Baba-Yaga - Leg-Bone

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Not finding (yet) anything  suitable to the theme "Witches in fiction... To The Bone" in actual fiction I've read, I again come back to folklore. Russian folklore of course, and my favorite witch Baba-Yaga. Sometimes her name gets that funny sounding in Russian "Kostyanaya-Noga", what means Leg-Bone. Why is that so? Let's find out of course. 

Baba-Yaga has many archetypal references and linked to the pagan tradition of ancient Rus'. I personally incline to the version that under her name is hidden (and most probably forgotten nowadays) image of ancient Slavic Goddess Makosh', you can read a nice article about her here.  In the Russian fairy tales Baba-Yaga always lives in the hut in the deepest part of the forest, and the hut where she dwells is not an ordinary one. It has so called chicken-feet on which it stands..and turns and maybe dances. Now be ready for a scary historical fact:  in ancient times the dead were buried in Domowina - - houses, located above the ground at very high stumps with roots peeking out of the ground, like chicken feet. Domowina staged so that the hole in which it was drawn was turned in the opposite direction of the settlement (village). As you can see in the picture below, Baba-Yaga actually lives in such "house" hence she has connections to the world of the dead, though herself is not dead at all. She is in between, and this is the explanation (according to one of the versions) WHY she is called Leg-Bone.

You can also see that the skulls with shining eye holes usually depicted in the fairy tales as a necessary attribute of hut's exterior. Yes, Baba-Yaga likes bones. I stumbled upon interesting thought  that "Baba-Yaga is the Arch-Crone, the Goddess of Wisdom and Death, the Bone Mother. Wild and untamable, she is a nature spirit bringing wisdom and death of ego, and through death, rebirth" **.

Here is a cute illustration of my dear witch I found in the internet. 

Another one, more realistic, and scary. But don't be afraid, we are just celebrating To The Bone!

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and More.

*Image credit (in order from top to bottom):

1. http://jeffyu-tge.blogspot.in/2011/06/baba-yaga-environment-and-architecture.html

2. http://variety.com/2011/biz/news/herold-lines-up-baba-yaga-1118033169/

3. http://tlcillustration.blogspot.in/2011/02/figure-friday-curse-of-baba-yaga.html

** taken from http://www.oldrussia.net/baba.html

Morozko (Jack Frost) - the Russian Magical Winter

The power of imagination can make a lot of difference in how you feel at the moment. So here I am, imagining a typical Russian winter. Everything is under a thick layer of snow and when you step on the snowdrift, your feet sink into its softness. The sky is clear blue and you can see crystals sparkling in the air. It's frost. Moroz in Russian. 

The winter season found its reflection in Russian folklore. As it can last up to 7 months, this season is a significant part of the Russian annual life cycle. There are numerous festivals celebrated during the winter, as to brighten up and warm up the cold days. Also, important to note, that the weddings were conducted in the winter too.
As I had promised earlier here is another Russian magical fairy tale. "Morozko" (Father Frost, Jack Frost) is its name. If interested, you can read it here. Not only this fairy tale pictures the Russian winter, it also teaches us very good lessons of patience, politeness, respect and kindness.
The female character of Morozko is a girl, who has to bear all the challenges of being a step daughter. A step mother hates her, as she is, first of all, beautiful, kind, and a good helper in the house. These qualities may affect her own daughter's marriage proposal success, as step daughter will be preferred upon her. Thinking of what shall she do with her accurst step daughter, the wicked step mother forces her husband to leave his daughter alone in the winter forest as she can freeze there to death.

Obeying his wicked wife, he takes the daughter to the woods on the sledge and leaves her under a big pine tree (a great father!). Later the girl starts feeling very cold, trying to warm up her ice cold hands with her breath when suddenly hears :"Are you warm, my girl?" This is Morozko, leaping from one tree to another.The girl being very kind and polite answers him: "I'm warm, father, thank you..." Morozko first wants to freeze the life out of her, but seeing her good nature, has mercy on this nice girl. them he keeps asking her same question few more times, and when she still replies "You are welcome, father, I'm warm", decides to bestow her with jewelry and a trunk of gems. The girl returns home in rich clothes and in beautiful sledge. 

The wicked step mother of course, becomes furious, and asks husband to send her own daughter to the forest as she can also get all those treasures from Morozko.

Now we assume that the story ends good for those how deserve happiness and bad for those who deserved  punishment. In this way the fairy tale seems to be quiet cruel. The step mother's daughter never returns home in all the glory. Placed under the same pine tree,she is also questioned by Morozko how she is doing, but she replies rudely : "Are you blind? Can't you see that my hands and feet are numb?" In the end what the step mother gets is her daughter's cold body in the sleigh... Morozko didn't have mercy on her rude, lazy daughter. The old man's daughter marries a neighbor, and they live happily ever after.

Yes, many Russian fairy tales have this moment in them, when the main character gets everything after sufferings, and the offender left with nothing or even finds his or her death. Morozko meanwhile is a personification of the Russian winter, which can be kind or cause many difficulties to people. So as to please it, you have to be kind and polite to it always. 

Have a happy magical winter and a Happy New Year!

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature

The Feather of Finist the Falcon

Continuing with the Russian fairy tales, the next one to talk about is a beautiful The Feather of Finist the Falcon (Пёрышко Финиста ясна сокола). Yes, I found my dear witches in it as well :). One of them - our very well known Baba-Yaga  and another- a queen enchantress.

The story about Finist the Falcon is a traditional Russian folk tale about a lad who can turn to a feather or a falcon and about a girl who fell in love with him.

Obviously, that being in love with a supernatural guy has its difficulties and challenges. Finist the Falcon has to fly away from the girl Maryushka after wicked sisters prevent him from entering the room by inserting blades in the window frame. He says at last that she'll find him only after she wears out three pairs of iron shoes, breaks three iron staves and three iron caps. The number 3 has always been a magical number (lucky too) in Russian folklore. So many actions are repeated for three times in the fairy tale (and in life's superstitious moments) as to ensure success. Maryushka is able to reach the palace where her Finist is held by the Queen, exactly after she breaks all those iron items (3 items, three each of them).
I had been speaking already about traditional folklore theme of the meeting of the main character with Baba-Yaga  several times with regard to Olesya and Russian folklore. Same is in the Finist the Falcon as the protagonist can't accomplish her journey without help. This help, as usual, comes from Baba-Yaga. In fact, there are 3 of them in the story, each of which helps on the particular stage as the plot unwinds. Each of Baba Yagas gives Maryushka a bewitched thing which is supposed to aid her in future. Maryushka gets to know that Finist the Falcon was given a potion and, befuddled, was forced to marry the queen. First Baba Yaga provides her with a golden plate and a golden egg.
Second Baba Yaga's  gift is the needle which can do embroidery with gold and silver on its own. The third bewitched object she is given is a spindle which can spin on its own. Maryushka has to exchange all three things on the right to see Finist the Falcon.
Moreover Maryushka is assisted by animals as well. She meets a cat and a dog, who encourage her (yes, they can speak!) to continue her way through the dark forest in spite of fear. The third animal she meets is a wolf who gives her a ride on his back.

I.Bilibin, Finist the Falcon

When Maryushka dwells to the walls of the crystal palace, she, following an advise of the first Baba Yaga, hires out as a queen's maid. The queen, seeing all Maryushka's peculiar objects, wants to buy them. Maryushka however  requests to see Finist the Falcon in exchange. Another challenge now is that Finist, being befuddled, fell into a wakeless sleep, and she can't make him to see her. Last time, when she almost lost hope to wake him, and starts crying, one of the tears drops on the shoulder of her beloved and this awakens him. He is happy to see her, they head back home and get married.

I.Bilibin, Finist the Falcon

Russian Wedding in old times

Hope you liked this fairy tale with few witches in them. I'm going to make a post about a winter fairy tale, with little bit of magic in it too, of course:)

   *** Hope you had a great Winter Solstice day. Merry Christmas and Yule to all! ***

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature

Wise and Beautiful - Vasilisa

Taking care of two blogs is not easy, especially when they differ from each other so much. My Sunny Indian Days is indeed bright and colourful, while Witchcraft and More is dark and has more of tints of black. However I don't really distinguish them, as they both reflect my so various interests which I simply couldn't include in the same blog. I chose to divide, and you see what I got in the end. The topic of Witchcraft was waiting for its next manifestation in here - I'm  letting it happen.

I found out that one of my very first posts "Witch - good and bad? Russian Baba-Yaga" got few back links over the Internet, and the picture I used for it also brings me more and more views per day. So I thought I'd continue with witchcraft in folklore, finding new facts and new pictures. 

As mentioned in the same post, Baba-Yaga is the most popular witch of the Russian fairy tales. She is old, ugly, can be very dangerous nevertheless helpful. I might make a separate post about her, as she deserves proper attention. These are one of the modern visions of Baba-Yaga:                                                     

Baba-Yaga by MarkTriss    

                   
                             Baba-Yaga by AppleSin

Quite scary, isn't it? In some of the blogs I saw that she is even called "Goddess" hence might be worshipped by some Wiccans. But If I talk about the Russian fairy tales, Baba-Yaga is not the only witch or sorcerer. There are also few female characters which have such adjectives in their names like the Wise and the Beautiful.  They either charm with their appearance or/and wit, or they actually are turned to some animal and they do a little bit of magic... Isn't it something obviously witchy in here? ;) I suppose it is, let's see what interesting is in the store of folklore.

Vasilisa the Wise is the character of the fairy tale "The Frog-Princess". Once the arrow sent from  the bow of the prince is caught by a frog - a custom to choose a would-be-wife. Prince Ivan, obeying the tradition, has to marry a frog, and he takes her home. His brothers make fun of him, because of course, he is marrying a..well..frog! Little they knew that this small animal is actually a beautiful girl, a princess Vasilisa the Wise who was bewitched to stay in a guise of a reptile until... some young man (a prince) finds and marries her in spite of her looks. 
The king, a father of the prince, announces different tasks one by one for the wives of his sons. The tasks are such as weave a carpet, bake white bread (called Karavai in Russian) - all in one night, and what is worst, come to the king's feast! The prince feels sad as his wife is just a frog and won't be able to do any of the tasks. She says him to got to bed. When the prince fall asleep, she turns to a princess, leaving her frog skin aside and starts doing magic... The frog-princess successfully performs two first tasks by weaving a wonderful carpet, which embroidery shimmers; she bakes the cake which the king likes the most out of three. 
           
The Frog-Princess, N.Petrov                                Russian Beauty, Konstantin Makovsky

This article pours some light on the meaning of these difficult jobs given to the princess. The author Irina Haustova says that they symbolize the "magic of vital circle", in which, for example, weaving, bread baking are accomplished in one go, from the beginning till end in short period of time, which otherwise couldn't be possible without magic and what was reflected in the fairy tale. If explain the same from religious (pagan) point of view "In those ancient times people believed that the closed life cycle has special properties, special force [...]The committed actions in this magic are frequently weaving, spinning, winding - all symbolically linked with the fate and with the ordering of the world, the creation of the cosmos" (b).

Visit of the feast is the last task, where the Frog Princess reveals her true nature. She appears now in a guise of a beautiful girl, in shining attire and a crown (just like in the pictures above). She astounds all the guests, but more, her husband. The Frog Princess collects some wine and some bones in her sleeves while feasting. Strange. Next, she dances for those present, but in a different way: she throws the wine out of her sleeve, and it becomes a lake; she throws the bones out of another, and they become swans swimming in the lake.

Vasnetsov, the Frog Princess

I found out that this dance has a deep symbolical meaning, coming, once again, from the Russia's pagan past. The author of this essay explains that the Frog Princess's dance represents the pagan ritual activities that occur in the spring of the annual cycle. The throwing of wine and the bones symbolize the revival of nature after the winter.The Frog Princess herself is also linked to the archetype of Women's Self, nature, live, the Earth and the erotic, aspects of which are the Princess and Priestess. I was studying folklore in the university, and we used to review many fairy tales, but not particularly this one, which has so much to tell about.   

Now let's refer to one more typical character of the Russian fairy tales.

Vasilisa the Beautiful shares the same name with the previous princess, however her story is quiet different. Vasilisa's life becomes miserable after her mother's death. Her father marries a widow with two daughters, who try to exhaust Vasilisa, make her ill by giving her loads of house work. However Vasilisa in opposite is becoming more and more beautiful day by day, while step mother and her daughters lose their looks. The thing which keeps Vasilisa healthy and strong is a small doll left by her late mother. And it is a quiet magical attribute. The doll can speak, eat, she does house work, gives advises, spares Vasilisa... just like the mother would and that's what this doll stands for - Vasilisa's mother, who even after her death helps the daughter.

            

                                                       Vasilisa the Beautiful and her Doll (Kinuko Y.)
One night Vasilisa is sent by her stepmother to fetch the light for a candle from Baba Yaga. She carries a doll with her. Baba Yaga agrees to give her fire only when she accomplishes few tasks (some are as same difficult as in "The Frog Princess"). The doll helps her to do so, of course. The picture below illustrates the moment Vasilisa is carrying a skull with the light home. However her step mother and step sisters are burned to the ground by the eye hole's light, as a punishment for treating Vasilisa so bad. Don't mess with a girl with a doll... The doll, obviously, has a symbolic meaning as well. You can read about it as well as about overall meaning of this folk tale which is analyzed from psychological point of view in this nice article.

Vasilisa the Beautiful, Ivan Bilibin

 A female character of the Russian fairy tales inherited a rich system of pagan believes. Vasilisa is not the only wise and beautiful, there are also Elena, Mariya and other young woman who are bestowed with unique abilities. One of them even called Baba-Yaga's daughter. I'd like to continue telling about the world of Russian folklore in the next posts. Hope you are with me and can give suggestions on what else I can speak about in Witchcraft and More. There is so much MORE!

Literature/on line sources used:

1. B.A. Doroshin, Some Socioantropocosmic mytho-archetypal motifs of the Russian folk tale "The Frog Princess", Penza, 2010.

2. I. Haustova, The Magic of  Vital Circle

3. Bolotova L., Features of the female characters in the Russian folk tale

4. Clarissa Estes, Vasilisa the Wise and the Doll

Yours sincerely,

Witchcraft and Literature