Where does Baba Yaga live - an original and versatile character in many folk tales? Both children and adults will immediately answer - in the hut on the notorious "chicken legs". And what else do we know about this image in general?
The storytellers describe this old sorceress differently. That she is a hunchbacked old woman with a long hooked nose, shaggy long hair and addictions to
human meat. It’s just a kind sorceress who helps Ivanushka get out of the forest, advises on how to fight evil, and all of her “Fu, Fu, smells of the Russian spirit” is nothing more than an attempt to frighten a brave man. But, like in any fairy tale, this character has its own background. And its root is in mythology.
What names did the old woman not have in
Slavic mythology! She was called Baba Yagya, Yagabikha, Yagishna, Yagaya Baba ... But she was not always a witch living in a dense forest. Once Baba Yaga was considered a real deity among the Slavic peoples. According to legend, she was the
guardian of the hearth, took care of the well-being of the whole family, protected children from the evil eye and misfortunes, continued and carefully preserved the traditions. True, there was a flip side to the legend: the old woman was credited with power over all the whirlwinds and snow blizzards. It was rumored that she was half a woman, half a snake, and was guarding the door to the kingdom of the dead, escorting the immortal souls of the dead to her. People believed and knew: Baba Yaga is able to successfully pretend to be the most ordinary woman, live among people in the village, farm, take care of cattle. Often, any housewife was considered a witch, for whom things were going very well - they said that they could not do without
evil spirits .
The place where Baba Yaga lives in children's fairy tales is a dense forest, which always gave rise to unaccountable fear in people, since it also resembled a kind of border between the worlds - now living people and the kingdom of the departed. Even the hut of a fairy-tale old woman, as a rule, does not stand in the most often, but at the edge: as if she does not belong to either one or the other.
The origin of the phrase “on chicken legs” is interesting. In cartoons, they are often painted with chicken. But most likely, kurya means "fumigated with smoke." In ancient times, the Slavs had a funeral rite, when a hut was placed on the cut down pillars, in which the body of the deceased was located. And these pillars themselves were traditionally fumigated with smoke.
Another attribute of Baba Yaga is a bone leg. That is why there are suggestions that the old woman is one-legged. Indeed, in all fairy tales about Baba Yaga, this part of the body is always mentioned only in a single number (there is only one bone leg). This attribute of death, again, can be compared with the leg of a skeleton, that is, an inanimate being.
But let's move from myths to reality. Do you know that today the question “Where does Baba Yaga live?” is there a direct and specific answer? Recently, this famous character has his own homeland. In the Pervomaisky district of the Yaroslavl region there is a small village Kukoboy, and the official museum of Baba Yaga and other fairy-tale heroes is open in it . There is a famous hut on chicken legs, a tea room where you can taste delicious pies from the hands of a fairy-tale old woman, many different entertainments for adults and children. Few people leave here without having bought fabulous souvenirs and not having photographed for memory with Yaga herself.
Not only children, but also adults sometimes want to plunge into a fairy tale. And they ask: where does Baba Yaga live? You can boast of your erudition, because now you can give an exhaustive answer to it!