Baba Yaga - a mythical character or a real woman. Origin of Baba Yaga

During my childhood, when every self-respecting school held New Year's Eve parties (for lower grades) and “discotheques” (for seniors), an indispensable detail of these actions were the performances of invited artists - sometimes professional ones, from the local drama theater, sometimes amateurs - moms, dads, teachers.

And the composition of the participants was just as indispensable - Ded Moroz, Snegurochka, forest animals (squirrels, hares, etc.), sometimes - pirates, Bremen town musicians and devils with kikimors. But the main villain was Baba Yaga. In which interpretations she did not appear before the astonished audience - both a hunchbacked old woman, and a middle-aged woman with bright makeup - something between a gypsy fortune-teller and a witch, and a sexy young creature in a dress made of patches and charming shag hair on her head. Only its essence was unchanged - to harm the “good characters” as much as possible - not to let them go to the Christmas tree, to take away gifts, to turn them into an old stump - the list is not limited.

On the verge of two worlds, light and dark, in the middle of a dense forest, old Yaga has been living in a strange hut surrounded by a fence of human bones since ancient times. Sometimes guests from Russia drop by to see her. Yaga tries to eat some, welcomes others, helps with advice and deed, predicts fate. She has extensive acquaintances in the living and dead kingdoms, freely visits them. Who she is, where she came from in Russian folklore, why her name is more common in the fairy tales of northern Russia, we will try to figure it out. It can be assumed that the fairy-tale image of Yaga arose in Russian folk art as a result of centuries-old interaction against the common Indo-Iranian background of Slavic and Finno-Ugric cultures.

There is no doubt that the penetration of Russians to the North, to Yugra and Siberia, acquaintance with the life of the local population and subsequent stories about it had a significant impact on the formation of the image of Yaga in Russian, and then in Zyryansk fairy tales. It was the Novgorod ushkuyniki, Cossack pioneers, warriors, coachmen and soldiers who brought to Russia those extraordinary information about the way of life, customs and beliefs of Yugra, which, mixed with ancient Slavic mythology and folklore, left their mark on the fairy tales about Baba Yaga.

And who is this Baba Yaga really? Folk element? A product of popular imagination? Real character? An invention of children's writers? Let's try to find out the origin of the most insidious fairy-tale character of our childhood.

Slavic mythology

Baba Yaga (Yaga-Yaginishna, Yagibikha, Yagishna) is the oldest character in Slavic mythology. Initially, it was the deity of death: a woman with a snake tail, who guarded the entrance to the underworld and escorted the souls of the deceased to the kingdom of the dead. By this, she somewhat resembles the ancient Greek snake maiden Echidna. According to ancient myths, Echidna gave birth to the Scythians from her marriage to Hercules, and the Scythians are considered the most ancient ancestors of the Slavs. It is not for nothing that Baba Yaga plays a very important role in all fairy tales, heroes sometimes resort to it as their last hope, the last helper - these are indisputable traces of matriarchy.

The permanent habitat of Yaga is a dense forest. She lives in a small hut on chicken legs, so small that, lying in it, Yaga occupies the entire hut. Approaching the hut, the hero usually says: “The hut is the hut, stand back to the forest, front to me!” The hut turns, and in it Baba Yaga: “Fu-fu! It smells of the Russian spirit ... You, good fellow, are you whining from business or are you trying to do it? He answers her: “First you drink, feed, and then ask about the news.”

There is no doubt that this tale was invented by people who are well acquainted with the life of the Ob Ugric peoples. The phrase about the Russian spirit got into it not by chance. The tar, which was widely used by the Russians to impregnate leather shoes, harness and ship gear, irritated the sensitive sense of smell of the taiga people, who used goose and fish oils to impregnate their shoes. A guest who entered the yurt in boots smeared with tar left behind a persistent smell of the “Russian spirit”.

Was the bone leg a snake's tail?

Particular attention is drawn to the bone-footedness, one-leggedness of the Baba Yaga, associated with her once animal-like or snake-like appearance: “The cult of snakes as creatures involved in the land of the dead begins, apparently, already in the Paleolithic. In the Paleolithic, images of snakes personifying the underworld are known. The emergence of an image of a mixed nature belongs to this era: the upper part of the figure is from a man, the lower from a snake or, perhaps, a worm.
According to K. D. Laushkin, who considers Baba Yaga the goddess of death, one-legged creatures in the mythologies of many peoples are somehow connected with the image of a snake (a possible development of ideas about such creatures: a snake - a man with a snake tail - a one-legged man - lame, etc.). P.).

V. Ya. Propp notes that "Yaga, as a rule, does not walk, but flies, like a mythical snake, a dragon." “As you know, the all-Russian “snake” is not the original name of this reptile, but arose as a taboo in connection with the word “earth” - “creeping on the ground”, - writes O. A. Cherepanova, suggesting that the original, not established while the name of the snake could be yaga.

One of the possible echoes of long-standing ideas about such a snake-like deity is the image of a huge forest (white) or field snake that can be traced in the beliefs of the peasants of a number of provinces of Russia, which has power over cattle, can endow with omniscience, etc.

Bone leg - connection with death?

According to another belief, Death gives the dead to Baba Yaga, with whom she travels around the world. At the same time, Baba Yaga and the witches subject to her feed on the souls of the dead and therefore become light, like the souls themselves.

Previously, they believed that Baba Yaga could live in any village, disguised as an ordinary woman: take care of livestock, cook, raise children. In this, ideas about her are close to ideas about ordinary witches.

But still, Baba Yaga is a more dangerous creature, possessing much more power than some kind of witch. Most often, she lives in a dense forest, which has long inspired fear in people, since it was perceived as the border between the world of the dead and the living. It is not for nothing that her hut is surrounded by a palisade of human bones and skulls, and in many fairy tales Baba Yaga eats human flesh, and she herself is called “bone leg”.

Just like Koschey the Immortal (koshchey - bone), it belongs to two worlds at once: the world of the living and the world of the dead. Hence its almost limitless possibilities.

Fairy tales

In fairy tales, she acts in three incarnations. Yaga-bogatyrsha possesses a sword-treasurer and fights on equal terms with heroes. Yaga the kidnapper steals children, sometimes throwing them, already dead, on the roof of her native house, but most often taking them to her hut on chicken legs, or into an open field, or underground. From this outlandish hut, children, and adults, are saved by outwitting Yagibishna.

And, finally, the Yaga-giver greets the hero or heroine affably, treats him deliciously, soars in the bathhouse, gives useful advice, gives a horse or rich gifts, for example, a magic ball leading to a wonderful goal, etc.
This old sorceress does not walk, but travels around the wide world in an iron mortar (that is, a scooter chariot), and when she walks, she forces the mortar to run faster, striking with an iron club or pestle. And so that, for reasons known to her, no traces could be seen, they are swept up after her by special ones, attached to the mortar with a broom and a broom. She is served by frogs, black cats, including Cat Bayun, crows and snakes: all creatures in which threat and wisdom coexist.
Even when Baba Yaga appears in the most unattractive form and is distinguished by her fierce nature, she knows the future, has countless treasures, and secret knowledge.

The veneration of all its properties was reflected not only in fairy tales, but also in riddles. One of them says this: "Baba Yaga, a pitchfork leg, the whole world feeds, starves itself." We are talking about the plow-nurse, the most important tool in peasant everyday life.

The mysterious, wise, terrible Baba Yaga plays the same huge role in the life of a fairy-tale hero.

Version by Vladimir Dahl

“Yaga or yaga-baba, baba-yaga, yagaya and yagavaya or yagishna and yaginichna, the family of a witch, an evil spirit, under the guise of an ugly old woman. Is there a yaga, horns in the forehead (stove pillar with crows)? Baba Yaga, a bone leg, rides in a mortar, rests with a pestle, sweeps the trail with a broom. Her bones come out from under her body in places; nipples hang below the waist; she travels for human meat, kidnaps children, her mortar is iron, the devils are carrying her; under this train there is a terrible storm, everything groans, the cattle roar, there is pestilence and death; whoever sees a yaga becomes mute. Yagishnaya is called an evil, quarrelsome woman.
“Baba Yaga or Yaga Baba, a fabulous monster, a bolypuha over witches, Satan's handmaid. Baba Yaga is a bone leg: he rides in a mortar, drives (rests) with a pestle, sweeps the trail with a broom. She is simple-haired and in one shirt without a belt: both are the height of outrage.

Baba Yaga among other peoples

Babu Yaga (Polish Endza, Czech Ezhibaba) is considered to be a monster, in which only small children should believe. But even a century and a half ago in Belarus, adults also believed in her - the terrible goddess of death, destroying the bodies and souls of people. And this goddess is one of the oldest.

Ethnographers have established its connection with the primitive rite of initiation, celebrated even in the Paleolithic and known among the most backward peoples of the world (Australians).

For initiation into full members of the tribe, teenagers had to go through special, sometimes difficult, rituals - tests. They were performed in a cave or in a dense forest, near a lonely hut, and an old woman, a priestess, disposed of them. The most terrible test consisted in staging the "devouring" of the subjects by the monster and their subsequent "resurrection". In any case, they had to “die”, visit the other world and “resurrect”.

Everything around her breathes death and horror. The bolt in her hut is a human leg, the locks are her hands, the lock is a toothy mouth. Her tyn is made of bones, and on them are skulls with flaming eye sockets. She fries and eats people, especially children, while licking the stove with her tongue and shoveling coals with her feet. Her hut is covered with a pancake, propped up with a pie, but these are symbols not of abundance, but of death (funeral food).

According to Belarusian beliefs, Yaga flies in an iron mortar with a fiery broom. Where it rushes - the wind is raging, the earth is groaning, animals are howling, cattle are hiding. Yaga is a powerful sorceress. They serve her, like witches, devils, crows, black cats, snakes, toads. She turns into a snake, a mare, a tree, a whirlwind, etc.; can not only one thing - to take any normal human form.

Yaga lives in the dense forest or the underworld. She is the mistress of the underground hell: “Do you want to go to hell? I am Jerzy-ba-ba,” says Yaga in a Slovak fairy tale. A forest for a farmer (unlike a hunter) is an unkind place full of all evil spirits, the same other world, and the famous hut on chicken legs is like a passageway to this world, and therefore you cannot enter it until he turns his back to the forest .

Yaga the janitor is hard to deal with. She beats the heroes of the fairy tale, ties them up, cuts the belts out of their backs, and only the strongest and bravest hero overcomes her and descends into the underworld. At the same time, Yaga has the features of the mistress of the Universe to everyone and looks like some kind of terrible parody of the Mother of the World.

Yaga is also a mother goddess: she has three sons (serpents or giants) and 3 or 12 daughters. Perhaps she is the cursed damn mother or grandmother. She is a housewife, her attributes (mortar, broom, pestle) are tools of female labor. Yaga is served by three riders - black (night), white (day) and red (sun), who pass through her "gateway" every day. With the help of a dead head, she commands the rain.

Yaga is a common Indo-European goddess.

Among the Greeks, it corresponds to Hekate - the terrible three-faced goddess of the night, witchcraft, death and hunting.
The Germans have Perkhta, Holda (Hel, Frau Hallu).
The Indians have no less terrible Kali.
Perkhta-Holda lives underground (in wells), commands rain, snow and the weather in general, and rushes, like Yaga or Hekate, at the head of a crowd of ghosts and witches. Perhta was borrowed from the Germans by their Slavic neighbors - Czechs and Slovenes.

Alternative origins of the image

In ancient times, the dead were buried in dominoes - houses located above the ground on very high stumps with roots looking out from under the ground, similar to chicken legs. Domovins were placed in such a way that the hole in them was turned in the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest. People believed that the dead were flying on coffins.
The dead were buried with their feet towards the exit, and if you looked into the domino, you could only see their feet - hence the expression "Baba Yaga bone leg." People treated their dead ancestors with reverence and fear, never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble on themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead man, and children were often scared by her.

Another option:

It is possible that the mysterious hut on chicken legs is nothing more than a "storage" or "chamya" widely known in the North - a type of outbuilding on high smooth pillars, designed to store gear and supplies. Sheds are always placed “back to the forest, to the traveler in front”, so that the entrance to it is from the side of the river or forest path.

Small hunting sheds are sometimes made on two or three highly sawn stumps - why not chicken legs? Even more similar to a fairy tale hut are small, without windows and without doors, cult barns in ritual places - “urah”. They usually contained yttarm dolls in fur national clothes. The doll occupied almost the entire barn - maybe that's why the hut in fairy tales is always small for Baba Yaga?

According to other sources, Baba Yaga among some Slavic tribes (among the Rus in particular) is a priestess who led the rite of cremation of the dead. She slaughtered sacrificial cattle and concubines, who were then thrown into the fire.

And another version:

“Initially, Baba Yaga was called Baba Yoga (remember “Baba Yozhka”) - so Baba Yaga is actually a master of yoga.”

“In India, yogis and wandering sadhus are respectfully called baba (Hindi बाबा - “father”). Many yoga rituals are performed by the fire and are obscure to foreigners, which could well provide food for fantasies and fairy tale plots, where a baba yogi could transform into Baba Yaga. It is customary for Indian Naga tribes to sit by the fire, do yagya (sacrifices to fire), smear the body with ashes, walk naked (naked), with a staff (“bone leg”), long tangled hair, wear rings in their ears, repeat mantras (“spells”). ”) and practice yoga. Nagas in Indian mythology are snakes with one or more heads (the prototype of the Serpent Gorynych). In this and other Indian sects, mysterious and frightening rituals with skulls, bones were performed, sacrifices were made, etc.”

Solovyov also has in the History of the Russian State about Baba Yaga - a version - that there was such a people of Yaga - who disappeared into the Russians. Cannibals in the forests, a little, etc. Prince Jagiello is known, for example. So fairy tales - fairy tales - ethnic groups - ethnic groups.

But another version says that Baba Yaga is a Mongol-Tatar Golden Horde tax collector from conquered (well, ok, ok, allied) lands. The face is terrible, the eyes are slanted. Clothing resembles women's and you can't tell if it's a man or a woman. And those close to him call him either Babai (that is, Grandfather and generally the eldest), or Aga (such a rank) ... Here it is Babai-Aga, that is, Baba Yaga. Well, everyone doesn't like him - why do you love a tax collector?

Here is another version that is not trustworthy, but stubbornly walking on the Internet:

It turns out that the Baba Yaga from Russian fairy tales did not live at all in Russia, but in Central Africa. She was the queen of the Yagga cannibal tribe. Therefore, they began to call her Queen Yagga. Later, already in our homeland, she turned into a cannibal Baba Yaga. This transformation happened like this. In the 17th century, Capuchin missionaries came to Central Africa along with the Portuguese troops. The Portuguese colony of Angola appeared in the area of the Congo Basin. It was there that there was a small native kingdom, which was ruled by the brave warrior Ngola Mbanka. His beloved younger sister Nzinga lived with him. But my sister also wanted to reign. She poisoned her brother and declared herself queen. As a lucky amulet that gave power, the loving sister carried the bones of her brother with her everywhere in her bag. Hence, apparently, in the Russian fairy tale, the incomprehensible expression “Baba Yaga is a bone leg” appears.

Two Capuchins, brother Antonio de Gaeta and brother Givanni de Montecuggo, wrote a whole book about Queen Jagga, in which they described not only the way she came to power, but also her adoption of Christianity in her old age. This book ended up in Russia, and here, from the story of a black cannibal, a fairy tale about the Russian Baba Yaga turned out.

This "version" has no source. Walks on the Internet with reference to the fiction book of a certain G. Klimov (Russian-American writer

We were all brought up on fairy tales, and one of the most frequent and mysterious heroes was Baba Yaga. Who is she really, an evil sorceress who tried to fry Ivanushka in a Russian oven, a kidnapper of small children, or is she still a kind character who helps fight against evil forces. After all, she more than once helped the main characters in the fight against Koshchei the Immortal, pointed out the right path and gave wise advice on how to get rid of all sorts of evil spirits. This well-known fairy-tale character, in the form of a disfigured old woman, had animals and birds in his house, respectfully treated them and even consulted with them on what to do in a given situation. Agree that Baba Yaga is a very controversial person, what do we really know about her and her personal life?

Let's try to figure out who Baba Yaga is. In fact, there is no exact and unambiguous opinion. According to some sources, she is considered the patroness of forests and animals, a kind ancient Greek goddess who guards the underground entrance to Far Far Away (the underworld).

But there is another version that the word "yaga" originated from the word "yogi", and Baba Yaga herself comes from India. It is not for nothing that she has a hermitic lifestyle and lives in the forest, away from people and settlements. This way of life is inherent in Indian hermit yogis. Her means of transportation - a stupa, resembles Indian buildings - stupas, which are places of worship that have hemispherical outlines.

According to other sources, she received such a name, as she was a very quarrelsome, angry and quarrelsome woman, in Russia such people were often called Yagishna.

Some researchers claim that Baba Yaga emigrated to us from the northern part of the planet. The inhabitants of the North used to build their dwellings on poles, this was necessary so that wild animals could not enter the dwellings of reindeer herders, in addition, at a height, the snow did not completely cover the house, and it was possible to get out of the snow blockage. These buildings in their form resemble the dwelling of Baba Yaga - a hut on chicken legs. There is also an assumption that she received such a name, as she lived in an area where moss grows - reindeer moss, it was once called "yag".

Everyone saw that Baba Yaga wore a sleeveless fur coat, and it is likely that her name came from a simple phrase - a woman in a yaga (sleeveless fur coat).

In addition, there is a belief that Baba Yaga had Asian roots and, accordingly, bore an Asian name. The proof of this is her expression: "Fu-fu, it smells like a Russian spirit." The fact is that each race has its own body odor, and most often people can smell from a distance that belongs to a person from another race.

There is another incredible version, but it also has a place to be. Baba Yaga is a creature that came to our world from the world of the dead, that is, a dead woman. In ancient times, the dead were buried in houses that stood on stumps at a certain height, the roots of which peeped out of the ground, and resembled chicken legs. The door to the room was located in the opposite direction from the area where the villages were located, that is, in front of the forest, and back to the settlements. People believed that at night the dead could fly in their coffins, so they were laid with their feet towards the exit. Anyone who went into what kind of domina could see the legs of a dead person. It is from this that the expression "Baba Yaga bone leg" came from. The dead were treated with great respect and were not disturbed in vain. Although if troubles arose, then people believed that the deceased could help them in difficult situations and turned to them for help.

Well, the final version, Baba Yaga arrived on our Earth from outer space and is an alien. Her stupa is a kind of spaceship. Rather, even a device that makes up one of the steps of a huge spacecraft is necessary for mobile movement in space over short distances.

The above options for the origin of the sorceress cannot be refuted or confirmed - everyone chooses the option that is close to him. But, I think, regardless of its origin, we will love Baba Yaga, as the image that has been familiar to us since childhood, showed us a mysterious, original personality, with a bright and independent character.

Ziterov Yu.A. 1 Nagikh P.O. 2

2 Municipal educational institution secondary school No. 3

Ziterova N.P. one Mukhina T.I. 1

1 Municipal educational institution secondary school No. 3

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Introduction

Relevance

Fairy tales are a wonderful work of art. Our memory is inseparable from them. In almost all fairy tales, one of the heroes is Baba Yaga. What is it about this dashing creature that frightens, and at the same time attracts, attracts to fairy tales? We have always been interested in the question: who is Baba, where did she appear in Russian folk tales and what does her name mean?

Baba Yaga is one of the most famous and mysterious creatures on earth. Most people think of her as an ordinary evil witch.

Having visited the village of Kukoboy, Pervomaisky district, we learned that some people call Baba Yaga the ancient Slavic coastline, the goddess, the mistress of the forest and animals. Did Baba Yaga really live?

Project basis: Educational standards.

Target: Find out who Baba Yaga is - a fictitious image, or the name of an evil old woman who actually existed.

Tasks: To study the origin of the name, attributes. Find out if Baba Yaga is always a negative character. To study the trace that Baba - Yaga left in literature, in the life of modern man. To find out

do surnames and names meet settlements Tutaevsky district of the Yaroslavl region with names from the word "Yaga".

Object of study: Russian folk tales.

Subject of study: the image of Baba Yaga, her magical attributes (hut on chicken legs, stupa).

Defined research methods:

search for information;

questioning; analysis; observation; classification; generalization.

Practical significance of the study: this material can be used in literary reading lessons, during class hours and quizzes.

628 students were surveyed.

Survey Questions 1-9 grades:

Who is Baba Yaga?

What does Baba Yaga look like?

Good or evil?

What does she do with those who get to her?

How old is she?

Survey results

1. Who is Baba Yaga?

98% of students consider Baba Yaga a witch, a character in Russian folk tales. 2% of respondents found it difficult to answer

2. What does Baba Yaga look like?

Describing the appearance of Baba Yaga, schoolchildren indicate that this is an ugly old woman with long tufts of unkempt hair and a hooked nose. These features were indicated by 98% of the respondents, 2% found it difficult to answer.

3. Good or evil?

Of the respondents, 80% of the students consider Baba Yaga evil, 14% - both evil and good, 6% - good.

4. What does she do with those who got to her?

94% of the students answer that Baba Yaga feeds, gives water, asks where the path leads, soars in the bath, wants to eat, roasts in the oven; 6% believe that she helps those who come to her.

5. How old is she?

The age is indicated different: from 36 to 1000 years. Age from 36 to 55 years was named by 3% of the respondents; from 55 to 100 years 9% of respondents, from 100 to 300 -28% of respondents, more than 300 -60% of respondents.

conclusions : Most students (98%) are familiar with the image of Baba Yaga from Russian folk tales, have an idea of how she looks, what she does with those who got to her. Not everyone considers her evil (6% consider her good, 14% both evil and good). Most of the students surveyed (60%) believe that Baba Yaga is over 300 years old.

The age, presumably, of Baba Yaga is from 30 to 40 years old, because in the 16th century, the average life expectancy was 30 years, and at 40 a person looked like a decrepit old man. Now Baba Yaga would be about 460 years old.

First mention about Baba Yaga dates back to 1588, that is, if we count until 2018, then they have known about her for 430 years.

The results of the study of the names of settlements

The results of a study of the names of residents of the city of Tutaev (7832)

In preschool institutions of the city and the region, the name Yagilev was found from the word "Yaga". (Verified 3339 names)

In the schools of the city and the district, the name Yagilev was found from the word "Yaga".

(Verified 3485 names)

Results of research of surnames according to telephone directories.

In the city and district, the name Yagilev was found from the word "Yaga". (1008 names checked)

Conducted research on the names of settlements, research on the names of residents of the city of Tutaev

In the Yaroslavl region, there are no settlements with names from the word "Yaga".

In the city and district, the name Yagilev was found from the word "Yaga". (Verified 7832 names)

conclusions : Words similar in sound to the word "Yaga" are found in our time, for example, in the name of Yagilev (yagel - reindeer moss, it was once called "yag". There is a version that Baba Yaga received such a name, since she lived in the area where the reindeer moss grows.)

Main part

Who is Baba Yaga? The meaning of the name Baba Yaga

According to one version of Baba Yaga - this is a guide to the other world - the world of ancestors. She lives somewhere on the border of the worlds of the living and the dead, somewhere in the "far away kingdom".

Name "Baba Yaga" from the dictionary of V. Dahl: the first word "woman" comes from the word "babayka", which is used to scare children; the second word "yaga" means a forest woman with an impudent, grouchy character; in some Slavic languages, the word "yagaya" means a person with a sore leg: Yaga - a bone leg.

According to Max Fasmer, Yaga has correspondences in many Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bwith the meanings of “illness, annoyance, wither, get angry, annoy, mourn”, etc., from which the original meaning of the name Baba Yaga is quite clear.

According to another version, the prototype of Baba Yaga - witches, sorceresses who treated people. Often these were unsociable women who lived far from the settlements, in the forest.

For some information, She got her name from the old word "yaga". V. I. Dal in the "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" interprets this word in this way: "shout, make noise, rage, scold, quarrel, swear." You can also find there: “Yaga is a kind of witch, an evil spirit, under the guise of an ugly old woman. Russian ethnographer N. Abramov in the middle of the 19th published “Essays on the Birch Territory”, where he suggested that the word “yaga” comes from the name of outerwear (“yaga” or “yagushka”), which was always worn with the wool out. Such clothes in the mythology of the ancient Slavs were an obligatory attribute of "evil spirits".

According to another hypothesis , in the language of the Komi peoples, "yag" is a pine forest, and the Khanty word "yakhem" is consonant with it - boron. And Baba Yaga in this interpretation is a forest woman. It can be assumed that Yaga lived in a pine forest. Fairy tales also testify to this. She lives in a dense forest or in a swamp.

Also have assumption, that she received such a name, as she lived in an area where reindeer moss grows, once it was called "yag".

There are other versions, according to which Baba Yaga came to Russian fairy tales from India ("Baba Yaga" - "yoga mentor"), this is also confirmed by the famous researcher of Russian folklore A. Podyapolsky.

There are versions according to which Baba Yaga came to Russian fairy tales from Central Africa (stories of Russian sailors about an African tribe of cannibals - yaggas, led by a female queen). The sailors were horrified by the orders laid down there for centuries.

There is a version, that Baba Yaga (Yoga) is the Goddess who conveys (accompanies) the dead from this World to that Light.

Supporters see another version in Baba Yaga, the Great Mother - the great powerful goddess, the foremother of all living things ("Baba" is the mother, the main woman in ancient Slavic culture). Yoginya “Baba Yoga - the golden leg”, that is, in golden boots, delivered orphans to her foothill Skete, which was located in the very thicket of the forest, at the foot of the Iriysky mountains (Altai) and then the children were dedicated to the Gods. She did all this in order to save these last representatives from the most ancient Slavic and Aryan Clans from inevitable death. Children were dressed in pure white robes, decorated with flowers, given them sleep-herbs to drink, and laid in a cave niche. There were two niches. Children were placed in the back niche. Then, brushwood was placed in the first niche and the back niche was pushed inside the cave. But no one saw that when she moved, a stone wall descended, which blocked the brushwood from the children. Then the priest or the Yogin Mother herself set fire to the brushwood, and for all the laity and those present, the brushwood burned. It was believed that the children were burned, roasted in the oven, and then some speculated and said that the children had been eaten. In fact, these children were taken to rooms or cells in the rock and raised from them priests and priestesses. When the time came, these orphans, boys and girls, were united in a family union so that they could continue their Family. But after 10 or 20 years in a young priest or priestess, no one could recognize that little ragged child as an orphan. And the expression "to dedicate to the Gods" meant to serve the Gods of one's Family, one's people.

Well, the final version, Baba Yaga arrived on our Earth from outer space and is an alien. Her stupa is a kind of spaceship, a device that is one of the steps of a huge spaceship necessary for mobile movement in space over short distances.

2.2 Hut on chicken legs“

And the famous hut on chicken legs is, as it were, a gateway to this world; therefore it is impossible to enter it until it turns its back to the forest . A crossroads or a fork in the road was once called a "chicken leg", and such a place among the Slavs was considered "unclean" and dangerous. But, most likely, "chicken" is a modified "chicken" over time, that is, fumigated with smoke. The ancient Slavs had such a custom of burying the dead: on the pillars fumigated with smoke they put a "hut of death" a small log house with the ashes of the deceased inside, a domina (a funerary structure in the form of a human dwelling). There is an assumption that the hut on chicken legs indicates another custom of the ancients - to bury the dead in dominas - special houses placed on high stumps. In such stumps, the roots come out and are really somewhat similar to chicken legs. The dead were buried with their feet towards the exit, and if you looked into the domino, you could see only their feet - probably from here the expression "Baba Yaga bone leg" came from. .

2.3 Rituals

2.4 Attributes of Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga rides or flies through the air in iron, stone, fiery, etc. mortar, drives with a pestle or stick, sweeps the trail with a broom (therefore, the broom in the pictures is always turned with the handle forward, the broom back). Since the 12th century, they began to bury the dead in dugout oak logs - stupas (hence the expression "give oak" or "give oak ahead of time", that is, to die, has come down to our days). In 1703, Peter I issued a decree prohibiting, under pain of death, cutting oak forests. .

2.5 Magic helpers

The magical assistants of Baba Yaga are geese-swans in the fairy tale of the same name “three pairs of hands” and three horsemen - white, red and black (respectively, day, dawn and night).

2.6 Characteristic phrases

Fu-fu, it smells like a Russian spirit.

2.7 "Motherland" and Baba Yaga's birthday

In 2004, the village of Kukoboy, Pervomaisky district, Yaroslavl region, was declared the "homeland" of Baba Yaga, and the museum of Baba Yaga was also created there.

2.8 What Baba Yaga looks like.

Baba Yaga - shaggy (and braids in those days were untwisted only to dead women), blind-sighted, with a bone leg, a hooked nose ("nose has grown into the ceiling") - a real evil spirits, a living dead.

2.9 Overbaking the Child

There is an assumption that the prototype of Baba Yaga is witches, healers who treated people. The passion of Baba Yaga to fry children in the oven on a shovel is very reminiscent of the so-called rite of "baking", or "baking", babies with rickets or atrophy, sometimes with a hernia: the child was wrapped in a "diaper" of dough, placed on a wooden bread shovel and three times put into a hot oven. Then the child was unwrapped, and the dough was given to be eaten by dogs. .

In the Vladimir province, all children were "baked" immediately after childbirth. In Russia, the rite was known mainly in the Volga region, the central and southern Russian provinces, as well as in Siberia. Older children were treated in a similar way if they fell ill: they were put on a shovel and carefully brought to a burning stove. In this case, it was believed that the diseases were burned and, together with the smoke, went out through the chimney, and the “re-baked” child became healthier. And it really helped a lot! The village healer performed this ritual. Only in fairy tales this rite changed sign from "plus" (treatment of the child) to "minus" (the child is fried to eat). It is assumed that this happened already in those times when Christianity began to take hold in Russia, and when everything pagan was actively eradicated. But to the end, Christianity still could not defeat Baba Yaga - the heiress of folk healers: there is no evidence in any fairy tale that she ever managed to fry someone.

2.10 Types of Baba Yaga

According to the largest specialist in the field of theory and history of folklore, V. Ya. .; the most common is the “Kidnapping Yaga”, which carries away people and especially children, whom she then tries to fry and eat; The third type is the "Warrior Yaga", who fights with the heroes and defeats many of them.

There are also different forms (formats) of Baba Yaga:

"Yaga-adviser". She herself does nothing for the hero, but indicates who to turn to for help.

"Yaga-mistress" of the forces of nature and wildlife (rules the wind, morning, evening, night; wolves, bears and other forest animals).

"Yaga-protector" (patron), following with the help of her magical assistants (owls, saucers, etc.) the adventures of the hero.

“Yaga-progenitress” (mother, grandmother for several of her daughters, granddaughters, Yagishn). There is another “type” of Yaga “Yaga is a seductress”.

2.11 Baba Yaga: positive or negative character?

10 fairy tales were analyzed. We came to the conclusion that Baba Yaga can be both a negative and a positive hero.

"Swan geese" -

Negative, as he kidnaps children to eat.

"Princess Frog"-

Positive, as it gives advice on how to defeat the enemy (Koshchei)

"Baba Yaga"

Negative, because I wanted to eat the girl.

"Baba Yaga and Zamoryshek" -

Negative, because she wanted to destroy all the brothers.

"Vasilisa the Beautiful" -

Positive, as she helped Vasilisa by giving her fire (a skull with burning eyes).

"Maria Morevna" -

Negative, because she wanted to kill Ivan Tsarevich.

"Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin" -

Negative, because she fought with heroes.

"The Enchanted Princess"

Positive, as she helped find the princess.

"Finist - a clear falcon" -

Positive, since all three helped find Maryushka.

"The Tale of Rejuvenating Apples and Living Water"

Positive, as she gave advice on how to find water and apples.

The image of Baba Yaga is used in literature, music, painting, cinema, cartoons. There are games, poems, riddles about Baba Yaga (see the author's book "Who is Baba Yaga?", Appendix).

Conclusions: the image of Baba Yaga is a collective image, and not the name of a specific person.

A fairy tale is a product of its era, it changes in time, folk thought makes its own corrections. In fairy tales, several images of Baba Yaga are described, both negative and positive.

Conclusion

During the study, we found answers to many questions, read Russian folk tales, learned the meaning of incomprehensible words, conducted a survey among students on the topic of the study. One must always be attentive to the reading of any work of art, since only thoughtful reading will make it possible to make some new discoveries. Baba Yaga is always different. She has many roles, many types. She is not only evil, but also kind, economic, hospitable. Fairy tales tell us that kindness, intelligence, politeness and courage help not only to reach the goal, but also to stay alive, to remain human. After going through all the stages of the study, we came to the conclusion that the origin of Baba Yaga is associated with the image of the mistress of animals and the world of the dead, the keeper of customs and traditions. Baba Yaga can act both as a pest and as a donor, a magical helper. Attributes such as a hut on chicken legs, a stupa, a shovel, with which she throws children into the oven, are consistent with pagan pre-Christian beliefs, ideas and rituals. Baba Yaga is one of the most significant coastlines of the family. Over time, Baba Yaga from the shoreline of the family turned into a malicious old woman. Baba Yaga is not just a fairy-tale character, it is an image in which the history, beliefs and rituals of the East Slavic tribes are embodied. Baba Yaga testifies to the great importance of women in the period of matriarchy and in subsequent periods of the development of society. Baba Yaga remains an eternal mystery to man.

This work has a great educational and practical focus: a collection of materials has been prepared with information about Baba Yaga, a selection of poems, drawings. Research will be of interest to both students and teachers and will be useful in conducting lessons and extracurricular activities.

List of used sources and literature

Folk Russian fairy tales by A.N. Afanasiev - M .: Children's literature., - 1992. - 245 p.

Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language. V. Dal - M .: World of Books, 2002.

Favorite fairy tales. Collection of Russian folk tales / Compiled by I.I. Komarov. - M.: RIPOL CLASSIC, 2002. - 512 p.

Grandma's tales. Collection of Russian folk tales / Compiled by I.I. Komarov. - M.: RIPOL CLASSIC, 2002. - 608 p.

Propp V.Ya. The historical roots of fairy tales. - M., 1985. - 248 p.

http://pedsovet.su/load/387-1-0-45817

http://ww.paganism.ru/babayagahtm

http://infourok.ru/issledovatelskaya_rabota_obraz_baby-yagi-142126.htm

Attachment 1Apps 2

Vasin Stas, 8 years old

Shvets Artyom, 13 years old

Palazhov Egor, 8 years old

Ryabkov Alexander, 13 years old

Starostina Natalia, 13 years old

Evgenyeva Ekaterina, 13 years old

Suvorova Lera, 9 years old

Ameryan M., 13 years old

Ishutin Andrey, 13 years old

Nazarov Vasily, 10 years old

Kalinycheva Daria, 13 years old

Pirogova Alina, 13 years old

Anufriev Anton, 8 years old

Rotermel Julia, 13 years old

Larionova Anna, 13 years old

Smirnova Polina, 11 years old

Serafimenko Alina, 8 years old

Kopatova Alina, 13 years old

Suloeva Ekaterina, 9 years old

Sorokina Anna, 13 years old

Lapshin Sergey, 9 years old

Baba Yaga

Once upon a time Baba Yaga

On the edge of the forest.

She lived all alone

In his simple hut.

And everyone thinks she's evil

Children are scared at night...

And how does she live alone

Nobody really knows...

And I decided to find out

Is it really evil?

I'll tell everyone, I won't lie!

I know everything about her!

I'm going on my way

Its forests are dense.

Passed the wide fields

Wheat, golden.

Wandered into a dense dark forest.

I became very scared. The pines are big - to the skies ...

And it's closer to night!

And strange sounds around -

Now crackling, then howling, then knocking.

There is only fear in my eyes,

But I pulled myself together!

And he ran with all his might

Where did the eyes look?

I even forgot about Baba Yaga.

And suddenly, I look at the spruce

It costs one hut

Annex 3

A light flickers in her,

And in it sits an old woman

And sings a song.

Grandma has no strength at all

All hunched over, gray-haired.

I went up to her and asked

Who is she?

And she told me -

Her name is Yagoya!

Lives in the forest all alone -

Alone with your misfortune.

Grandma's leg hurts

She became completely lame.

No one will visit her -

Nicknamed Bone Leg!

Grandchildren forgot about her

And made up stories

That evil, harmful lives,

What is dangerous for children!

I feel sorry for my grandmother.

We drank tea with her!

And delicious pancakes

They were for food!

No scary Baba Yaga!

All this is just a fairy tale!

Forgotten are grandchildren,

Without their love and affection!

Don't hurt grandmothers!

Visit them often!

Love your grandmothers!

Don't forget about them!

Appendix 4

Sayings of children about Baba Yaga

3-4 classes

An evil, ugly hag, a witch, a black magician, an anti-hero, a woman who looks indecent, is responsible for kidnapping children from the village, does not love anyone, even animals, Koshchei's grandmother, lives in a hut with legs; the hut has paws.

Angry, because there is nothing to eat, she forced people to climb into the stove, and then ate them; angry, because they did not love in childhood. Kind - planted in the oven to cure. He warms everyone by the stove, but it happens that he wants to eat someone.

A cunning and nimble woman in old age; an old, crooked face, one tooth sticking out of her mouth, a clumsy elongated nose, red eyes. Bony body, dark, wrinkled skin, Creaky back, hands like a squirrel, long yellow nails, legs crunch like branches. In torn form.

5-6 classes.

An old woman with a house on chicken legs; grandmother who conjures; an insidious witch who harms everyone; loves himself alone, spoils everyone's life; who catches the eye, put in a cage. She took children and adults into slavery, forced them to work for her for food; lures people into his hut and does something with them, and then eats. Flies on a bucket or a broom.

Slightly kind; kind, when something is given to her, evil when there is a hunt. Angry because you don't have enough friends. She is evil because everyone is afraid of her, and if they are afraid of her, then she is evil. In fairy tales, evil, but maybe in our life the opposite is true.

An old grandmother of unenviable appearance; evil green eyes, crazy look; large bright red lips; with a bunch of warts; she has pimples, her skin is rough; hairstyle like some kind of nest; hair on end; gray hair, something like a mop; hair tied in a bun; scarred, wrinkled face; a scarf on the head, galoshes below; back as a question mark.

Appears in many Russian fairy tales, drives into captivity. If you offend - it will be evil, if you praise - it will be good; and children wanted to eat, but also a good character; angry at people who think badly of her. Thin build, flabby skin, flies in a basket with a broom, lives in a hut that can walk.

An old woman with a club, looks like a homeless person, is constantly dissatisfied with something.

Aphorisms Annex 5

(Vik Stepanov)

For some, Baba Yaga is also a Muse. * Baba Yaga's stupa serves as the first step to mastery. * Baba Yaga's memoirs are stored in Kashcheev's chest. * Baba Yaga's hut wrote like a chicken - with her paw. kissed by Baba Yaga, a skull. *Two boots of a pair - the bone prosthesis of Baba Yaga and Koschey, himself like a prosthesis. *Baba Yaga wrote as her left bone leg suggested. *Baba Yaga was a notorious graphomaniac, tapping tap and tap dance from morning to night bone leg.

Image in art Appendix 6

Russian writers and poets A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky (“The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf”), N. A. Nekrasov (“Baba Yaga, bone leg”), A. N. Tolstoy, V. I. Narbut and others.

Fairy tales

Baba Yaga;

Swan geese;

Princess Frog;

Vasilisa the Beautiful;

Marya Morevna;

Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin;

A hut on chicken legs;

Finista's feather is clear of a falcon;

Go there - I don't know where, bring something - I don't know what (arranged by A. N. Afanasyev);

Go there - I don't know where, bring something - I don't know what (arranged by A. N. Tolstoy);

Vasily Shukshin: Up to the third roosters;

Leonid Filatov: About Fedot the Archer, a dashing fellow;

A. S. Roslavlev: The Tale of the Three Royal Divas and Ivashka, the Priest's Son;

The Tale of Masha and Vanya;

Baba Yaga and Zamoryshek

Enchanted princess

Tale of rejuvenating apples and living water

Music

In the collection of musical pieces for piano by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky "Children's Album" of 1878 there is a play "Baba Yaga". The image of Baba Yaga is dedicated to the ninth play "The Hut on Chicken Legs (Baba Yaga)" by Modest Mussorgsky's famous suite

Painting

Picturesque interpretations of her image became widespread among the artists of the Silver Age: Ivan Bilibin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Alexander Benois, Elena Polenova, Ivan Malyutin and others.

Films

More often than others, Georgy Millyar played the role of Baba Yaga, including in films:

"Vasilisa the Beautiful" (1939)

"Frost" (1964) "Fire, water and ... copper pipes" (1967)

"Golden Horns" (1972)

"Fire, water and ... copper pipes" (1967) - Vera Altaiskaya (daughter of Baba Yaga)

"Merry Magic" (1969) - Valentina Sperantova

"At the thirteenth hour of the night" (1969) - Zinovy Gerdt

"New Year's adventures of Masha and Vitya" (1975) - Valentina Kosobutskaya

“How Ivan the Fool went for a miracle” (1977) - Maria Barabanova

"There, on unknown paths ..." (1982) and "After the rain on Thursday" (1985) - Tatiana Peltzer (good Baba Yaga)

"Purple Ball" (1987) - Svetlana Kharitonova

"The Island of the Rusty General" (1988) - Alexander Lenkov (robot Baba Yaga)

Father Frost (1996) - Donald O'Connor

"The Tale of Fedot the Archer" (2001) - Olga Volkova

"Miracles in Reshetov" (2004) - Yola Sanko

"Forest Princess" (2004) - Galina Moracheva

"A New Old Tale" (2006) - Elena Sanaeva

"The Book of Masters" (2009) - Liya Akhedzhakova

"Adventures in the Thirtieth Kingdom" (2010) - Anna Yakunina

Frost (2010) - Kristina Orbakaite

"Real Tale" (2011) - Lyudmila Polyakova

The Good Fairy (Spanish: Hada Madrina) (TV series 2015) - Macarena Rivero

cartoons

"Ivashko and Baba Yaga" (1938, voiced by Osip Abdulov)

Geese Swans (1949)

The Frog Princess (1954, voiced by Georgy Millyar)

"The End of the Black Swamp" (1960, voiced by Irina Mazing)

"About the evil stepmother" (1966, voiced by Elena Ponsova)

"The Fairy Tale Takes Over" (1970, voiced by Clara Rumyanova)

The Frog Princess (1971) (dir. Yu. Eliseev, voiced by Zinaida Naryshkina)

"Vasilisa the Beautiful" (1977, voiced by Anastasia Georgievskaya)

Zhiharka (1977, voiced by Vasily Livanov)

"Flying Ship" (1979, women's group of the Moscow Chamber Choir)

"Baba Yaga against!" (1980, voiced by Olga Aroseva)

"Ivashka from the Palace of Pioneers" (1981, voiced by Yefim Katsirov)

“And in this fairy tale it was like this ...” (1984)

Brownie Kuzya (1985-1987, voiced by Tatyana Peltzer)

"Wait for it!" (16th edition) (1986)

"Dear Goblin" (1988, voiced by Viktor Proskurin)

"Two heroes" (1989, voiced by Maria Vinogradova)

"Dreamers from the village of Ugory" (1994, voiced by Kira Smirnova)

"Grandma Yozhka and others" (2006, voiced by Tatyana Bondarenko)

"The New Adventures of Grandma Yozhka" (2008, voiced by Tatyana Bondarenko)

“Dobrynya Nikitich and the Serpent Gorynych” (2006; Russia) directed by Ilya Maksimov, Baba Yaga was voiced by Natalya Danilova.

“About Fedot the Archer, a daring young man” (2008; Russia) directed by Lyudmila Steblyanko, Baba Yaga was voiced by Alexander Revva.

"Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf" (2011; Russia) directed by Vladimir Toropchin, Baba Yaga was voiced by Liya Akhedzhakova.

Poems

Grandma Yaga's birthday

Cracked cup, And lingonberry tea. And my heart is heavy - There is no one to meet. Baked pies with jam In the morning pies. Here is the birthday of Grandmother Yaga ... Guests will not arrive Say hello, Wish you good health, Many long years. Old hut, And around the taiga. And the old woman Babushka Yaga is sad ... It just so happened, It just so happened - Somehow it didn’t work out, Somehow it didn’t grow together. She wiped her tears with her shirt by chance ... Cracked cup And cooled tea ...

T. GoetheU Baba Yaga Hut limped - Like Baba Yaga, she is also an old woman. Her knee hurts very badly in the morning, Of course, damned arthritis! Granny Hut begins to treat: She pours hot water into a tub, And, splashing a little potion there, Poparka - she offers her - foot! What kind of potion is this - a huge secret! Grandmother keeps it for a thousand years! It contains a hundred fly agarics and birch buds, Two snake skins, cuckoo tears, Another cobweb from the surrounding bushes ... But I'm not ready to say the exact recipe.

*** Christmas trees-pines,

Prickly needles.

Without a broom, I'm like without hands,

Without my broomstick!

I can't fly without a broom

There is nothing to cover the traces.

Woe, woe at Yaga,

Help if you can.

Look at me,

Well, why am I not beautiful?

My girlish beauty

Can't help but like it!

Here I will walk in front of you,

Here I will dance, here I will sing.

Well, what a cutie I am

How I love myself!

About Baba Yaga They say very stupidly: A bone leg, A whisk and a mortar. And the arms are crooked, And the teeth are upright, And the nose is very long, And it is bent with a hook.

I will quickly destroy the existing image: Please look into my pure soul. And there you will discover such distances, Which you have never seen anywhere.

In my heart I am kind, Good, fair ... Not so very much, But still beautiful.

But if inside I am kind and beautiful, Then from above, outside, Cunning and dangerous. In my life I will overcome any of you, Or even kill ... But in my heart I will regret

(Eduard Uspensky)

V. Kosov Baba Yaga There is a hut on the edge, An old woman has been living there for many, many years, And she has no friends. So the hut is spinning As the old woman wishes. What stood at the trough. That trough has been for many years And there is no replacement for it. She cooks dinner in it, If she really needs it.

E. Lipatova. Song of Baba Yaga The path is overgrown with weeds, In the quinoa garden, There is no way for uninvited guests Neither here nor there! There are thistles in the yard, In the underground of boogers, Cat Vasily catches fleas All day on the bench. It's bad to live alone in the wilderness - Sing, Vasily, for the soul! An old woman - No girlfriends, no movies ... Chicken legs from the hut We ate with Vaska for a long time. It hurts here and it hurts there, They say - sciatica, The dream is gone, and the light is not nice ... If only Leshy would call!

K. Strelnik Lonely Grandma Yozhka . Next to her are an owl and cats, And even chicken legs don’t make her happy. Everyone is afraid of meeting her, They don’t want to sit in the oven. Granny thought about it, How to attract guests? tea with cake. And then chicken legs would dance along the path, And the owl and cats would sing along to the guests.

sorkin In a deep forest there is a hut On chicken legs at the edge. It stands two steps from the forest. Grandmother Yaga lives there.

*** Baba Yaga has been in bed for a whole month. Ill, her illnesses have overcome her. - Oh, I'm a poor thing! - Yaga sighs, - My bone leg whines.

Here's jelly from the mold! Have you tried tea until now? Drink it - and you will immediately forget About the mundane carousel! It doesn't taste so good, But it removes the shivers, You'll be healthy by tomorrow, If only you don't die! (L. Filatov "About Fedot - archer, daring young man")

Annex 7

Games

There is a hut in the dark forest, (we walk) It stands backwards, (turn) There is an old woman in that hut, (tilts) Grandmother Yaga lives. (turn back) Crochet nose, (show nose) Big eyes, (show eyes) Like embers are burning. Wow, what an angry! (we threaten with a finger) Hair stands on end, (hands up)

One of the guys playing is Baba Yaga, he stands in the corner of the room. The guys come up to him and tease:

Baba Yaga - Bone leg, Fell off the stove, Broke her leg. Went to the garden, Scared the people. Ran to the bathhouse, Scared the bunny!

Grandmother Ezhka-Bone leg, Fell off the stove, Broke her leg. Went outside, Crushed the chicken. Went again - Crushed forty-five!

Baba Yaga starts jumping on one leg, trying to catch one of the dodging and running children. Whoever Baba Yaga catches changes roles and the game continues.

Puzzles

An old woman lives in the forest. She has a miracle hut. She flies on a broomstick. She steals children at dawn. And she has a bone leg, Her name is ...

This old woman does not like children. They often scare her kids. Grandmother has a bone leg, The old woman's name is ... .

An old woman stands, Behind her is a hut. Holds a broomstick. Flies until dawn.

There is a hut, in the hut - an old woman. The muzzle is sinewy, the leg is clay, The back is humpbacked, the head is shaggy. Ivanushka is standing next to her, What is the name of this grandmother?

A hut is lost in a dense forest. A difficult old woman lives in a hut - Takes a broomstick, but sits in a mortar, And immediately flies over the forest like a bird!

In a deep forest in her hut, An old woman lives all alone. She does not sweep the floor with a broom, A broom is an old woman's plane!

Menu Annex 8

Baba Yaga Pie

Description: This large and delicious apple pie can be baked both in the oven and in the slow cooker.

Chicken egg - 5 pcs.

Sugar (you can put 1 cup) - 3/4 stack.

Butter (or margarine, room temperature) - 250 g

Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp. l.

Cinnamon (optional) - 1 tsp

Wheat flour - 2 cups

Soda (not baking powder!) - 1 tsp

Apple (it is advisable to take dense apples) - 1 kg

Baba Yaga cocktail

It is immediately clear that it smells of Russian spirit here! A cocktail with the fabulous name "Baba Yaga" will immediately and for a long time plunge you into the very depths of the mythical reality of Russian folk tales.

Salad Baba Yaga

300g. boiled chicken fillet; 150g. raw carrots, grated on a Korean grater; 150g. boiled beets - grated on a Korean grater; 1b. corn, 200g. red cabbage - finely chopped; green onions; 1p. chips; mayonnaise

Appetizer Baba Yaga

Loaf of loaf;

1 boiled potato;

2 boiled eggs;

A bunch of parsley;

150 g of cheese;

2 small carrots;

Sweet red pepper;

Tube for a cocktail;

2 green peas;

10 sorrel leaves;

2 large carrots;

10 breadsticks;

Glossary of terms Annex 9

Baba Yaga is a popular character in Russian folk tales. Usually,

evil old witch.

Yaga - to sting, to hurt, to torment.

“Chicken legs” - this name most likely came from “smoke”, that is, fumigated with smoke, pillars on which the Slavs put a “hut of death”.

Myth - an ancient folk tale about legendary heroes, gods, natural phenomena; false story, fabrication.

Mythology - a set of myths of some people; the science that studies myths.

A pestle is a short heavy rod with a rounded end for crushing something in a mortar. (Stone, copper, wooden pestle.)

Pomelo - a stick with a rag wound on the end, a washcloth, needles for sweeping, a broom.

A fairy tale is the oldest folk genre of narrative literature, mostly of a fantastic nature, aimed at moralizing or entertainment.

A stupa is a heavy metal, wooden or stone vessel in which grains, bark, leaves, etc. are crushed with a pestle. Stupa with Baba Yaga (in fairy tales about Baba Yaga, who flies in a mortar and with a broom).

B ABA YAGA - originally - a positive character of ancient Russian mythology, the progenitor of the clan, the keeper of its living space, its customs and traditions, way of life, while looking after the younger generation. One of the most significant coastlines. As Christianity was planted in Russia, Baba Yaga, like other gods of the pagan worldview, increasingly began to be attributed to negative traits and intentions.

Baba Yaga - an old sorceress, endowed with magical powers, a witch, a werewolf. By its properties, it is closest to a witch. Most often - a negative character.

Baba Yaga has several stable attributes: she knows how to conjure, fly in a mortar, lives in the forest, in a hut on chicken legs, surrounded by a fence of human bones with skulls.

She lures good fellows and small children to her and roasts them in the oven. She pursues her victims in a mortar, chasing it with a pestle and sweeping the trail with a broom (broom).

There are three types of Baba Yaga: the giver (she gives the hero a fairy-tale horse or a magical object), the kidnapper of children, the warrior Baba Yaga, fighting with whom “not for life, but for death”, the hero of the fairy tale passes to a different level of maturity.

The image of Baba Yaga is associated with legends about the hero's transition to the other world (Far Far Away). In these legends, Baba Yaga, standing on the border of the worlds (bone leg), serves as a guide that allows the hero to penetrate into the world of the dead, thanks to the performance of certain rituals.

Thanks to the texts of fairy tales, it is possible to reconstruct the ritual, sacred meaning of the actions of the hero who comes to Baba Yaga. In particular, V. Ya. Propp, who studied the image of Baba Yaga on the basis of a mass of ethnographic and mythological material, draws attention to a very important detail. After recognizing the hero by smell (Yaga is blind) and finding out his needs, she always heats the bathhouse and evaporates the hero, thus performing a ritual bath. Then he feeds the visitor, which is also a ritual, “mortuary”, treat, which is not permissible for the living, so that they do not accidentally enter the world of the dead. This food "opens the mouth of the dead." And, although the hero does not seem to have died, he will be forced to temporarily “die for the living” in order to get into the “thirtieth kingdom” (another world). There, in the “thirtieth kingdom” (the afterlife), where the hero is on his way, many dangers always await him, which he has to foresee and overcome.

M. Zabylin writes: “Under this name, the Slavs revered the infernal goddess, depicted as a monster in an iron mortar, having an iron staff. They made a bloody sacrifice to her, thinking that she was feeding her two granddaughters, who were attributed to her, and enjoying the shedding of blood. Under the influence of Christianity, the people forgot their main gods, remembering only minor ones, and especially those myths that have personified phenomena and forces of nature, or symbols of everyday needs. Thus, Baba Yaga turned from an evil hellish goddess into an evil old witch, sometimes a cannibal, who always lives somewhere in the forest, alone, in a hut on chicken legs.<...>In general, there are traces of Baba Yaga only in folk tales, and her myth merges with the myth of witches.

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Many of us met Baba Yaga in the cradle, when Afanasiev's Russian Tales were read to us. The evil, big-nosed old woman in rags is known to us from children's cartoons and movies. In adult life, Baba Yaga has not gone away from us, she just powdered herself, dressed up and put glasses on her nose. Let's figure out why she is in our life, why she has a bone leg and what she wants when she screams and saws us.

1. Baba Yaga

“Near this house there was a dense forest, and in the forest in a clearing there was a hut, and Baba Yaga lived in the hut; she didn’t let anyone near her and ate people like chickens ”

Baba Yaga still lives on the outskirts of the forest in a hut on chicken legs, which is sometimes also “backed up with a pie” and “covered with a pancake”. The house stands surrounded by centuries-old trees near a forest lake, surrounded by a fence made of human bones. In her yard live guides of souls to the afterlife, dogs, and prophetic bird-foretellers, crows. Baba Yaga is always busy with something, constantly cooking something in her alchemical oven. And if it goes out into the world, it appears out of nowhere and does not go anywhere without witchcraft. In one of the fairy tales, her appearance in front of the heroes looks like this: “Suddenly she swirled, became muddied, greenery appeared in her eyes - the earth becomes a navel, a stone comes out of the ground, Baba Yaga comes out of a stone, a bone leg, rides on an iron mortar, an iron pusher urges, the dog chirps behind. Baba Yaga herself makes up a kind of couple of Koshchei the Immortal - they are either an elderly divorced couple, or a brother and sister, or just bosom friends. The name Yaga is related to the Polish jedza and the Czech jezinka - "forest woman": something like the female incarnation of Leshy with the function of controlling snakes. There is an opinion that this woman was the wife of the Serpent from under the Kalinov Bridge, with whom the heroes fought endlessly. And in the Turkic languages there is a consonant with Yaga spirit of the ancestors "babai aga" (translated as "old grandfather"). Baba Yaga is the deity of our chthonic ancestors.

First conclusion. Do not be surprised when an old witch or goblin looks at you from the mirror in the morning: this ancient creature calls you from the depths of the collective unconscious into adventures towards your own integrity.

2. Chthonic creature

Baba Yaga is invariably associated with the forest. The forest, like the ocean, personifies the unconscious of man, the inner lunar kingdom. The forest is boundless in relation to a person, you can get lost in it, you can live in it, or you can die. The Greek goddess of the moon, Diana, lived in the forests, away from the eyes of mortals, where she indulged in unrestrained hunting. One day, a hunter saw Diana and her maiden hunting retinue swimming in a forest lake. This sight is not intended for the eyes of mortals, so Diana, noticing the hunter, set his own dogs on him and they tore him apart. The secret of the forest is hidden from people, and the meeting of a person with the bearer of this secret is usually fraught with death. The same idea is expressed in the first part of "Faust" by Goethe: having called the chthonic spirit of the Earth, the scientist cannot even look in his direction. The embodied nature turns out to be terrible and causes panic in a mere mortal. The trees in the forest do not stop for a minute, they constantly whisper something and communicate with each other - only an ordinary person cannot understand the whisper of the unconscious, so the hero who decides to go into the thick of the dark side will be given magical helpers at the checkpoint of the grandmother's hut. But when she does not help young heroes to wade through another world, Baba Yaga steals and eats children and good fellows.

Second conclusion. When you see an evil fury in front of you, splashing with poisonous saliva, remember: this is her pagan nature speaking. Do not try to shout down the demoniac one: the whole other world is on her side. If you have something to look for in her, be patient, smile and praise her house, outfit and social skills. You will get yours. If just like that, they passed by - run, because otherwise you will die in a senseless fight with a chthon.

3. The dual nature of Baba Yaga

Living on the border with the unconscious (or the afterlife), Yaga herself belongs to two worlds at the same time: one of her legs is ordinary, and the other is bone, dead. Baba Yaga does not always personify evil, in fairy tales she has several faces. Yaga the warrior, Yaga the kidnapper and Yaga the giver are three hypostases in which she, respectively, threatens the hero, takes something from him and gives something to him. You can fall into the clutches of Baba Yaga in two ways: by your own carelessness or just like that. Once upon a time there was a man and did not know dashing. It became interesting to him, what kind of dashing is that everyone is talking about? He went to look for dashing, met the same onlooker and together they got to Baba Yaga. She immediately fried and ate the onlooker, and the hero, as a result, was able to escape, only having lost his finger. Then he walks around and shows his mutilated hand to fellow villagers: here, they say, he took a dashing sip. Fools Baba Yaga teaches what they ask. Nature kills impudent ones who do not know what they want, but are looking for a meeting with her forces. Often Baba Yaga appears in the life of the characters as an evil fate. It seems that the characters are completely innocent of anything: here is a boy catching a fish on the lake, everything is quiet and smooth, and then angry birds fly in, as in the Hitchcock film of the same name, and take him straight to the hut to the old patroness of mysteries, who is going to them tightly have lunch. The boy did not have time to do anything for which he should have been punished, it was just his time to become an adult and undergo initiation.

Third conclusion. Experience shows that you should not look for crazy women: those who come to them with common sense will die from it, and internal chaos will grow so that mermaids will start in it - and you will be fit only for spring plowing and sleeping on the stove nine months a year . Both young and mature Baba Yaga will find you herself: without putting any effort into this hurricane in your life, you can, with a clear conscience, try to carry your innocence through the madness of this situation. If you stay steadfast - get the princess when the villain surrenders.

4. Initiation

The rite of initiation always involves the symbolic death of the old personality of the initiate, followed by rebirth in a new capacity, most often with a new name. In our time, a kind of initiation is the receipt by a teenager of a passport and an identification code: a person acquires a mystical name, in our case, a serial number, and becomes a full member of the tribe. In ancient times, initiations were treated more severely: in order to get a passport-tattoo, a young man had to pass a serious exam - both physical and psychological. Often during this examination, the young man was injured, and in some tribes, in order to achieve the right to be a husband, the young man had to be circumcised. To get something, you must first give.

Baba Yaga is traditionally considered a priestess who initiates youth into adulthood. That is why she threatens children, single young men and unmarried girls: those who have not yet turned into a full-fledged person. The hero, going on a journey to the other world, must allow Baba Yaga to soar himself in a bathhouse not at all for pleasure: the ritual washing of the dead is an indispensable attribute of moving to the next world. And the request to feed is not an idle hunger, but an imitation of a commemoration with ritual dishes: pancakes, peas and kutya. The very image of Yaga and her dwelling - lies in a hut without windows and without doors on the stove, and her nose has grown into the ceiling - resembles a dead man in a coffin.

In ancient times, a special hut was built in the forest, in which the rite of initiation of boys took place. The father took his son to the forest and left him alone so that he would independently find this very hut of initiation. In it, the boy faced severe trials, after which he received the status of an initiate. “The visible symbol of such an initiation is the cutting of the skin of the back from the neck down. Sometimes belts were passed under the skin of the back and chest, by which the boys were hung up. Initiation is always associated with the experience of death, and therefore its indispensable attribute is mortal fear. They explain to a teenager at initiation rites that life is serious, at every opportunity she strives to skin you or burn you in a furnace, so remember this hut in the forest and that Baba Yaga can appear from under a stone any time.

If Yaga does not rip off the skin “on a belt” from the backs of the subjects, then he is engaged in putting the children in a ladle to fry them in the oven. Her figure is related to folk grandmothers-midwives, who could smear a premature baby with dough and put it on a bread shovel into a warm oven, symbolizing the female womb, so that the baby “reached” like a pie.

Fourth conclusion. If you are thirty, and you are still not a pie, it's time to go on an oven adventure. Go to the nature reserve, work as a watchman, forester or caretaker of the reservoir. Let your beard grow, walk at night and study Manly Palmer Hall's encyclopedia of symbols. When something happens, after which you crap yourself with devils, it will be possible to return home: from now on, everyone will obey you without hitting the table with your fist.

5. Hut

The hut is not just hidden in a magical forest - until the hero utters the magic words, it does not appear before him in its true form. Initially, the hut stands with its back to the hero, and in front of the forest, and he must correctly ask her to turn around. Perhaps this is the key to the sexual context of initiation? A wooden house, windows and doorways are traditional symbols of the female womb. To get inside the hut, you need to “know the magic of opening doors”, know a special spell, the magic of gestures (the hero sprinkles the doors of the hut with water), and also appease the animals guarding Yaga’s house. A modern young man, even in the age of information technology, should not neglect the ancient tales of monsters waiting for him on the threshold of sweet love. Male initiation was a symbol of entering the age of puberty - after it, a man could kill and love. The art of killing was taught by men, and the wisdom of love by women. There is an opinion that the “witness”, who was engaged in initiations, just lived alone, far from the villages, like a temple priestess. The hut full of dangers with a stove in which you can burn to the ground is the personification of the fears of the so-called vagina dentata - a toothy womb that needs to be tamed in different tales in different ways, either by force, or by cunning, or by kindness.

The hut, like the mystical land of Shambhala or the White Lodge in David Lynch's Twin Peaks, opens only to the right person at the right time. It is impossible to simply search the forest and find a hut - you have to be a fool, a hero, at worst - a child in order to get an interview with Baba Yaga: all three are united by spontaneity and determination, lack of cowardice and doubt. Or you can end up in this cursed place at the behest of evil fate. In the same Twin Peaks, “a house in the forest where music is always playing” is mentioned, and in the house of Baba Yaga, the hero often hears the playing of the magic harp. In this case, the boy is likened to Odysseus, Baba Yaga and her magical jazz band turn into sirens, and the forest becomes the sea along which the hero returns home.

Fifth conclusion. There are many doors in the world. Not all of them open with keys, and even strength and assertiveness will not always help. With a pure heart and a sharp mind, you will discover everything you need and get to where you need to go.

6. Trial and reward of Yagi

A hero who has fallen to Baba Yaga can defeat her only by appealing to the grandmother's natural instinct. When the evil Yaga comes out to meet the young man and is about to eat him, he is not at a loss and in response he asks him to feed him - they say, what kind of conversation on an empty stomach? “Here I am a fool, I began to ask the hungry and the cold,” - Baba Yaga herself is glad to feed the daring guest. As soon as the hero appeals to matriarchal values and reminds Yaga of her feminine nature, she immediately changes in attitude. The hero was not repelled by Yagi's appearance, her withered leg and old unpleasant face. He did not disdain her otherworldly food - only in a few fairy tales does the hero pretend to eat and throw food on the floor, mostly he is really happy with the treat. After the meal, the satisfied mistress of the hut asks the young man about this and that, additionally checking him on the topic “friend or foe”, and then rewards him with a gift. Basically, the mystical old woman gives the young man a magical horse, a strong stallion. The horse in Slavic culture was both a symbol of fertility and a link between the worlds, therefore it played an important role in the wedding ceremony (which was in many ways similar to the funeral). So the horse foreshadowed a quick marriage to the young man, and in one of the tales, Yaga gives the hero a horse to defeat Koshchei the Immortal. As an option, he may get one of Yaga's daughters as a reward, but history is silent about how the relationship with the bone-footed mother-in-law develops. In any case, the old woman personifies the feminine maternal principle in its pagan form: the power of mother nature, which nourishes and destroys, rewarding only those who have their own power.

Sixth conclusion. When you meet a witch, remember that her toothy, screaming face hides a motherly nature. There is nothing more cunning and easier than to reason with the old hag with his own vulnerability. Do not twist your nose, do not bypass what seems scary, but appeals to you. Life, like nature, can be scary, but since it does not kill you, it means that it most likely loves you - so work on reciprocity.

7. Baba Yaga and red girls

If Baba Yaga is in a bad mood, she steals children and rapes men. But basically she lives an ordinary old woman's life - during the day she flies into the forest, in the evening she has a hearty dinner and goes to bed on the stove, sometimes she fights with harmful neighbors. But, in general, he does not touch anyone and peacefully manages the forest. Usually she has several daughters, whom she keeps in a kind of slavery. How else can you explain that as soon as the young man gets into the hut with the intention of killing Yaga, her daughters are right there with instructions on how to properly cut off their mother's head. As a rule, after the murder of the old villain, the wedding of all her daughters follows, and the main character invariably gets the youngest and most beautiful daughter. With a dead mother-in-law, the young man lives more calmly, but it is not clear what to do with Babin's genes? Apparently, the presence of a daring husband, who often has a semi-animal nature, somehow balances the problem of the heritage of the bone leg. Women's initiation is less adventurous than men's, and has more to do with needlework, housework, and humility. Vasilisa the Beautiful manages to escape from Yaga’s captivity only by proving that she is a skilled housewife: “When I leave tomorrow, you, look, clean the yard, sweep the hut, cook dinner, prepare linen, go to the bin, take a quarter of the wheat and clean it from blackies." In many fairy tales, in order to receive a blessing as a wife from Baba Yaga, a girl needs to unquestioningly fulfill all her requirements for several days, for example, to wear an old woman on her hump. Or crush water in a mortar until exhaustion: this action is a symbol of the interaction of male and female principles and the birth of a new life.

Seventh conclusion. If you intend to get married, remember that there is no better friend for you before the wedding and the worst rival after the wedding than your mother-in-law. If, in the status of a young man, the mother-in-law-Yaga, with the correct polite and humble treatment, reveals all the buttons for controlling the future wife, then after the wedding she will become the button for the destruction of your marriage. Therefore, the mother-in-law must be metaphorically destroyed: for this, the hero has a treasure-sword, a symbol of male strength and a powerful mind.

She ran to a deep abyss, picked up a cast-iron board and disappeared underground.

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Baba Yaga - a mythical character or a real woman. Origin of Baba Yaga

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