A character known to all from children's fairy tales, a wicked witch from a hut on chicken legs, flying in a mortar and luring small children into the stove ... But she is not always on the side of evil forces, in other fairy tales Baba Yaga is a pretty pretty old woman, helps heroes and even her insidious intentions eventually turn into good. Let's try to figure out what kind of fairy-tale character this came from in Slavic mythology, which means her name.
Character origin
The origin of this wonderful old woman researchers put forward many versions. Consider the two most famous of them.
- Baba Yaga is a Finno-Ugric mythological hero who later came to Russian soil. Perhaps the fairy tales about the character originate in the pagan funeral rites of these peoples, where it was customary to bury the dead in dominos - small houses standing on high stumps (like a hut on chicken legs). According to this version, it turns out that Baba Yaga is otherworldly evil, deceased. Hence the dual nature of the character. On the one hand, the inhabitants of the underworld were terrifying to people. On the other hand, in ancient times, ancestors were revered and asked for their help in difficult times. So Baba Yaga gave the hero (for example, Ivan Tsarevich) a magic ball and other useful things.
- There is another opinion that Baba Yaga is a healer who healed people with folk remedies. For example, the well-known story about roasting children in the oven refers us to the old method of treating sick and premature babies: the child was placed on a wooden shovel and heated in the oven.
Name origin
Many are interested in Baba Yaga - what does this name mean? There is also no single opinion. Some scholars consider the word "yaga" to be derived from the ancient Slavic word "ide" (disease). This confirms our second version of Baba Yaga as a healer, a deliverer from disease.
There is a version of the Indian origin of Baba Yaga and her name, which is consonant with the word "yogi."
Another idea is that the second part of the name "yaga" originates from the word "yag" - a fur coat without sleeves, which is often depicted as a sorceress.
In this small article, we only slightly touched on the topic of who is Baba Yaga, where did it come from, which means her name. As you can see, there are still a lot of unknown and controversial reasoning. In the meantime, we can read fairy tales with pleasure and enjoy films about this interesting and vibrant fairy-tale heroine.