Dubravka Ugrešić - Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

In traditional Russian huts, the lug (in Russian: grjadka ) was a staf for pole where the peasants hung their washing or babies’ cradles.

‘Here are your answers!’ said the beautiful princess. ‘The little wooden box – that’s me, and the little golden key – that’s my husband.’ (From The Enchanted Princess )

Baubo appears as a figure with a hypertrophied vulva, or more often with a vulva-face. Sometimes she is shown as a dea impudica , a shameless goddess, riding a hog with her legs spread wide.

‘The old woman came onto the porch, shouted in a voice like thunder, whistled vigorously, and at once strong winds blew up all around her and whirled about, making the hut shake.’ (From The Enchanted Princess )

In a Serbian fairytale, The Bird Girl ( Tica devojka ), a baba sits on top of a mountain with a bird in her lap, luring young men and turning them to stone. Only if he approaches from behind and roughly overcomes her can a young man avoid being turned to stone (i.e. symbolically made impotent) and obtain what he yearns for, i.e. ‘the baba’s bird’(!). When he kisses and fondles the bird (!), it turns into a maiden, the young man’s bride-tobe: ‘She yields, giving him the bird from her skirt, and emits a sort of sky-blue wind from her mouth which wreathes around all the petrified people and brings them back to life. The King’s son catches hold of the bird and begins kissing it sweetly, and his kisses turn it into the most beautiful maiden of all.’

In India and South Africa today, men infected with Aids sometimes believe that intercourse with a virgin will cure them. There are specialised brothels where girls aged five to ten are bought from their parents and made available for ‘medicinal purposes’. The girls almost always catch Aids themselves.

‘Soon a frightful noise is heard from the woods: the trees tremble, the dry leaves rattle; Baba Yaga bursts from the woods, riding in a mortar, waving a pestle, brandishing a broom and rubbing out her traces as she goes.’ (From Vassilissa the Beautiful )

In Ukraine, for example, a witch-doctor would bring water from three wells early in the morning, mix the dough, bake bread in the oven, take it out and then pretend to push the sick child into the oven instead. Meanwhile the child’s mother had to go around the room three times, stopping each time in front of the window to shout: ‘Old woman, what are you doing?’ The witch-doctor would call back: ‘I’m kneading the dough!’

21 ‘Chuviliha ran to the hut, ate and drank her fill, then she went outside. She rolled on the ground, and said: “I’m rolling around because I ate Teryoshka’s flesh.” High in an oak tree, Teryoshka shouted down: “Roll, witch, it is your own daughter’s flesh that you ate.”’ (From Vassilisa the Beautiful )

‘Vassilisa lights the kindling in the skulls along the fence-posts, goes to the stove and takes out the food and sets it before Baba Yaga, and there is enough for ten. She fetches kvass, honey, beer and wine from the cellar. The old woman eats it all up, drinks everything to the last drop, and leaves Vassilisa only a little broth, a breadcrust and a morsel of pork.’ (From Vassilisa the Beautiful )

Baba Yaga drives away Vassilisa, who, on completing Baba Yaga’s tasks, helps the mother’s spirit that is embodied in a doll: ‘You know what, blessed daughter, be off with you! I don’t need blessed ones!’ (From Vassilisa the Beautiful )

– ‘And you, granny, rest your old head on my strong shoulder, and tell me what to do.’

– ‘Many’s the young man that has passed this way, but very few that spared a kind word for me. Take my horse, child. It is faster than your own, it will carry you to my middle sister, she will advise you what you should do next.’ (From About the Apples that Restore Youth and the Living Water)

‘I know it very well!’ says Baba Yaga. ‘She is with Koshchey the Deathless. It will be difficult to reach her; it is no simple matter to deal with Koshchey the Deathless: his death rests on the point of a needle, that needle lies inside an egg, the egg is inside a duck, the duck is inside a rabbit, the rabbit is inside a trunk, the trunk is at the top of a tall oak tree and Koshchey guards that tree as if it were his own eye.’ (From The Emperor’s Frog Daughter )

– ‘Beyond thirty lands, even the thirtieth kingdom, beyond the fiery river, lives Baba Yaga. She has a mare that can circle the earth every day. She has many other fine mares besides. I was her shepherd for three days together, I did not lose a single mare, and afterwards Baba Yaga gave me a foal for my pains.’ (From Marja Morevna )

The most interesting tale from the transsexual point of view comes from Bulgaria: The Old Woman’s Maiden (Babinoto devojče). Several times, the old woman’s maiden puts on a man’s clothes and saves the emperor’s daughter. The emperor offers her his daughter’s hand in marriage, but the false young man thrice refuses to become the emperor’s son-in-law. In truth, the maiden is more interested in the dragon, whose prisoner she was for some time, but the dragon is angry with her because she accidentally burned him with candle wax (castrated him?), and the wound won’t heal. She tries to return to the dragon several times, but the dragon harshly spurns her, sending her to one of the lower kingdoms. These kingdoms are, amazingly, arranged like the floors in a high-rise building: three above, six below. In the end, the maiden is forced to change gender when she is turned, magically and forever, into a young man, who then marries the emperor’s daughter.

I. P. Davidov, Banja u Baby Jagi . Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, Serija 7. Filosofija 2001.

‘Vassilisa went to her larder, fetched supper for the doll and set it down before her, saying: “Here you are, dolly, taste it and hear about my misfortunes: they are sending me to Baba Yaga, by torchlight, and she will eat me up!” The little doll ate her supper, and her eyes lit up like two candles: “Fear not, Vassilisa!” she said. “Go where they send you, and take me with you. As long as I am with you, Baba Yaga can do you no harm!”’ (From Vassilissa the Beautiful )

The Japanese electronic invention, the so-called ‘digital pet’ called tamagotchi, needs taking care of in just the same way as the wooden dolls in folk beliefs. The toy’s owner has to monitor its ‘happiness level’ every day (tamagotchi has to be fed and bathed, and the owner has to play with it a bit), otherwise the digital pet ‘dies’.

The people of the Mansa tribe, in Siberia, say pupig or pupi for guardian spirits or the spirits of their ancestors, dwelling in little totemic wooden dolls.

‘“Here are your comb and towel,” the cat said. “Take them and flee; Baba Yaga will set off in pursuit of you, and you keep your ear to the ground, and the moment you hear that she is drawing close, throw down the towel – it will turn into a great, broad river. If Baba Yaga crosses the river and sets after you again, put your ear to the ground once more, and as soon as you hear her drawing near, throw down the comb – a thick, thick forest will spring up, and she won’t be able to make her way through.”’ (From Baba Yaga )