Slavic legend about Baba Yaga. Who is Baba Yaga in Slavic mythology

Baba - was considered the progenitor of the ancient Slavs. Initially, she was a positive deity and was the guardian of the clan and folk traditions. When Christianity came to the Slavic world, it began to actively plant evil traits of character in all pagan gods and goddesses, and in every possible way to give ugliness to their appearance. Baba Yaga did not escape this fate. She smoothly turned into an old woman who was endowed with magical powers and belonged to the breed of witches. In connection with the intervention of the Christian Church, the mythical characters of the Slavs have come down to us in a distorted form. Baba Yaga now had a stable stereotype: she knew witchcraft and lived in the forest; her hut had chicken legs and was surrounded by a high fence made of human bones. Baba Yaga flew in a mortar and lured small children to her for subsequent frying and eating. That is, the Slavic goddess turned into an ordinary evil old woman, endowed with magical powers and engaged in cannibalism.

Baba Yaga was transformed under the pressure of Christianity According to some ancient legends, another conclusion could be drawn: Baba Yaga was the goddess of hell, located on the border between the two worlds. She was portrayed as a monster in an iron mortar. The Slavs brought her a bloody sacrifice. Under the direct influence of Christianity, she lost her divine features, again turning into an ordinary evil old woman engaged in witchcraft. Christianity had a huge impact on the culture of the Slavs. It instilled in them its understanding of the essence of things, implanting it with "fire and sword." Belief in ancient pagan gods began to be considered heresy. Virtue turned into evil, and the gods into monsters. Gradually, pagan rituals were transformed into fairy tales, and pagan gods - into the characters of these fairy tales. The truth was mixed with fiction, which partly reflected the views of Christians on the beliefs of the ancient Slavs. It is possible to restore the original image of Baba Yaga only by carefully analyzing the ancient Slavic tales that have come down to our days. It is not for nothing that popular rumor keeps talking about a certain hint contained in “false” tales. Perhaps it is in them that the clue to the original images of the mythical Slavic creatures of the pre-Christian period is encrypted. Fairy tales distinguish three types of Baba Yaga: giving heroes magical objects (the Giver), kidnapping children and a warrior fighting with the heroes of fairy tales "not for life, but for death." That is, some contradictions can be identified from here. If Baba Yaga was evil witch, then why did she sometimes "condescend" to gift the heroes with magical things? Why did she show them the right path? Out of the goodness of your heart? But she, judging by the fairy tales, was a notorious misanthrope. It is this feature of her “giver of magical items” and guiding on the true path that makes it possible to reveal her original essence - the ancient Slavic goddess. Also in the legends, Baba Yaga is the connecting link of the transition to the other world (Far Far Away Kingdom). She stands on the border of these worlds (bone leg) and allows or does not allow the heroes to penetrate into the world of the dead, performing witchcraft rituals

 29.09.2011 18:01

Who among us did not read Russian fairy tales in childhood - this storehouse of centuries-old folk wisdom? And, of course, we met Baba Yaga more than once in these tales, a formidable and impregnable old woman who lives far from people in a witch's hut on chicken legs. However, few of us know that under the mask of this fairy-tale character lies the ancient Slavic deity Storm-Yaga (Yagibikha, Yagishna), personifying the elemental, uncontrollable forces of nature.

According to the Russian Vedas, Storm-Yaga was the wife of the god Veles, who set in motion, created by the great creator god Rod and his son Svarog, the world. Veles followed the correctness of the evolution of the Universe, not allowing a turn from the Rule - a creative path of development, to Navi - that is, decay and chaos. Veles was revered by the Slavs as the god of wisdom and a teacher of a righteous life.

God chose Veles and his wife to match. Storm Yaga or Baba Yaga guarded the border between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead, preventing the uninitiated from penetrating the secrets of life and death. She possessed boundless wisdom, because she could see both sides of life at the same time. Baba Yaga, as a last hope, was often approached by Russian heroes who had fallen into a hopeless situation, begging her to show them the right path. Baba Yaga tested such heroes for strength, offering to measure strength or cunning with her. If the opponent won, Yagibikha, without unnecessary wrangling, showed him the way and helped with advice, but if he lost, he could pay for it with his life.

Once the mighty Veles himself rode with his brothers past the border lands, where Baba Yaga ruled. Those lands were overgrown with a dark forest, and in the middle of the forest stood a hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a palisade, hung with human skulls with luminous eye sockets. Veles was not afraid of such a gloomy dwelling, calmly went with his comrades and settled down for the night. And early in the morning Veles went into the forest with one of his brothers, and left the other in the hut. Then Storm-Yaga returned to the house, surrounded by a fiery whirlwind, challenging the uninvited guest to a heroic battle.

Who can resist the power of the formidable goddess? One brother could not resist, and the other could not resist. However, then the god Veles himself came out against Storm Yaga, grabbed her by the hair and, well, regaled her with a pood mace. Yaga barely escaped from him and slipped into the underworld. The violent Veles rushed after her, and already underground they began to fight, trying to destroy each other. It turned out that both of them had equal strengths - Veles could not be defeated by Bure-Yage, and Veles could not be broken either. Then Storm-Yaga realized that she had found herself not a fierce enemy, but an amiable husband, one who could curb and direct her primordial power.

In Slavic mythology, the marriage between Veles and Burya-Yaga symbolizes the interaction of the masculine principle that creates order and the elemental feminine, as having their own special wisdom and mutually complementing each other.

The Russian Vedas reveal to us only one of the three hypostases of Baba Yaga - this is a hero-maiden who perfectly wields a sword and measures her strength with warriors to find out how worthy they are of possessing true knowledge. The second hypostasis of this ambiguous goddess is a terrible witch, who inspires fear in all living things, from which you can escape with the help of intelligence and cunning. And, finally, the third hypostasis is the giver, who greets those who she likes. Here Baba Yaga appears before us as a caring and hospitable hostess, able to give useful advice and give valuable helpers (a magic ball, a winged horse, an invisibility cap).

This is how Baba Yaga is - either a beautiful girl, or an ancient old woman ... however, when it comes to the goddess, appearance hardly matters.

Maria Shevalenko

Scary, scary intriguing from childhood!
Baba Yaga is a colorful character of Slavic mythology and folklore - a sorceress endowed with magical powers, a witch, an anxious character.
Who is she - a woman, and even Yaga - Baba Yaga?
Definitely, the COLLECTIVE IMAGE is an overlay of earthly and unearthly essence!
Let's take a look at old times.
Her persona is something unexpected, contradictory, incomprehensible. She stirred the minds of many generations and haunts now.
What is in her name?
BA, other egypt. - Soul-Ba, the deepest essence and vital energy of a person.
BABA - in the ancient oriental language - "goddess", a respectful title, incl. wise teachers in Iran, Pakistan, yogis in India. ...
Bab, east. - Gate. Sai Baba, Ali Baba .. Baba Yaga - INDITATORS, dear people! "YAGA" - fire - fire, the fiery Virgin of the solar cult.
She was called the forest priestess, the foot and mouth disease is the ancestor, she has extensive knowledge, which she shares.
Baba Yaga is a shoreline, a pagan deity, standing on the verge between the Kingdom of the Dead and the Kingdom of the Living.
From ancient myths it can be seen that she is young and beautiful, is the progenitor of the clan, the ancient positive deity of the Slavic pantheon is the guardian
In ancient times it was considered the goddess of blizzards and snowstorms, the prototype of the northern Virgin.
Are its roots not from the North? Everything from there...
Ancestor, guardian of the family, its traditions, forest space, mentor of children, healer, wisest.
Demonization came later - the presence of initiates in Russia was too dangerous. Someone really wanted to hide the significance of the cult of the Virgin in Russia.
origins
At the origins of Life is the image of the Foremother - for everyone, always and from time immemorial.
Baba Yaga - a dedicated and enlightened person in charge of transitions to the worlds, from life to undeath, initially good essence associated with the Earth and Her Sacraments.
Max Vasmer at the beginning of the last century believed that "yaga" and "yoga" are the same root words.
In the ancient Russian system of sorcery, there were disciplines that formed balanced 7 shells of human subtle bodies - they were called - 7 YAG.
Yagami was also called all those who practice them, that is, those who follow the path of Rule.
People engaged in the corresponding yaga were called: Lelya-yag (a), Zhelya-yag, Tanya-yag, Troyan-yag, etc.
The past all seven YAGs were called - "Yagar", hence the huntsman. Previously, huntsmen were dedicated people, knowing the secrets of Nature.
Of all the Indo-European languages, only in Russian do the meanings of words coincide:
baba is a grandmother and a married woman. This coincidence is a legacy of a distant time of the maternal family, when the woman was the ancestor, who has power in the house - the basis.
The ancient ideas of the ancestors about the Bird-maiden - the Great Goddess, were likened to a bird that laid and hatched the world (Cosmic) egg, give poetic
metaphors like a "bone leg" - a bird's leg, a long one - a bird's nose, a broom - a bird's tail, and the features of an animal - the antiquity of its image.
Doesn't she appear in the form of things of the bird Gamayun, the bird of the sunny garden Iria?
Image
The image of Baba Yaga is the image of the keeper of secret knowledge, mysteries, the mistress of the forest, the shaman, the coast, dedicated.
She lives on the border of the Light and Dark worlds - Reveal and Navi, she performs women's and lighting rites in solitude, in the forests, possibly in Bogolesye, in places of power.
Her unusual hut, a kind of "checkpoint", and chicken legs - chicken, peeled, bark-skinned supports, fumigated with herbs - were built under a building in a lowland area. Similar were the huts for dominoes * on one or two legs.
The palisade with heads near her hut is a talisman against evil spirits, especially strong horse heads.
Magic ball - a modern navigator.
Was it true, was it not true - but everything is explainable ...
In the hut of Baba Yaga, the hero goes through all the necessary rites of passage in order to go to the world of the supernatural, to receive initiation. This is poetry!
And the prose is:
in the old days, in some areas, the dead were buried in dominoes - with their feet towards the exit, if you look into the domino, you could only see the legs.
Isn't that where the "bone leg" comes from? However, again, everything is collective.
In Russia, on Zhivin's day (day Life-Giving Forces), women, taking brooms, perform a ritual dance around the fire, clearing the place of evil spirits. They twisted the right-hand torsion field, harmonizing the space.
Thus, they glorified Zhiva, which revives nature, sending spring to Earth. Isn't it a crime to glorify Life?
Immediately sedition, immediately witches - you need to denigrate everything, although these are far from magical, but scientifically based ritual actions.
Yes, sedition - to RA a mole (a prayer to the Light), yes, a witch - who knows everything and everything, yes, Yaga is a border guard guarding the border of the worlds: young, strong and courageous, able to take on any guise. Is it hypnosis? To someone...
Yeah - Yaga is a pan-European goddess.
Among the Greeks, it corresponds to Hekate, among the Germans - Perkhta or Holda, among the Hindus - the goddess Kali. In their folklore, boots are the same bone legs that the goddess was given during the persecution. One boot is alive, the other is dead, symbolizes only one thing - the goddess stands with two legs in two worlds at the same time. However. a bone leg is an attribute indicating eternity.
Where is the fairy tale, where is the reality?
Function.
Baba Yaga Goddess of Life, not so Goddess of Death .
She is marked as a person guarding the sacred space between the worlds, possessing a dual nature - she can help the hero, or she can get lost.
The largest specialist in the field of theory and history of folklore, V. Ya. Proppu, singled out three images of Baba Yaga: a donor; kidnapper; warrior.
Only interpretations are different:
DONOR - gives not only magic items, but a different vision of the world, sometimes life;
KIDNAPPER - rather a collector of the children of the Clans of the Great Race for initiation;
WARRIOR - a stalker who takes the hero to a different level of maturity, but not through a "battle" with her, but a battle with himself and his (alien) dark forces.
Baba Yaga taught, gave, healed...
In some places, she was considered the Queen of the Maiden Kingdom. She performed female initiations - the sacraments, in the solitude of the forest, was engaged in healing and prophecy.
In ancient times, she was called mother, coast. The main activity of Beregin in the distant past was to shelter orphans and give them the proper knowledge so that in the future they could become magicians.
Sick children were brought to her to be treated - she baked the "homelands", led them through the Fiery Rite in order to endow them with a new Share.
The woman wrapped the sick child with rolled out spelled dough and baked it in the oven, placing it on a bread shovel. She pulled it out, unfolded it, gave the dough to the dogs. The stove - the Cave of Ra - has always been a sacred object, symbolizing the feminine - the child seemed to be born again healthy. From the point of view of science, the rite is not without meaning.
She was a priestess who conducted the rite of initiation for teenagers - the initiation of a young man into full members of the community. The rites contained tests in dexterity, accuracy, endurance, familiarization with the sacred secrets of the tribe through the symbolic death of a child and rebirth, already as a full-fledged man.
The same rituals are performed by contemporaries at trainings. personal growth. Everything is like in the old days!
Initially, as the wisest, she did not fit in the minds of the young, since she is wise, she is certainly old.
It is sad that he distorted the image and rituals of Baba Yaga, giving them a negative meaning.
Perhaps Baba Yaga is one of the names of the Great Goddess Lada, since swan geese, sacred birds, often served her. Everything comes from Hyperborea?
"Ga-ga-ga" - in Sanskrit "movement, going."
I (ya) sk. - "which the".
YAGA Sansk. - “which goes »?
The verb YAGAT is a special cry in which all energy is concentrated. Yagal hunters, women in labor, drovers. There are many hypotheses of the origin, no doubt, of such a significant, important person.
Yaga - a woman, at least, was the Force, managing with a looped borderlands. However, like any woman!
Each millennium left its own, special, imprint on the essence of the goddess of female wisdom. Which of them is closer to the original Image?

One thing remained unshakable - its significance in the world of fairy-tale Russia, in which life seemed endless.


* Yagat - enchant.
Stalker - guides to prohibited areas.
Domoviny - a building for the deceased.

“Yaga” - clothes “like a robe with a turn-down, a quarter collar ... are assembled from loon necks, feathers outward ...“ Yagushka ”is the same yaga, but with a narrow collar, worn by women on the road. (Abramv)

In the days of my childhood, when every self-respecting school held New Year's Eve parties (for junior classes) and "discotheques" (for seniors), performances of invited artists were an indispensable part of these actions - sometimes professional ones, from the local drama theater, sometimes amateurs - moms, dads, teachers.

And the composition of the participants was just as indispensable - Ded Moroz, Snegurochka, forest animals (squirrels, hares, etc.), sometimes pirates, Bremen town musicians and devils with kikimors. But the main villain was Baba Yaga. In which interpretations she did not appear before the astonished audience - both a hunchbacked old woman, and 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 shag hair on her head. Only its essence was unchanged - to harm the "good characters" as much as possible - not to let them go to the Christmas tree, to take away gifts, to turn them into an old stump - the list is not limited.

And who is this Baba Yaga really? Folk element? A product of popular 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, it 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. By this, she somewhat resembles the ancient Greek snake maiden Echidna. According to ancient myths, Echidna gave birth to the Scythians from her marriage to Hercules, 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 it as their last hope, the last helper - these are indisputable traces of matriarchy.

Was the bone leg a snake's tail?

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

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

V. Ya. Propp notes that "Yaga, as a rule, does not walk, but flies, like a mythical snake, a dragon." “As you know, 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 long-standing ideas about such a snake-like deity is the image of a huge forest (white) or field snake that can be traced in the beliefs of the peasants of a number of provinces of Russia, which has power over cattle, can endow with omniscience, etc.

Bone leg - connection with death?

According to another belief, Death gives the dead to Baba Yaga, with whom she travels around the world. At the same time, Baba Yaga and the witches subject to her feed on the souls of the dead and therefore become light, like the souls themselves.

Previously, they believed that Baba Yaga could live in any village, disguised as an ordinary woman: take care of livestock, cook, raise children. In this, ideas about her are close to ideas about ordinary witches.

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

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

Fairy tales

V fairy tales it operates in three incarnations.

Yaga-bogatyrsha possesses a sword-treasurer and fights on equal terms with heroes.

Yaga the kidnapper steals children, sometimes throwing them, already dead, on the roof of her native house, but most often taking them to her hut on chicken legs, or into an open field, or underground. From this outlandish hut, children, and adults, are saved by outwitting Yagibishna.

And, finally, the Yaga-giver greets the hero or heroine affably, treats him deliciously, soars in the bathhouse, gives helpful tips, gives 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 wide world in an iron mortar (that is, a scooter chariot), and when she walks, she forces the mortar to run faster, striking with an iron club or pestle. And so that, for reasons known to her, no traces could be seen, they are swept up after her by special ones, attached to the mortar with a broom and a broom. She is served by frogs, black cats, including Cat Bayun, crows and snakes: all creatures in which threat and wisdom coexist.

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

The veneration of all its properties was reflected not only in fairy tales, but also in riddles. One of them says this: "Baba Yaga, a pitchfork leg, the whole world feeds, starves itself." We are talking about the plow-nurse, the most important tool in peasant everyday life.

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

Version by Vladimir Dahl

"Yaga or yaga-baba, baba-yaga, yagaya and yagavaya or yagishna and yaginichna, the family of a witch, an evil spirit, under the guise of an ugly old woman. Is there a yaga, in the forehead of a horn (stove pillar with crows)? Baba-yaga, a bone leg, she rides in a mortar, rests with a pestle, sweeps a trail with a broom, her bones come out from under her body in places, her nipples hang below the waist, she rides for human meat, kidnaps children, her mortar is iron, the devils are carrying her, under this train there is a terrible storm, everything groans, the cattle roar, there is pestilence and death; whoever sees a yaga becomes mute. An evil, quarrelsome woman is called a yagishna.

"Baba Yaga or Yaga Baba, a fabulous monster, a bolypuha over witches, Satan's handmaiden. Baba Yaga is a bone leg: she rides in a mortar, drives with a pestle (rests), sweeps a trail with a broomstick. She is simple-haired and in one shirt without a belt: then the other is the height of outrage."

Baba Yaga among other peoples

Babu 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 oldest.

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

For initiation into full members of the tribe, teenagers had to go through special, sometimes difficult, rituals - tests. They were performed in a cave or in a dense forest, near a lonely hut, and an old woman, a priestess, disposed of them. The most terrible test consisted in staging the "devouring" of the subjects by the 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 her hands, the lock is a toothy mouth. Her tyn 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 shoveling 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 witch. They serve her, like witches, devils, crows, black cats, snakes, toads. She turns into a snake, a mare, a tree, a whirlwind, etc.; only one thing is impossible - to take on a somewhat normal human form.

Yaga lives in the dense forest or the underworld. 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. The forest for the farmer (unlike the hunter) is an unkind place, full of all evil spirits, the same other world, and the famous hut on chicken legs is like a passage to this world, and therefore you cannot enter it until he turns his back to the forest .

Yaga the janitor is hard to deal with. She beats the heroes of the fairy tale, ties them up, cuts the belts out of their backs, and only the strongest and bravest hero overcomes her and descends into the underworld. At the same time, Yaga has the features of the mistress of the Universe to everyone and looks like some kind of terrible parody of the Mother of the World.

Yaga is also a mother goddess: she has three sons (serpents or giants) and 3 or 12 daughters. Perhaps she is the cursed damn 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 pass through her "gateway" every day. With the help of a dead head, she commands the rain.

Yaga is a common Indo-European goddess.

Among the Greeks, it corresponds to Hekate - the terrible three-faced goddess of the night, witchcraft, death and hunting.
The Germans have Perkhta, 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, like Yaga or Hekate, at the head of a crowd of ghosts and witches. Perhta was borrowed from the Germans by their Slavic neighbors - the Czechs and Slovenes.

Alternative origins of the image

In ancient times, the dead were buried in dominoes - houses located above the ground on very high stumps with roots looking out from under the ground, similar to chicken legs. Domovins were placed in such a way that the hole in them was turned in the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest. People believed that the dead were flying on coffins.

The dead were buried with their feet towards the exit, and if you looked into the domino, you could see only their feet - hence the expression "Baba Yaga bone leg." People treated their dead ancestors with reverence and fear, they never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble on themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead man, and children were often scared by her.

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