This podcast is now also available on Spotify, iTunes and Stitcher! You can find it at the links below: Spotify - open.spotify.com/episode/5hZVNVw6z63qT7A0tmpvXn iTunes - podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/baba-yaga/id1514656609?i=1000491830247 Stitcher - www.stitcher.com/podcast/mythillogical-podcast

@andybeans5790

3 жыл бұрын

I've been listening to the podcast version for the last few days 👍

@noanastasia222

3 жыл бұрын

Baba Yaga is a character in Slavic folklore, not only Russian. Such generalization of everything Slavic as Russian is very annoying to many Slavs.

@julianpetkov8320

3 жыл бұрын

@@noanastasia222 Baba Yaga and Dyado Yagosh. 😁

@Millers-Mausoleum

2 жыл бұрын

I just started listening to you guys yesterday but have you tried stream yards that’s all we all use

@lesliefish4753

Жыл бұрын

Another variant holds that "Baba Yaga" is not a name but a title -- the title of the queen of the Slavic witch-cult. Her chcken-legged cabin was actually built on a platform on top of two very old trees whose root-buttresses stood up out of the ground. It had doors (or windows) which looked out to all four directions. Her flying motar-and-pestle was really a hot-air balloon. And of course one could only get into her cabin by climbing a concealed rope ladder.

Discussion of Baba Yaga begins at 13:05

@elizabethmender

2 ай бұрын

😂❤

@saygo-png

2 ай бұрын

13 minutes of nothing??? thank you for sparing me that

These Mythillogical episodes are great for sending me right to sleep, they're so cozy... but then in the morning I just want to watch it again and hear everything I missed!

@jimmyrafferty6241

2 жыл бұрын

Me too Bernie.

@daydreamishh

Жыл бұрын

Fr😭

@ravenwingedwolf13

Жыл бұрын

Same

@Hamza7308

Жыл бұрын

Literally what I’m here for🛌😴

@liveseldiesel2628

Жыл бұрын

beleve it or not you brain remembers it somehow

I never noticed this before, but listening to theses Baba Yaga stories made me realize she has quite a lot in common with the "Goddess of the Underwold" archetype. In particular, Hel, Ereshkigal, and Izanami have many parallels with her, such as the rotting/unsightly appearance, or setting up very specific conditions for fulfilling tasks, which can either reunite loved ones, or permanently separate them. It's quite fascinating that all of these myths, separated by distance and time, all seem to draw on some kind of ancient proto-religion's iconography. It's like the "Slaying of the Serpent" motif, but less obvious.

I am a native Russian, and you guys just NAILED it. Thank you so much!

15:47 - The oven is also a character sometimes... or a vehicle :) The Russian oven - "petch", is what you may call a "mass heater". It is very traditional across the Slavic culture. At colder regions the oven was constructed with a flat top, to serve as a bed for the cold winter nights, called a "lezhanka"

@neva_nyx

Жыл бұрын

This is the first time I heard of this. I always wondered how the very cold climate peoples made themselves comfortable. Thanks

@Katya_Lastochka

7 ай бұрын

Its so important that the word "bes-pechnyi", literally without oven, refers to someone reckless and carefree.

@Voodoo_Robot

Ай бұрын

​@@Katya_Lastochkahm, in my language (slovak) "bezpečný" means "safe" and "nebezpečný" means "dangerous".

In Poland, there's also a children game "Raz, dwa, trzy, Baba Jaga patrzy!" (means: "One, two, three, Baba Yaga is looking"). It's similar to english Statues/Grandmother's Footsteps. I loved to play it with my grandparents. It was fun but otherwise Baba Jaga was definetely the scariest creature from their bedtime stories. Old, ugly, skinny witch who lives in forests and eats children. Adults in Poland also liked to tell their naughty children things like: "if you won't be nice behaving/silent, Baba Jaga will come and take you". Worked pretty well on me, lol.

@GunShark0

Жыл бұрын

Hm.... could this be where the witch in Hansel and Greta originates or is based on...?

Slavic mythology has some really cool stuff. Would you guys be interested in doing Icelandic/Norse stuff in the future as well? Trolls and all that really fun stuff.

@fauxshowyo

3 жыл бұрын

also it's interesting that in Japanese baba also means an elderly woman (but a more casual or even derogatory term for it), and it can also be used to mean old hag or witch, so you have characters like Yubaba in Spirited Away.

@alexkozliayev9902

3 жыл бұрын

​@@fauxshowyo when i read japanese fables to learn japanese, i found a lot of similarities in their stories about heroic young men to russian stories. That heroes always had strange origin, often adopted by a pair of old people, unusually fast growth, supernatural strength, and in both, russian and japanese, hero receives from his parents (often asks himself) a weapon before going on his adventure. Most of the time he meets someone on his path, who will accompany him, often after a battle. In both countries' fables hero have a generic name, in japanese is some form of ~taro, and in russian most of the time is Ivan. Also there were japanese tales about a "magical wife", just like russian "princess frog". Story usually revolves around series of tasks, either hard or impossible, given to the husband. He tell about them to his wife, and she says to don't worry, and completes the task when he is not looking. Similarity of the themes in the cultures that were not in tight contact is really interesting.

@undeadd666

2 жыл бұрын

@@alexkozliayev9902 you (Charles and Crofty also) should look the works of V. Propp "Morphology of the tale" and "Historical Roots of the wonder tale", where he compares and classifies all the plots, suggesting that fairy tales are artifacts of the ancient rites of passage.

@alexkozliayev9902

2 жыл бұрын

@@undeadd666 definitely! I had en eye for that book for some time already

@mondaysinsanity8193

2 жыл бұрын

if they point out the dwarves are elves that would be great. love lotr but man

In John Wick they do not refer to him as the Baba Yaga - they refer to him as the one you get to kill the Baba Yaga - an even more terrifying prospect.

Being Russian, having grown with the tales about Baba Yaga, it’s quite unexpected to listen to the podcast about our “national character” in English. By the way, the stress is on the second syllable: YagA.

@geographer2155

3 жыл бұрын

Baba Yaga - kostiannya noga

@julialindejulia

3 жыл бұрын

Geog rapher Exactly) YagA - nogA🤗

@Belialith

3 жыл бұрын

@@geographer2155 I'm Croatian, and in my language, "kostiannya noga" means bony legs.

@michaelabdalov3850

3 жыл бұрын

Belialith same in russian

@murrayscott9546

3 жыл бұрын

Point taken.

In south Slavic mythology there is a similar character called Baba Roga - Horned grandma. She is described as having a large horn on her forehead and is commonly used to scare the mischievous kids "If you don't behave Baba Roga will come and take you". There is no folk stories or myths with her in them other than that.

@ridleyroid9060

3 жыл бұрын

Can second this, Baba Roga was often used to scare us and there was even a homeless women in our neighborhood that my entire class in school thought was Baba Roga and we were verry very scared of her.

@elenak1333

2 жыл бұрын

I am Russian and Baba Roga (roga means "horns" in Russian and horned would be "rogataya" sounds even scarier than Baba Yaga 😅

This makes me so happy to see. My grandmother is an immigrant from Poland and i grew up with stories of Baba Yaga. My first tattoo was actually a big arm piece of her and her house.

@murrayscott9546

3 жыл бұрын

Respect to your Baba.

@MegaMementoMori

3 жыл бұрын

​@@murrayscott9546 His grandma is Polish, not Russian, so it would be "babcia". If you call any Polish woman "baba" you will probably end up being hit with whatever she is holding in her hand XD

If you look at older depictions of medieval witches you will see female witches riding broomsticks and male witches or warlocks riding pitchforks. This is because broomsticks and pitchforks are common household objects associated with women and men respectively.

@absoluteaficionado515

2 жыл бұрын

That's good to know, thank you for sharing that

Scrolled through a whole comment section (although without checking a replies) to check if maybe someone already mentioned this, but haven't notice anything, so here's some more info on the probable mythological-anthropological origin for the Baba Yaga. First of all - there is some evidence that large part of it originated in Finno-Ugric cultures and was later spread through cultural exchange and in more modern times combined with Slavic stuff and common-european concepts. I think best part to start would be Baba Yaga's Hut on a bird legs - it's most probably originated from burial tradition from cultures that lived in the forested and swampy areas there elevated hut-like structures would be constructed either using trees, like a child's treehouse or on the stilts-pillars, there bodies would be placed. It was situated on some distance from the settlement and entrance would be placed opposite side - facing the forest, in believe that if some corpse would be reanimated as a bad spirit (which is universal concept for humans across the world I believe) it would wonder towards the forest and wouldn't find a way into the settlement. Older women are believed to be commonly responsible for a preparation of the body, so first role of the Baba Yaga may be just a caretaker lady, which later transformed into a psychopomp deity. This older women usually were responsible for traditional herbal medicine and stuff - so there is mortar and pestle comes from and later associated with witch concept. Part with the cannibalism might have come from a instance there some bad or mean old woman was buried and as it's common with vurdalak-vampire lore - was believed to be reanimated as a bad flesh eating, child abducting monster or bad spirit. And of course later fairytales are just mashup of tales from other cultures. Sorry for my not perfect English, not my native language, hope it would be helpful or interesting for someone.

@saygo-png

2 ай бұрын

average "Sorry for my bad english" post

Referring to the “daughters” around 25 minutes; I believe these are the daughters of other people’s daughters, along the lines of “Your farm will have a bountiful harvest, in exchange for your daughter.” And they are usually similar to slaves in the tales I’ve heard & read.

This presentation has been a delight..coming from Russian heritage it has given me incentive to follow more folklore tales that are ancient..thankyou both..look forward to seeing more of your podcasts..🐈‍⬛

In Romanian folklore and fairy tales we have our own rendition of Baba Yaga, she is called Baba Cloanța (ugly old woman, teethless old woman) or Muma Pădurii ( the evil woman of the forest). Great work, really interesting !

Being ethnically Russian myself, I was very surprised to find this podcast. It strokes my Russian ego 😂 When i read the story about the girl and the evil step mother and the lousy dad to my children, i also always feel strange at the line where he shoots the wife 😳🤷🏻‍♀️ So I actually change it and pretend to read that he banished her instead. Thank you for your wonderful work. Also, it was interesting what you said about Кощей... him being the deathless as opposed to “immortal”, because in Russian there’s just one word. There’s no different word for immortal. Very fascinating to listen to Britisch analysis of “my childhood” folklore :) thank you

@MrCmon113

3 жыл бұрын

Shooting someone is way nicer than "banishing" them in most contexts. When you shoot someone, you show that you care about them at least a little bit. You're making a decision on whether they live or die rather than leaving it up to chance. Also you limit how bad this person might have it in the future. Dying quickly through a bullet is better than, for example, being persecuted or starving to death. Furthermore "banishing" an evil person might harm other people, who later come in contact with them.

@absoluteaficionado515

2 жыл бұрын

Well, I am just some guy off the internet but I think it's kinda unhealthy to just pretend to yourself that the story ended differently. I can see why you would find the original ending to be uncomfortable, but in the end it's just a story and in this sense an opportunity to overcome whatever makes you behave in this slightly bizarre manner

@au7weeng534

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrCmon113 twisted logic. shooting is taking a life. you're making a decision, true... that is not yours to make. the "limiting how bad they're gonna have it" stuff is even more twisted. as long as the person is alive they have options. banishment, even in the middle ages, was far from a death sentence. how would you feel if a random person took it upon themselves to "limit how bad" (they think!!) _you_ are going to have it _and_ thought they were making the more moral choice?

@au7weeng534

2 жыл бұрын

@@absoluteaficionado515 it's hard to appreciate for a westerner how grisly and dark this stuff (also Perrot, Brothers Grimm etc) can be in the original as all of that has been sanitized by Disney for you. the medieval and faux-medieval stuff that are fairy tales is from a different era with different views on pedagogy. (Tolstoy, too, wrote some nasty stuff for kids, come think of it.) this is an approach to education that seeks to shock and traumatize (working-class) children into becoming supposedly moral people.

@peggyjones3282

2 жыл бұрын

I understand changing the story. When I tell my kids Jack and the Beanstock I try to come up with a back story that makes Jack into less of a thief. Ie, it was his dad's gold that he is stealing back. 😒😆

I didn’t realize “the morning is wiser than the evening” was a folkloric thing. My dad always told me that when he was trying to get me to stop studying, drawing, or talking to him, and go to bed. Like those exact words, in Serbian, or well, the morning is smarter than the evening. IDK if it’s a pan Slavic idiom or if it may come from some exposure to Russian folktales. Serbs do often learn Russian folktales as well as our own and my great grandpa lived in Russia for a time. He was sent to a concentration camp long before my dad was born but he may have passed stories he heard his second wife, a Russian, tell his kids in Russia, on to his kids from his third marriage after he came back to Yugoslavia, though my paternal grandpa wasn’t the bedtime story type but it could not have been whole stories but rather just the idiom that got passed on.

Would it be possible for you guys to make a google document or something where you list all your academic sources? I'd love to read all this stuff, not just the stories.

I remember playing "1,2,3, Baba Yaga is looking!" ALL the time as a kid!

In moden Polish "baba" means an old woman, not necessarily an evil one. It is also a pejorative term for any woman that is either ugly or unpleasant, however it can also be used as a endearment in some cases (context dependant). Yaga (or Jaga in PL spelling) is a augmentative form of a given name Jadwiga. Of course Baba Jaga herself is present in our folk tales, usually mirroring the ones you told in this podcast, albeit with a local twist on them. Sometimes in Polish version of Grimm's "Hensel and Gretel" (PL "Jaś i Małgosia"), Baba Jaga takes place of the evil witch living in the house of gingerbread which in turn, in some versions, is placed on the hen legs (but doesn't turn around) which is an interesting example of how different folk traditions of east and west have been mixed together in here.

@easytiger6570

3 жыл бұрын

In modern day Russian/Ukrainian it literally means woman but was indeed a synonym of word "stara"/"staruha" before

@nikolavideomaker

3 жыл бұрын

In the balkans we sth very similar. Only she is called Baba Roga (old woman with a horn from her forehead).

@panayiotisyannopoulos2668

3 жыл бұрын

In Greek an old woman is called “gria” and a very old and hence ugly made by especially long old age is called “babogria” which is neutral really, but would be considered insult when addressed to a woman. Another way is calling her “gria babo”. But the second one has no negative and more a positive spin in it, meaning in a way industrious and hard working making staff also, keeping a clean house, making food and sweets.

@thenewkhan4781

3 жыл бұрын

I always thought that in Polish the "Jaga/Yaga" part comes from the same root that the word "jędza" [sounds something like yan-de-za], meaning witch. After centuries of language transformations "yaga" could become "yan-de-za".

@dzejrid

3 жыл бұрын

@@thenewkhan4781 Nope. Those are literally two different words. Jędza was originally a demon in ancient Slavic mythology.

My favorite episode! This is the second time I've listened to it. As an American with eastern European grandparents, I absolutely love these stories of folklore. More please!

My intro to Baba Yaga was through Emerson, Lake and Palmer (a prog-rock band), in 1970/69, doing their version of Modest Mussorgsky's 'Pictures At An Exhibition' which includes 'The Hut of Baba Yaga,' being one of the aforementioned pictures .. they were real paintings, inc the chicken legs .. :-) But, apart from listening to Mussorgsky's original composition and that for piano and two pianos .. I've never gone into the myth itself .. Enter: your good selves .. :-)

@samparkerSAM

Жыл бұрын

Excellent! I've memorized Mussorgsky's 'Pictures At An Exhibition' one of my all time favorite pieces of music !!!

I love how fictional and mythological characters, like monsters, heroes and even legends based on an actual person take a life of all their own in our collective consciousness. It's like our imaginations are geared for the fire of creativity. I first encountered ol' Baba Yaga in 1978 when I first played D&D....AD&D First Edition for the purists...her Hut was an item you could acquire...but then I remember saying, "What's a Baba Yuga?" The quest lead me to her rich tradition of tales in the Slavic World, plus all my Russian and Polish friends would tell me of her....and now I'm here....a good listen to hear these two Brits discuss this Grandmother of the grim

My son's great grandmother was from Poland and she told my son's father and my son the stories of her She grew up in Poland and these stories were to teach the kids to not wander away and not to go out at night and listen to your parents or baba yaga would get you.

It's so interesting to see how the characters I grew up with and are so regular to me interest so many people. Every description or explanation I heard so far are accurate, but there is always busy that something missing. I like that now people are looking into her dual nature, more than anything I think she represents life. It's all about how you approach it, it can be dangerous, it can be tricky but if you do everything correctly you can learn a lot from it and walk away with the girl and the Golden Needle in the haystack.

That is SO FUNNY! Hahaha. No body talks about this. But yesterday, I was thinking of the Baba Yaga story where she makes the little girl pick out every single little bad seed out of the spilled all over the ground seeds, and put all the bad ones into a pot behind her and all the other good seeds into the other pot. I was thinking about it because I was putting that metaphor with the evil negative fallen so-called elite and their alien overlords, to put all of them into that pot over there so that they can all be thrown into the fire, hahahhaa! And now, today! you guys have this discussion about it! Hahaha. Well there you go, there's my addition to the discussion! Wow, what synchronicity. You know, now that I think of it, I may as well share, why not? hey? So, my mother's name was Yaga. It was given to her as Yagoda, meaning "strawberry" but shortened, it's Yaga. And I never thought of any of this much, until listening to this video. Thanks. So, when I was about 4 years old, standing on the front porch, I suddenly saw myself in a long black full skirted dress with long sleeves and all the way up to the neck. I heard myself, as though from a different lifetime, and now in this body, say something to likes of, I wonder how my power is in this life, and I proceeded to test it out right then and there. I won't go into that though. Anyway, having a mother named "Yaga" hahaha, strange! that this would be one of the strongest memories of my childhood. And I had two other sisters. So there were three girls, and three boys. But all three girls never had any girl children. Two of us never married, and the other one had two boys. I mean, saying, because the line of witches haha stops here, huh? So anyway, the freaky thing is, as I'm listening to you guys talk about that, well, I stopped at 41:20 because I remembered a dream I had when I was still living at home with my parents, which I also could never forget. In this dream, I was standing at the back door looking outside, waiting for someone. I saw this huge black dressed lady coming from way out there in the sky, and as she got closer, she got smaller until she was about 9 feet tall, and she stretched out her hand and it stretched all the way from on top of the garage where she was, to me behind the door, and her long forefinger had a bit of a hook downward toward the palm, as she had her hand turned upward and her forefinger stretched out and beckoning me to come out. I smiled and stepped out the door, and I saw her in a large black sleigh, holding reigns that were attached to long strips of leather that instantly cut off right in mid air so that you couldn't know what was pulling those reigns tight and slightly moving a bit. Like, I thought, maybe they're so ugly, like monsters or something, rather than reindeer. When I got into the beautiful large black sleigh, I sat on the big black leather smooth seat next to her. She was tall, and she had on that same long black dress that I saw when I was 4 years old. I was so little sitting on that seat next to her, I was like a little kid. And she stood up and whipped those invisible creatures very harshly and strongly, and the whole sleigh went up into the sky, the blue sky, because it was day time, with no clouds in the sky, and she drove this thing up into the sky as I watched in my dream from behind, looking at them go up into the sky. And that was the end of the dream. It was freaky. But I sure liked it. That sleigh was something else. Anyway, I think it may have something to do with an antiparticle universe. I don't know. I'm going to listen to the rest of the video now. Hope you enjoyed my sharing.

Have you both ever seen spirited away. I cant help but feel the old lady who runs the bath house bears some resemblances to baba yaga big nose, large, not really a villan but not a hero either, but definitely threatening. Getting the little girl the heroine to carry out tasks, wise and all knowing, running a bath house in the spirit world, between life and death. I feel fining baba yagas house is determining peoples fate. I feel like baba yaga may have been the inspiration. Thank you for doing this video I really enjoyed it, and so lovely to hear folklore that isn't created by the west. Its lovely to try and delve into the minds of the people who the stories came from, and of course social side of it. Also the smelling of Russian flesh reminds me of "fe fi for fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman" I'd love to hear you both talk about norse mythology next after all The Rus were once Viking/Norse (my first thought was baba yaga was a giantess, could it be linked to norse mythology?) I love the prose and poetic edda. I highly reccomend translations by dr Jackson Crawford. The comment about the name Ivan, Prince Barry really made me laugh. Thanks again. Edit: I was writing this as I was watching didnt realise you mentioned yubaba at the end :-D

@qu0dlb3t

3 жыл бұрын

i think thats the inspiration, really cool if true

The version of this i heard when i was a kid was a mean old woman in the woods who nibbled at your toes when you sleep, only if you are bad of course :(

I thought this was going to be about Keanu Reeves.

@spencercurtis86

2 жыл бұрын

I came straight to the comments

Smart mouse, knows how useful towels are

@daves.8869

3 жыл бұрын

I came in not knowing what a Yaga is. But I know about hitchhiking...

@jozz2248

3 жыл бұрын

Never forget your towel

So much of the imagery contain Psilocybin or other psychedelic and poisonous mushrooms.

The amount of effort you put in is amazing. Thank you

38:10 it is great that you put effort into researching this. Two things I'd like to clarify. Cate was an Estonian commoner. Chukhonka is a femenitive of Chukhna, a finno-ugric people. Oh, and "lubki" is just a plural form of "lubok" (to get it even more awkward, "lubok" is a hypocorism of "lub", a top layer of tree bark)

Love that I was looking for a new episode to listen to yesterday and got one today :D

I first heard of Baba Yaga when I was little, from the Tashi series of kids’ books. They introduced me to a lot of mythology, now that I think about it.

The grimm fairytale Frau Holle, is almost the same as the Baba Yaga story about the sister and stepsister (1:10:00 )

I love Baba Yaga and grew up on her stories. Thank you so much for your deep dive into her backstory. I'm going to watch these two videos several times. The only way I feel like this could have been better would be 'chapter descriptions' to make navigation easier for repeat viewers. Come to think of it, that would also make it easier to turn your videos into clips for wider distribution.

@GunShark0

Жыл бұрын

Chapters are good. I'll begin a video to fall asleep to then watch the part I missed another time. Also, two videos? What's the other one?

great episode! I never knew there was so much to this figure

Very interesting topic! Thanks for the podcast!

Nice overall. You might be interested to learn that there was even what could be called a starter-kit published in Dragon magazine (AD&D-themed publication, #83 if I'm not mistaken, multi-page layout detailing a multi-planar home with a much larger interior than the exterior) involving her magical hut. They attempted to craft a way to incorporate her unique flavor in larger role-playing (part of a greater fictional world and all), even going so far as to attempt to back story a couple of daughters (note here which you might consider: not her own daughters but rather according to another telling of some legends that she would often receive children as offerings under specific circumstances - because poor families couldn't provide for them - to be raised by her rather than eaten providing them instruction until they could make their own way, something about not wanting to offend deities that look out for destitute people as some form of personal superstition) who you could possibly meet. The way that the authors of the module saw it, she was a demi-god class with some outer plane connections which might have been demonic or other monstrous. You were not meant to slay her but to encounter situations where you might have to get her help for some other quest.

Went to sub and realized I already have. You all have a Fantastic way of telling a story. Great work 👍

Immediately liked. Can't wait to listen!

To compare to a Slavic folkloric tradition I’m very familiar with: The whole Prince Ivan thing reminded me a lot of the tradition in Serbian epic poetry and folktales of ascribing great deeds to Crown Prince Marko, a historically unremarkable Serbian heir to the throne and later ruler who has nonetheless achieved great popularity. It gets to the point where much like the many Ivans of Russian folktales, he’s practically an anachronistic figure and he and his giant horse Šarac can appear in folktales set in many eras, even one’s before his birth as sort of a stock hero and horse duo. Though he typically doesn’t appear in epic poetry too far out of the bounds of his actual life, and that very small bit of anachronism is normal for any Serbian hero of the late Middle Ages, he does feature in A LOT of epic poems, being the only individual to have an entire cycle of epic poetry dedicated to him, all other cycles cover eras or dynasties. Of course Marko, the Serbian form of Mark, is also a common name many can relate to and Šarac, meaning patterned one or something akin to “spot” for dogs in English, is a very common horse name that may make this mythic mount more relatable to commoners as well. The use of “Bogatyri” as a specific group of badass knights who feature in folktales (Bogatyr comes from the Mongolian Bakhtur and means hero or great warrior in a more general sense, Ulanbattaar, the name of Mongolia’s capital actually means city of heroes which is also a cool cross cultural connection) reminds me, obviously like you said of Arthur’s knights, but also of Serbia’s obsession with having folkloric heroes be knights from the battle of Kosovo, like Miloš Obilić, Jug Bogdan, his sons the nine Jugović brothers, Hrelja Ohmučević, Prince Lazar, or his son Stefan Lazarević. I haven’t read much of the pre historic and Nemanjić cycles but I want to if for no other reason than to see whether there was some other group of elite warriors in our folktales before the battle of Kosovo.

My first exposure to Baba Yaga was the video game Hero’s Quest aka Quest For Glory 1: So You Want To Be A Hero, and I was always so deeply intrigued by the hut and character. To get it to sit down you say “Hut of Brown, Now Sit Down. Classic! Great vid fellas!

This figurative is one that spans all time. Like my Mother, in a way.

Western people do not do justice to Baba Yaga? Then imagine how bad the rest of Slavic pantheon and demonology feels

this is soo sick genuinely amazing content

Lovely thank you for existing

thank youuuu loved this video

Please do more videos about Baba Yaga or other Slavic myth, like the Domovoy.

This is a podcast I've always wanted to listen to stoned but never actually thought would exist! I'm excited to learn lol

36:30 Her father was Polish, but her mother was probably German.

Baba Yaga became a fixture in my childhood from the Quest for Glory series

@Lu11abi

3 жыл бұрын

She came to me in the best "Choose Your Own Adventure" story that the 80's produced.

@LTPottenger

3 жыл бұрын

Those were great

@Red-Viper-Red

3 жыл бұрын

OMG, I still have a map I made from that game. I loved that game so much

That was awesome! Thank you so much! XoxoxoxoxoX

It’s nice to see BabaYaga getting some attention 👍 great stories chosen

Thank you! thank you for music in the beginning

Great show, both informative and entertaining. Piqued my interest as to what other topics may have already been covered, though my preference is more towards Nordic, Germanic and British mythologies.

1:18:54 with a few variations on the names, this story sounds a lot like the Hungarian folktale Fehérlófia (son of the white horse)!! the story is pretty much the same, but the three giants are Tree Skinner, Rock Crumbler and Iron Kneader !

Baba in old language means woman,and Yaga thats short from Yagoda,we write Jagoda (common name).The character is not strictly Russian but Slavic.

Her using the oven as a bed is totally normal. The stoves were kept in the middle of the home to heat--possibly two floors--with the chimney going up through the centre of the home. Baba Yaga would have used the second floor or an upper level as part of her bedroom. Thanks for this wonderful podcast!

Just dropping by to comment that i dont often listen to many podcasts but this is one i go out of my way to download the audio of every episode :-]

love this. babayaga great content. thankyou

Very nice show. Baba Yaga may have some influense from "Pohjan Akka" the witch of the Northlland, in finnic myth, but only vaguely. A character like this could well be influensed by every mother in law.

Mike Mignola's "Hellboy" series made good use of Baba Yaga.

Baba Yaga is a pretty major player in Polish folklore too. In fact calling someone a “Baba” is a very derogatory term meaning like old hag or senile old woman. She was at times benevolent, others malevolent. As mentioned by a previous commenter she was often used to scare children into behaving properly, and also to discourage children from wandering too far off into the woods, especially at night. There is also a common trope of her children or “daughters” being birds with human heads

Very interesting. Thank you!

I love your format (content too)

Thankyou so much for this deep dive. I adore Baba Yaga and it's so hard to find anything other than a re telling of the story's. But there is so so much more to her and what she represents. Did I mention that Baba Yaga is my life goal?

My granny was Serbian from Bosnia and as I was a child she was telling me the stories of "Baba Roga" - Rog means horn but I don't remember that she would ever describe her with horns.

@juremustac3063

2 жыл бұрын

Precisley, I am from Croatia and can confirm that. In south Slavic areas she is called Baba Roga, but it seems to be the same character. Sometimes, as the name suggests, she can be presented with one horn which might be a deviation, but most of other details are common.

I saw Lost Girl! It was a pretty cheesy show, but it was fun to try to catch all the myths/folklore they put in there. Kenzie, the human, was the best character.

Thanks for your charming Welshness, no apologies necessary ! The mystic story of Baba Yaga reminds me of Nona Strega, a south Italian figure of the wise woman, the outcast, the misunderstood. There are so many examples of this figure, spanning all cultures.

@murrayscott9546

3 жыл бұрын

Add Nona Strega to that. Beyond age, beyond time : every Mother you dreamed of having.

@murrayscott9546

2 жыл бұрын

@@gaslitworldf.melissab2897 Couldn't agree with you more ! I haven't a degree in anything so my observations/opinionsare just that.

I grew up with stories of Baba Yaga. She haunted my early childhood nightmares, which I can still remember in vivid detail.

For once KZread/Google snoopology paid off, searched for Babs Yaga after watching John Wick the other day and this arrived today . Thank you

lovee these presentations

3:40 I recognize that illustration, those books were awesome

Very good episode :) Greetings from Poland!

You guys should watch the 2018 film Hellboy that got remade with an original twist. Baba Yaga has a very interesting part in the movie ! Definitely worth watching. The depiction of her is gnarly, informative, and super detailed.

i first became aware of baba yaga when playing an early online computer game on prodigy (super early dial up internet). my character came across the hut on chicken legs. then i head reference to her but didn't see her as a character in anything until reading neil gaiman (i can't remember if it was sandman, books of magic or both). then i've looked for more since then. thanks for the resources.

Was gonna give you guys a go whilst I slept...then you go bringing up Lost Girl and now I'm sold. No sleep tonight

They used Baba Yaga in the second season of the Witcher. They even used the hut and the chant

When you say “a Baba Yaga” and “The Baba Yaga”, you have to understand that that is a matter of English translation. Slavic languages have no definite article. There is no a or the, so it would appear grammatically identical to a given name and the addition of a or the would be based on context clues. A could sort of exist if they say she is “one Baba Yaga” but I’m not familiar enough with the folklore to know whether she is ever explicitLy referred to as one of many

In one of the Hellboy movies they included Baba Yaga as a character. I never realized that she was a part of actual mythology.

@jonathancampbell7798

3 жыл бұрын

She's pretty damn important in the Hellboy comics. He shot out her eyes years ago, and she has wanted revenge and one of his eyes ever since. Koschei the Deathless is her slave (Another folklore character) and he cameoed in the end credit scene. Check out the Hellboy comics

Love the podcast. It would be interesting to hear you talk about Mother Shipton or other UK witches.

I'm Polish, Baba Jaga is a witch, it basically means witch of the woods

In regards to the the Pushkin poem of Ruslan and Lyudmilla, I believe the word that was awkward for you (ta’en) is actually the contraction of “taken”. So the “Hated Czar” is being taken captive. I had to scour the internet for that particular version of the English translation of the poem. I know that you have a ton on your plates but, would you ever consider an English recitation of the poem? I have looked, and I can’t find it in English. I only find translations of the ballet. It seems really sad considering Pushkin’s desire for the poem, mentioned in the dedication. Maybe you could help do him a solid, and receive some XP for your deed?

lol had baba yagas hut once , it's one of the coolest items in d&d

I really like you guys. All the best.

44:55 - 'ta'en' is a contraction of 'taken;' it is used in poetry where only one syllable will fit. The meaning is the czar was taken captive.

Thomas Feichtmeir (cyangmou) sent me here. I never thought i would enjoy the content this much. will check out the other stuff. Looking forward for more!

I really enjoy your videos. I do wish you did these videos like your Hisory of Britain videos (ie more structure).

@TheHistocrat

3 жыл бұрын

Sorry those take between 2-3 months to make and if I did this with that format I couldn't do my other stuff at the same time.

@beepboop974

3 жыл бұрын

​@@TheHistocrat That's completely understandable. I figured as much. They're still good

I'm guessing that Baba Yaga was the basis for Flemeth from "Dragon Age." Cool.

@samaritan_sys

3 жыл бұрын

Most definitely. Mother of witches, lives in an old hut in the forest, caries a disdain for the countrymen of her nation of residence, powers from a world seemingly much older than the current times, ominous and uncertain motives/moral alignment, shapeshifter, associated with ravens, steals children... Definitely a match. Also, the Ladies of the Wood from Witcher 3.

@nikitachaykin6774

3 жыл бұрын

Do not forget Ravel Puzzlewell the Grey Hag from Planescape Torment. She is more on reluctant helper side.

Some later versions of these stoves and by later I mean early to mid 20th century had a steel slab attached to a secondary part under which wood could be burned and functioned like a large modern stove where wood was fed through different places depending on what you were cooking.

You boys are awesome

Everything I know about Baba Yaga I learned from Bartok the Magnificent.

John Wick's favourite Histocrat's video.

So I played this thinking I would fall asleep to it, but noooo... too interesting. Thanks guys! I’ll be sleepy at work. LOL

@mickbreen2180

3 жыл бұрын

The same thing is happening with me tonight while i recover from my cluster headache.

In my childhood, my grandmother would read me a children's book titled "Babushka Baba Yaga". It always frightened me. I'm wondering if this was a popular book, or if my grandmother had it simply as a remnant of our Russian/Ukrainian-Mennonite heritage.

@terrabeh

2 жыл бұрын

I love that book. I read it to my daughters and will be reading it to my granddaughter also. My girls were never frightened. It was one of their favorites. I don't know how popular it was. We used the library. I wanted my daughters to know Disney versions we not the originals, so I would check out as many versions as they had of various fairy tales.

".. and in these stories there's never a father figure to explain where these daughters come from" You've never heard of Bob Yaga? Thought everyone knew about him.