Meeting the Baba Yaga: Witches, magic, and mystery

I recently overhead an exchange between a little boy and his mom. The subject was witches and magic. Which got me thinking.

Magic involves perception, changes in the way we see and the manner in which things appear. Magic, like myth, is now a matter of “belief” when it could be practice.

This episode revolves around a Russian fairy tale called “Vasilisa the Wise.” On one level, this is a story about a young woman and a witch called the Baba Yaga. On another level, it’s an invitation to think about magic. The magic and the mystery that we are in, by virtue of being alive.

Transcript of Meeting the Baba Yaga: Witches, magic, and mystery

Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and what myth can offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle. 

I was in the grocery store the other day and I noticed a little boy and his mom standing by the Halloween decorations and candy. He looked to be about four years old and asked his mother, “Is there such a thing as witches?” Curious, I paused to hear her reply. “No,” she said, “I don’t believe in witches.” And then his follow-up question, “why not?”  “If you believe in witches then you believe in magic” she told him “and there’s no such thing.” 

This exchange got me thinking. Magic involves perception, changes in the way we see and the manner in which things appear. In these times I think we confuse information about the world with the world itself, and easily accept explanations that may describe some of the mechanics of a phenomenon and also miss the point. The wonder and mystery in everyday life is overlooked. Magic, like myth, is now a matter of “belief” when it could be practice.  

Today I’m going to tell you a Russian fairy tale called “Vasilisa the Wise.” On one level, this is a story about a young woman and a witch called the Baba Yaga. On another level, it’s an invitation to think about magic. The magic and the mystery that we are in.

The Baba Yaga is an enigmatic figure in Slavic mythology. The origins and etymology of her name are ambiguous. The “Baba” part has been linked to midwife, sorceress, fortune teller, and also grandmother. Babushka. The “Yaga” is tricky. It may come from the Sanskrit for “snake.” In Slovenian, Czech, and Polish, languages in countries in which her stories are popular, “yaga” is connected to horror, anger, evil, and the awful. the awful which is a portal to the awesome. 

A Baba Yaga, and in many stories she appears as a trio of sisters, is something elemental, natural and otherworldly, beyond the human. As such, her intentions and actions are often inscrutable. She poses puzzles and tests. She might eat you or she might help you. It depends.

I’ll say a bit more about the Baba Yaga later. Now let’s turn to the story. I invite you to settle in and listen. Step away from the daily routine for a moment. Notice the detail or moment in the story that captures your attention as this can be an opening into the meaning the story offers you right now.

“Vasilisa The Wise”

Once upon a time, there was a merchant and his wife. They had only one child, a daughter called Vasilisa. The three of them were very happy together until Vasilisa got to be about eight years old. Then her mother got very sick. When it was clear that she was going to die, her mother called Vasilisa to her bedside and said, “I love you. I’m giving you my blessing and this doll. Keep this doll with you always. Consult it whenever you need advice or comfort. Take care of it, and keep it secret.” Then the merchant’s wife died.

Some years went by and the merchant remarried. He married a woman who had two daughters of her own about Vasilisa’s age. For a while, all four women got along well. But as the years went by and the girls grew up, the stepmother slowly became hostile toward Vasilisa. 

Now the merchant needed to leave the country on business and he was gone for a long time. During his absence, the stepmother decided that she would move with her three daughters to another house. She picked a house on the edge of a woods. On the edge of a woods where– it was rumored– the Baba Yaga lived.

The Baba Yaga was a mysterious old witch, a scary crone. Maybe a monster. According to the rumors, the Baba Yaga ate anyone unlucky enough to cross her path, as easily as you might eat a chicken. This new living situation suited the stepmother very well, for it was her hope that one way or another, Vasilisa would one day cross the Baba Yaga’s path.

One evening, the stepmother gathered the three girls together and said, “You’re not getting anywhere near enough work done. I’m going to give you each a task and I want you to work all night. One of you will embroider, one of you will knit, and one of you will spin.” Having assigned the tasks, the stepmother lit a candle and put it on the mantle of the fireplace. Then she went to bed.

The girls started working. For a while they were diligent and made progress at their tasks, but then the candle began to burn down. One of the stepsisters took her knitting needle to clear the wick, but she actually drowned it, and the candle was rendered useless. They were left in the dark.

“Well,” said the stepsister with the knitting needles, “I don’t need light. I can see by the light of the moon flashing on my needles.” The other stepsister, who was embroidering said, “Well, I don’t need light either. I can see by the light of the moon flashing on my needle.” They turned to Vasilisa and said, “You, Vasilisa, are the one who will need to get us fire. You are going to have to go and find the Baba Yaga and get us fire.” They jumped up, grabbed Vasilisa, pushed her out of the house, and slammed the door behind her.

Vasilisa stood out on the doorstep thinking, “Oh my. Now, what am I going to do?” She definitely did not want to make a journey into the dark woods in the middle of the night to go and find the Baba Yaga. Her knees trembled at the thought. She took the doll from her pocket. The doll said, “Don’t be afraid. Go ahead and make the trip.”

Vasilisa walked all through the night. Then a rider went by, dressed all in white and riding a white horse. Dawn broke. A short time later, she met another rider. This one was dressed in red and riding a red horse. The sun rose. Vasilisa had already walked all night. Now she walked all day. In the evening she arrived at a clearing in the forest.

This was a very strange place. The longer Vasilisa stood there, the more frightened she became. In the middle of this clearing was a fenced enclosure. The fence was made of bones. There was a skull on top of each one of the fence posts. In the middle of this enclosure was a house, a very strange house. It was on chicken legs and wandered around in the yard.

 Vasilisa was so frightened that her knees knocked together and her hands shook. She’d barely begun to make sense of the scene when she heard a strange sound. Just then, a black horse and a black rider rode by and night fell. The eyes in all of the skulls on the fence suddenly lit up with a fiery light. In that light, Vasilisa saw an ugly old woman flying through the air in a mortar, a vessel in which you grind herbs or grain. 

The crone flew through the air in a mortar, her long gray hair flying out behind her. The old witch grasped a pestle in one hand and a broom in the other. She rowed through the air with these, wiping out her tracks behind her.

The Baba landed with a swoosh. Her house immediately sat down on the ground. She went to the door and took out her skeleton key to open her skeleton lock. Just as she was about to open the door, she stopped and sniffed the air. “Hmm,” she said. “I smell a human being.” 

Vasilisa was terrified, but she spoke up in a very small voice, “Grandmother, it’s me, Vasilisa.” “Well, what do you want?” said the Baba Yaga. “My stepmother and my stepsisters have sent me here to you to get fire,” said Vasilisa. “Oh,” said the Baba. “I know your family. Come in and stay with me for a little while.”

Vasilisa was ushered into the house by the Baba Yaga. The place was full of all kinds of very strange and interesting things, but the Baba didn’t give her a chance to look around. “Set the table and bring that food from the stove,” she said to Vasilisa. There was an enormous amount of food and Vasilisa piled it up on the table. The Baba sat down and began to eat. She ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate. She ate all of the food.

When she was finished, she gave Vasilisa a crust of bread and a bowl of soup. “Okay, young lady” she said, “Here’s the deal. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to go out. While I’m gone, you must clean my house, do all of my laundry, sweep the yard, and you see that huge pile of corn over there? I want you to separate all of the good corn from the mildewed corn. And you must cook my meal. All of this must be done before I return in the evening, or I will eat you.” Then the Baba Yaga went to sleep. 

Vasilisa thought, “Oh my. I’m so screwed. There’s no way I can get all of this work done.” She quietly consulted the doll. The doll said, “Don’t worry. Eat your supper. Go to sleep and in the morning, all will be well.” Vasilisa did as the doll instructed.

When she woke up in the morning, the Baba was gone. Vasilisa looked around the house for a few minutes. She was amazed at what she saw but then she remembered her work. She didn’t know where to begin but she discovered that all of the work was already done. The doll had completed all of the tasks except cooking the meal.

Vasilisa cooked the meal for the Baba Yaga. When the Baba came home she looked around, and she pretended to be pleased that everything was done but you could tell that she was actually rather put out by this.

The Baba Yaga snapped her fingers and called out, “Servants, servants.” Three pairs of skeleton hands appeared. The skeleton hands took the corn and mortar and pestle and began to grind the corn. Vasilisa was dumbfounded. The Baba Yaga sat down at the table just as the night before. She ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate, and she ate. 

When she was finished, she gave Vasilisa a crust of bread and a little bit of soup. “Okay,” she said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to go out again. You must clean my house, do my laundry, and sweep the yard. This time, you must address that big pile of poppy seeds in the yard. Separate all the seeds from the dirt. And, you must cook my meal. All of this must be done before I get back in the evening or I will eat you.” Then Baba Yaga went to sleep.

 Once again, Vasilisa thought, “This is too much,” and she consulted the doll. The doll said, “Don’t worry. Eat your dinner. Go to sleep. In the morning, everything will be just fine.”

In the morning when Vasilisa got up, sure enough, everything was done. The doll had completed all of the tasks except cooking the meal. Vasilisa cooked the meal and when the Baba Yaga came back, she looked around again and saw that all of the work was done. 

She snapped her fingers and called for her servants. The skeleton hands appeared again and began to press oil out of the poppy seeds. The Baba sat down at the table full of food and began to eat.

Vasilisa stood silently by the table. The Baba looked up and said sharply, “Is there something wrong with you? Why are you standing there without saying a word?” “Well, if I may, grandmother,” said Vasilisa, “I’d like to ask you a question.” “Okay, you can ask a question,” said the Baba, “But just remember, too much knowledge can make you old.”

 “Grandmother, on my way to your house, I saw a white horse and a white rider. Who was that?” “Ah,” saidthe  Baba, “The white one. The white one is my dawn.” “Grandmother, I also saw a red horse and a red rider. Who was that?” “Oh, the red one, the red one. That was my sun.” “I saw a black horse and a black rider. Who was that?” “Oh, the black one. The black one, that is my night.”

Vasilisa thought about the skeleton hands but she didn’t say anything. The Baba Yaga looked at her. “Is that it? You don’t have more questions for me?” “Oh, no, grandmother. You said yourself, too much knowledge can make one old.”

“You did well to ask only about things that are outside of the house,” said the Baba. “I have a question for you. How are you getting all of this work done.” “Oh, grandmother, I have the blessing of my mother.” “What,” said the Baba Yaga, “You’ve been blessed by your mother? You must get out of here immediately.” 

She jumped up and pushed Vasilisa out the door and down to the gate. There she grabbed one of the skulls with the fiery eyes and stuck it on a stick. She gave it to Vasilisa and said, “Here you go. Here’s your fire for your stepsisters. Now, be gone.”

Vasilisa took the stick and the skull with the fiery eyes. She ran through the woods as fast as her legs could move. The light of the skull eyes lit her way. She ran all night. When dawn broke, the light in the skull eyes went out.

 Vasilisa continued walking. She walked all day. She arrived home as evening was falling. Vasilisa put her hand on the gate to go in. The skull’s eyes lit up in the dusk and she looked at the skull and considered tossing it away. But the skull said, “No. Keep me with you.” So, Vasilisa took it inside.

Her stepmother and her stepsisters were very surprised to see her, but they welcomed her. “We haven’t had any fire since you’ve been gone,” they said. Vasilisa leaned the stick and the skull in a corner and the women sat down at the table to eat dinner. The skull’s eyes seemed to follow every movement of the stepmother and the stepsisters very, very carefully.

In the morning when Vasilisa woke up, she discovered that her stepmother and two stepsisters had been burned to ash. They were piles of cinders. Vasilisa took the skull out into the yard and buried it at the foot of an oak tree. Then she opened the gate, stepped onto the road, and headed off for the market.

That’s the end of this story although Vasilisa has other adventures. Let’s stop here to consider a few of the elements in this story. Elements that as I see it, point us in the direction of the magic that’s all around. 

Now, there are a lot of really incredible images and ideas in this story. It provokes a lot of questions every time I tell it and I invite you to do some of your own musing over the details and images that grabbed your attention. 

The Baba Yaga is one in a long line of scary witches, crones, and goddesses who personify the mysteries of the great mother, one archetypal face of the earth and the natural dynamics of life. These figures often have a deformed, ugly, and terrifying aspect. Ugliness and illness are part of life. They are also a face of our fears. These scary figures are also guardians and their fearsome aspect frightens away the superficial and immature. Those people who aren’t ready to face these sacred truths. 

Figures like the baba Yaga hold the power of life and death in their hands and remind us that life and death are perspectives and moments in a process. As soon as you’re born, you’re dying. We say this, but do we really think about it? Extraordinary.

The Baba eats and eats and eats, as the earth is profligate and abundant. The corn and the poppy seeds connect her to life and food, and also to sleep, dreams, and death. The riders and their horses are “hers” as the cycle of day and night and time itself, are the earth experience.

I think the mysterious phrase, “Too much knowledge can make you old,” is a reminder that we need to learn the deep secrets in little pieces, over time, as we’re ready,  if we’re going to make useful sense of them and become wise. There are right times for us to know and understand certain things. Think about how you explain death, for example, to a three-year-old and how you would explain it to a 13-year-old, and what you know about death now. 

We need to be careful and respectful when we approach the numinous, powerful mysteries at the heart of life. What we are in is so big, my friends. This is easy to forget, unless you are in the company of the Baba Yaga, perhaps.

Vasilisa requests an appropriate piece of this body of wisdom and in exchange, she is given a spark. A spark of the Baba life-death power and that clarifying consciousness, the fiery-eyed skull.

Fire is the element of transformation. The fiery eyes in a skull suggest the fire of awareness and consciousness. The fire in those skull eyes reduce the stepmother and stepsisters to ash. In fairy tales these  “step” family members are generally bad actors, cruel or stupid or dishonest. They try to harm or kill the potential life and that goodness.

We have these saboteurs in our lives. Sometime people in the outer world play this role, and sometimes we project this onto people outside, and sometimes, often,  they are part of a complex, a figure in our psychology, our inner community. As a metaphor for inner transformation, we could say that what is false in Vasilisa’s life is burned out, leaving her with a greater measure of personal power and agency. She’s at the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters after all, until she meets the Baba Yaga and is given those fiery eyes to take home. 

That transforming, clarifying power is a gift from the Baba Yaga. Vasilisa wisely detaches from that power. She buries the skull. She recognizes the completion and doesn’t try to keep anything going. She doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that power is hers. She remembers that it’s a gift from a greater power. She has been helped.

If this part of the story resonates with you, work with it. Sit down with pen and paper and ask, “What is here in my life, in my psyche, that needs to be incinerated or transformed? What do I need to release?” Give yourself permission to be with your own self and your own heart for a few minutes. Write what comes to you and offer that up to a fire. A candle outside will do.

Vasilisa has another fascinating helper, the doll that her mother gives her on her deathbed.

The doll reminds me of a story that C.G. Jung tells in Memories, Dreams, Reflections. In one of the opening chapter, “The First Years,” he relates an incident from his childhood. He was 10 years old and he had a yellow varnished pencil case. For some reasons beyond reasoning, he carved a little mannikin from the end of a ruler. He made this tiny man a bed in the pencil case and added a smooth stone that he’d found that felt powerful. Then he hid the case in the attic. 

When he had difficult situations with his parents, he thought of the little man in his case and he felt better. Now and again, he slipped up to the attic to visit the manikin. The experience was soothing and it gave him a sense of power.

Part of the power came from its secrecy. This was a great secret, Jung writes, and it was essential that the manikin be kept secret. Life is full of mysteries and secrets. Somehow, the existence of his secret connected him to this truth. The manikin was a conversation that he had with himself, and with the mystery of his nature and with being, with life. It gave him the sense that there’s more. More to all of this.

At some point he says, he forgot about the manikin. When he was older, he carved two similar figures without recalling the first one. Much later, when he worked with stone, he carved the figure again and then he remembered. The figure and what it held for him had been with him all along. A sense of continuity and connection to the depths of being, a support that we often receive unconsciously.

Power objects, totems, and touchstones are generally poo-pooed by the dominant culture. Still, this power is real and we have these objects, which we might call treasures or mementos or stuff we keep. Objects that evoke the past or visions of the future, that allow us to travel through memory, feeling, or other means beyond the confines of time, space, and circumstance. A photograph. A piece of jewelry. A stone, a feather, a glove, a cup. A leaf on the path. Objects that invite reverie, insight, intuition, changes in perception. Synchronicity. Magic. 

I have a poem for you before we part ways. First I’d like to say thank you to the patrons and supporters of Myth Matters. This podcast is a labor of love and like so many folks, I experience the gap between love and livelihood. Thank you to my patrons for bridging the gap. This week I want to give a special shout out to: Jeff, Paul, Jacqui, and Carolyn. Thank you so much.

If you are finding value in Myth Matters, please consider joining me on patreon. You’ll find a link to details about my patreon program as well as information about my other offerings, and a written transcript of this episode on my website mythic mojo.com

Now, here is the poem titled “Samhain” by Annie Finch (click the link below for the text of the poem).

Samhain BY ANNIE FINCH
(The Celtic Halloween)

I hope you’re experiencing beauty and magic in your corner of the world, my friend. Feel free to contact me with your questions and comments. I always love to hear from you.

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. 

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself, and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.