Yagishna) is the oldest character in Slavic mythology. Initially, this was the deity of death: a woman with a snake tail who guarded the entrance to the underworld and escorted the souls of the deceased to the kingdom of the dead. In this way, she is somewhat reminiscent of the ancient Greek snake maiden Echidna. According to ancient myths, from her marriage to Hercules, Echidna gave birth to the Scythians, and the Scythians are considered the most ancient ancestors of the Slavs. It is not for nothing that Baba Yaga plays a very important role in all fairy tales; heroes sometimes resort to her as the last hope, the last assistant - these are indisputable traces of matriarchy.

Was the bone leg a snake's tail?

Particular attention is drawn to the bony, one-legged nature of Baba Yaga, associated with her once bestial or snake-like appearance: “The cult of snakes as creatures associated with the land of the dead begins, apparently, already in the Paleolithic. In the Paleolithic, images of snakes are known, personifying the underworld. The appearance of an image of a mixed nature dates back to this era: the upper part of the figure is from a person, the lower part from a snake or, perhaps, a worm.”

According to K.D. Laushkin, who considers Baba Yaga to be the goddess of death, one-legged creatures in the mythologies of many peoples are in one way or another connected with the image of a snake (possible development of ideas about such creatures: a snake is a man with a snake’s tail, a one-legged man is lame, etc.) P.).

V. Ya. Propp notes that “Yaga, as a rule, does not walk, but flies, like a mythical serpent or dragon.” “As is known, the all-Russian “snake” is not the original name of this reptile, but arose as a taboo in connection with the word “earth” - “crawling on the ground,” writes O. A. Cherepanova, suggesting that the original, not established while the name of the snake could be yaga.

One of the possible echoes of old ideas about such a snake-like deity is the image of a huge forest (white) or field snake, traced in the beliefs of peasants in a number of Russian provinces, which has power over livestock, can bestow omniscience, etc.

Is the bone leg a connection with death?

According to another belief, Death hands over the deceased to Baba Yaga, with whom she travels around the world. At the same time, Baba Yaga and the witches subordinate to her feed on the souls of the dead and therefore become as light as the souls themselves.

They used to believe that Baba Yaga could live in any village, masquerading as an ordinary woman: caring for livestock, cooking, raising children. In this, ideas about her come closer to ideas about ordinary witches.

But still, Baba Yaga is a more dangerous creature, possessing much greater power than some kind of witch. Most often, she lives in a dense forest, which has long instilled fear in people, since it was perceived as the border between the world of the dead and the living. It’s not for nothing that her hut is surrounded by a palisade of human bones and skulls, and in many fairy tales Baba Yaga feeds on human flesh, and she herself is called the “bone leg.”

Just like Koschey the Immortal (koshch - bone), she belongs to two worlds at once: the world of the living and the world of the dead. Hence its almost limitless possibilities.

Fairy tales

In fairy tales she acts in three incarnations.

Yaga the hero possesses a treasure sword and fights on equal terms with the heroes.

The abductor yaga steals children, sometimes throwing them, already dead, onto the roof of their home, but most often taking them to her hut on chicken legs, or into an open field, or underground. From this strange hut, children, and adults too, escape by outwitting Yagibishna.

And finally, Yaga the Giver warmly greets the hero or heroine, treats him deliciously, soars in the bathhouse, gives useful advice, presents a horse or rich gifts, for example, a magic ball leading to a wonderful goal, etc.

This old sorceress does not walk, but travels around the world in an iron mortar (that is, a scooter chariot), and when she walks, she forces the mortar to run faster, striking it with an iron club or pestle. And so that, for reasons known to her, no traces are visible, they are swept behind her by special ones, attached to the mortar with a broom and broom. She is served by frogs, black cats, including Cat Bayun, crows and snakes: all creatures in which both threat and wisdom coexist.

Even when Baba Yaga appears in her most unsightly form and is distinguished by her fierce nature, she knows the future, possesses countless treasures and secret knowledge.

The veneration of all its properties is reflected not only in fairy tales, but also in riddles. One of them says this: “Baba Yaga, with a pitchfork, feeds the whole world, starves herself.” It's about about the wet-nurse plow, the most important tool of labor in peasant life.

The mysterious, wise, terrible Baba Yaga plays the same huge role in the life of the fairy-tale hero.

Vladimir Dahl's version

"YAGA or Yaga-Baba, Baba-Yaga, Yagaya and Yagavaya or Yagishna and Yaginichna, a kind of witch, an evil spirit, under the guise of an ugly old woman. Stands a Yaga with horns in her forehead (a stove pillar with crows)? Baba Yaga, a bone leg, she rides in a mortar, rests with a pestle, covers up the trail with a broom. Her bones in places come out from under her body; her nipples hang below her waist; she goes for human meat, kidnaps children, her mortar is iron, she is driven by devils; there is a terrible storm under this train, "Everything groans, the cattle roar, there is pestilence and death; whoever sees a yaga becomes mute. A wicked, scolding woman is called a yagishna."

"Baba Yaga or Yaga Baba, a fairy-tale monster, a bogeyman over witches, a helper of Satan. Baba Yaga is a bone leg: she rides in a mortar, drives (rests) with a pestle, covers her trail with a broom. She is bare-haired and wears only a shirt without a girdle: that’s what the other is the height of outrage."

Baba Yaga among other peoples

Baba Yaga (Polish Endza, Czech Ezhibaba) is considered to be a monster, in which only small children should believe. But even a century and a half ago in Belarus, adults also believed in her - the terrible goddess of death, destroying the bodies and souls of people. And this goddess is one of the most ancient.

Ethnographers have established its connection with the primitive initiation rite, which was performed back in the Paleolithic and known among the most backward peoples of the world (Australians).

To be initiated into full membership of the tribe, teenagers had to undergo special, sometimes difficult, rituals - tests. They were performed in a cave or in a deep forest, near a lonely hut, and they were administered by an old woman - a priestess. The most terrible test consisted of staging the “devouring” of the subjects by a monster and their subsequent “resurrection.” In any case, they had to “die”, visit the other world and “resurrect”.

Everything around her breathes death and horror. The bolt in her hut is a human leg, the locks are hands, and the lock is a toothed mouth. Her back is made of bones, and on them are skulls with flaming eye sockets. She fries and eats people, especially children, while licking the stove with her tongue and scooping out the coals with her feet. Her hut is covered with a pancake, propped up with a pie, but these are symbols not of abundance, but of death (funeral food).

According to Belarusian beliefs, Yaga flies in an iron mortar with a fiery broom. Where it rushes, the wind rages, the earth groans, animals howl, cattle hide. Yaga is a powerful sorceress. She, like witches, is served by devils, crows, black cats, snakes, and toads. She turns into a snake, a mare, a tree, a whirlwind, etc.; The only thing he can’t do is take on a somewhat normal human appearance.

Yaga lives in a dense forest or the underground world. She is the mistress of the underground hell: “Do you want to go to hell? “I am Jerzy-ba-ba,” says Yaga in a Slovak fairy tale. For a farmer (as opposed to a hunter), the forest is an unkind place, full of all sorts of evil spirits, the same other world, and the famous hut on chicken legs is like a passageway into this world, and therefore one cannot enter it until he turns his back to the forest .

Yaga the watchman is difficult to deal with. She beats the heroes of the fairy tale, ties them up, cuts the straps out of their backs, and only the strongest and bravest hero defeats her and descends into the underworld. At the same time, Yaga has the features of a ruler of the Universe and looks like some kind of terrible parody of the Mother of the World.

Yaga is also a mother goddess: she has three sons (snakes or giants) and 3 or 12 daughters. Perhaps she is the cursed mother or grandmother. She is a housewife, her attributes (mortar, broom, pestle) are tools of female labor. Yaga is served by three horsemen - black (night), white (day) and red (sun), who ride through her “passage” every day. With the help of the death's head she commands the rain.

Yaga is a pan-Indo-European goddess.

Among the Greeks, it corresponds to Hecate - the terrible three-faced goddess of the night, witchcraft, death and hunting.
The Germans have Perchta, Holda (Hel, Frau Hallu).
The Indians have no less terrible Kali.

Perkhta-Holda lives underground (in wells), commands rain, snow and the weather in general, and rushes around, like Yaga or Hecate, at the head of a crowd of ghosts and witches. Perchta was borrowed from the Germans by their Slavic neighbors - the Czechs and Slovenes.

Alternative origins of the image

The dead were buried with their feet towards the exit, and if you looked into the house, you could only see their feet - this is where the expression “Baba Yaga bone leg” came from. People treated their dead ancestors with respect and fear, never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble upon themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead person, and she was often used to scare children.

According to other sources, Baba Yaga among some Slavic tribes (the Rus in particular) was a priestess who led the ritual of cremation of the dead. She slaughtered sacrificial cattle and concubines, who were then thrown into the fire.

Pants Daria

Everyone loves fairy tales: both adults and children. They contain many different miracles. Has anyone ever wondered who Baba Yaga is and how she got into the fairy tale?

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project work of a 4th grade student of the municipal educational institution of secondary school in the village of Semyonovka, Fedorovsky district Saratov region Daria's pants Where does Baba Yaga live?

Everyone loves fairy tales: both adults and children. They contain many different miracles. Has anyone ever wondered who Baba Yaga is and how she got into the fairy tale? Why does she eat small children? Why does she live alone in a dark forest? Who invented it? Is this a fictional fairy tale character? I decided to learn more about this and find answers to my questions. Hello! I am a 4th grade student at the Semyonovka Municipal Educational Institution Shtana Daria

To achieve the goal, I set the following tasks: * learn from additional literature about Baba Yaga; * conduct a survey on the topic of work among students; * read Russian folk tales in which Baba Yaga acts; * analyze the image of Baba Yaga and draw conclusions. The purpose of my work: to analyze the image of Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales and draw a conclusion about her essence.

Object and hypothesis: suppose that Baba Yaga is a fictional character from Russian folk tales. Subject and research: Russian folk tales Research methods: reflection and reading books, survey, analysis of results Survey of students I conducted a survey among students (26 students participated in the survey) from grades 1 to 5 and asked them to answer the following questions: 1. Who is she? Baba Yaga? 2. How do you imagine her? 3. Where does she live? 4.What does he do? 5. What does a bone leg look like?

The results of the student survey are as follows: Baba Yaga is a fictional character, a witch, a sorceress, an evil grumpy old woman, an elderly woman, an old woman with a broom. They imagine her as angry, angry, bad, aggressive, nervous. She lives in the forest in a hut on chicken legs, in a hut in a swamp. He spends his time flying in a mortar, spinning yarn, eating children, brewing potions, casting spells, and visiting the devil. Baba Yaga's bone leg is made of bone, looks like a skeleton's, it is magical, wooden.

Baba Yaga is a mythological creature. From the encyclopedia I learned that a fairy tale is always preceded by a myth. Baba Yaga is a famous character from Slavic fairy tales. The prototype of Baba Yaga is the Slavic goddess of death: a woman with a snake tail who guarded the entrance to the underworld and escorted the souls of the deceased to the kingdom of the dead. In almost all fairy tales, Baba Yaga has a bone leg - an attribute of death (the leg of a dead man or skeleton), so we can assume that Baba Yaga is one-legged. Baba Yaga is of snake origin. At first Baba Yaga crawled like a snake, then she began to jump on one leg, later she began to ride on the ground in a mortar and only finally rose into the air with the mortar - thus turning into a purely fairy-tale character.

The image of Baba Yaga in Russian folk tales The name of the fairy tale The habitat of Baba Yaga The appearance of Baba Yaga Magic things in fairy tales and other miracles Animals serving Baba Yaga Positive or negative character “Geese - swans” .. there is a hut on a chicken leg, turns around itself... ... sinewy muzzle, clay leg... Golden apples Mouse, geese-swans Negative, as it kidnaps children to eat “The Frog Princess” .. there is a hut on chicken legs, turns around itself - ... ... the teeth are on the shelf, and the nose has grown into the ceiling... Tangle _____ Positive, as it gives advice on how to defeat the enemy (Kashchei) “Baba Yaga” There is a hut in the forest, and Baba Yaga sits in it. Baba Yaga - bone leg Comb, towel Cat, dogs, bulls Negative because she wanted to eat the girl

“Baba Yaga and Zamoryshek” Far away on a steep mountain Baba Yaga – a bone leg (has 41 daughters) Magic handkerchief, fire shield. _____ Negative, because she wanted to destroy all the brothers “Vasilisa the Beautiful” In a dense forest, around the hut there is a fence made of human bones, skulls with people’s eyes stick out on the fence She rides in a mortar, drives with a pestle, covers her trail with a broom A doll, three horsemen (white, red , black); three pairs of hands. _____ Positive, because she helped Vasilisa by giving her fire (a skull with burning eyes) “The Tale of Rejuvenating Apples and Living Water” Three Baba Yagas (sisters) ...A hut on chicken legs, about one window... ...a silk tow rushes, and throws threads through the beds... Living water, rejuvenating apples Magic horses Positive, as she gave advice on how to find water and apples “The Enchanted Princess” Three Baba Yagas. The eldest one has a hut and then... just pitch darkness, you can’t see anything Baba Yaga is a bone leg, old, toothless. The carpet is an airplane, the boots are walkers, the hat is invisible. _______ Positive, because it helped find the princess

General conclusions I read seven Russian folk tales that talked about Baba Yaga and independently analyzed the image of Baba Yaga. In all fairy tales, Baba Yaga plays an important role. Heroes sometimes resort to her as their last hope, their last helper. But in fairy tales she either helps or she doesn’t. Analysis of the research results My research showed that Baba Yaga is a fictional fairy-tale character who: controls fate * punishes, destroys people * witch * “feels with her heart” * gives a ball (guiding thread) * tied with fire * lies on the stove * knows fire (eyes of skulls) * morning, day, night are subject to her (white, red and black riders) * mistress of animals * swan geese serve her * hut on chicken legs (half-animal appearance) * lives in dense forest * wild animals serve her * connected with death and the underworld * kidnaps and eats children and people * fire given by her can kill * associated with night, darkness * she is always old, half-skeleton (bone leg) * she is blind, does not see , but smells with his nose (“smells of the Russian spirit”) * associated with the air element * whistles (whistle is associated with the wind) * raises the wind with a broom * flies on a mortar