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a blog about Baba Yaga
These are five famous tales about Baba Yaga, a witch, who was known as a medicine woman/wise woman, who often was seen as a goddess with underworld connections who lived in the woods in a house on chicken legs. She rode in a mortar and pestle in the sky and used a broom to sweep up her tracks. Often to gain help from her she would test her subjects. https://www.thecollector.com/tales-baba-yaga-slavic-witch/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/who-is-baba-yaga
Typical tasks
Baba Yaga’s tests may include:
- Fetching water in a sieve: An impossible task designed to test a hero’s ingenuity.
- Herding wild mares: Controlling her horses, which are supernatural and difficult to manage. A hero in one story is tasked with this and must rely on animal helpers to succeed.
- Counting stars: A task that is physically impossible to complete without magical aid.
The deeper purpose of the tests
From a folkloric and psychological perspective, Baba Yaga’s trials serve a deeper purpose than simple punishments:
- Initiation: The impossible nature of the tasks pushes heroes to undergo a symbolic “death and rebirth,” leaving their symbolic old skins behind.
- Testing moral character: The tales often contrast a good and kind protagonist, who is respectful and successful, with a cruel and lazy one, who fails and is punished.
- Empowerment: By completing the challenges, often with the help of intuition or kindness to animals, the hero proves their worth and gains newfound wisdom, maturity, and power.
