OTHER VOICES

A N ANALYSIS OF B~BA-YAG~ IN FOLKLORE

A N D FAIRY TALES

Caroline Scielzo

The land mass geographically joining the peoples and cultures of the East
and West is now called the Soviet Union. Known before the Soviet revolu-
tion as the Russian Empire and having developed from the principalities of
old Rus', this densely wooded area was affected culturally by contacts with
the civilizations of both the East and the West. Predictably, the resultant cul-
ture became uniquely rich. Its oral traditions, folklore, and fairy tales blos-
somed through centuries of historically determined mass illiteracy. Aspects
of an older Eastern source blended with later Western imagery and resulted
in specifically Slavic medieval representations of magical character's. Only in
the mid-nineteenth century did a fundamental study of folklore appear in
Russia, when Afanas'ev collected and catalogued the various fairy tales, and
a number of serious scholarly studies were undertaken.
B~ba-Yag~ emerged as a clearly defined spirit in Slavic folklore and the
most popular character in Russian fairy tales. Having originated as a femi-
nine character herself, the witch has had unnamed female relatives, particu-
larly sisters; and occasional mention is made of children of both sexes, al-
though no likely male parent appears, More often she is a lone spirit. While
folklore grants her a wide range of travel as she flies about Russia in her
iron mortar, fairy tales generally confine her to the deep forest where young
girls, and in only a few variants, boys, encounter her magic. Primarily, her
reference is clearly feminine, both by her own gender and by the over-
whelmingly greater preference of contact with fairy tale heroines.
One particular tale, "Vasilisa the Beautiful," exemplifies her full develop-
ment and has become, if not the favorite Russian fairy tale, one of the best
known and loved purely Russian children's stories. Containing most of the
folklore elements connected with the witch B~ba-Yag(~, it is a tale, on one
level, of a demonic encounter in the dense forest. A more psychoanalytic
reading of the fairy tale reveals a depiction of the stages that lead to, full adult
feminine integration of personality.

Caroline Scielzo, Ph.D., Coordinator, RussianArea Studies,Montclair StateCollege.

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis Vol. 43, No. 2, 1983
©1983Associationfor the Advancementof Psychoanalysis

167
168 OTHER VOICES

Beginning in folklore as an evil figure, B~ba:Yag~ has hardly turbO8 aft-

gelic, but rather incorporated positive and negative forces that appear in the
fairy tale to provide a balance for normal psychic growth. While the theme
of maturation running throughout the range of fairy tales has g~nSraliy been
accepted since Bettelheim's outstanding study, the Russian revvbrking ~f the
problem of growing up offers particularly interesting cultural insightS: LWhat,
then, are the characteristics of this Russian witch, who, so unliki~ her ffureiy
evil Western counterparts, combines both good and ~vii to assiSt indi~l~ens-
ably the psychic development of the heroine?
The earliest research references appear not with the name B~ba=~ag~, but
as "snake-baba."* A universal symbol, the snake was revered fOf its magical
powers, supernatural wisdom, and influence on fertilffy before the Chi:istian
era stabilized it as a symbol of temptation and evil. =i:raditionally it guarded
the recuperative waters separating life and death or, through these 9caters,
offered rebirth. The snake was thus viewed as immortal, ever renewing itself
through the shedding of its old skin for new. B~ba-Yag~ only iater d~veioped
into a more humanized creature, with a long plait of hair remaining as a ves-
tige of her snake origin. In this long-haired form, legend reveals that a brave
guest could grab her by the braid, fling her, and thug make of her a s~rvant.
In fairy tales she has retained through the centuries the name B~ba=Yag~
but lost her ancestral braid. Modern pictures give the braid insiea~l as a sym-
bol of beauty to the child heroine of the stories and insist thai the hair 6f the
witch is demonically unkempt, the hints of a Medusa.
The first part of her name, "B~ba," comes unquestionably from ~he root
that in modern Russian gives us "b~bushka," or grandff4other, ills implications
also extend to include a peasant woman, and ultimately, vvom~n hi~rself.
While the term "b~ba" may be understood in context to have eithe~ positive
or pejorative connotations, it is by definition always referring to aft adult
woman.
The stem "Yag~" is more elusive. Purely Slavic etymology pri~vides g~veral
variations, all meaning "evil b~ba." Most likely the word comes fi~Offi the
early Latin "anguis," meaning snake, affecting some Slavic wordLs f~r the
snake itself and being reduced in Russian to "6gor'" br eel, a ~ t e r sffake~
This would be a natural derivation since it retains an etymologicai iiffk to the
original snake-b~ba. In its most common interpretation "Yag~" is disl~issed
as witch, giving us a b~ba-witch or old granny-witch.
Looking at the latent significance of the name, we see something quite
different, as the first letter of the elusive "Yag~" als~ mearis [hi~ p~l:slonal
pronoun "1" in Russian and opens more significance to the notioh of s~lf. Be-
*The snakeitself playsa significant role in a number of Slavic folk storie~s,ahd in Ukr~iinian
the flying witch is usually referredto as a snake. Different versionsof a singi~ narr~i'~ivemay
use B~ba-Yag~,and a snake interchangeably.
 OTHER VOICES 169

cause of the importance of sound value for folklore, the Latin root "anguis"
for snake was doubly rich, since on Slavic ground it afforded a double sug-
gestiQm This interpretation is aided by the hyphen connecting the two parts
of the name "B~ba-Yag~," or possibly, "the (old) woman-who-is-I snake."
As the witch left behind physical traces of her snake origin and developed
human characteristics, B~ba-Yag~ became cannibalistic. Folklorists of the
last ¢:entury considered this trait to be one of the oldest, with tradition hold-
ing that she loves the taste of flesh, especially that of children. This aspect of
he[ charact#r enters the fairy tale only as a threat, since in any case a clever
heroine has recourse, to wit for escaping the witch; and evil children are
mo.re immediately demolished, instead of being incorporated into the body
of the witch through cannibalism.
The personification of death is to be found in most primitive beliefs, and
t~his aspe~l~ of B~ba-Yag~ cannot be overlooked. All descriptions of B~ba-
Yag~ depict her as skeletal, connecting her with the world of the dead. The
const;ant threatening attributes of the witch as skeletal and cannibalistic are
known t~ all Russian children in a stylized, rhymed epithet: "B~ba-Yag~-
K.ostyan~yat nagS," that is, "B~.ba-Yag(~the bony-legged," and well they know
the line that. follows: "She'll eat you up!" Her keen sense of smell, by which
she us~l~[ty identifies her living guest as "smelling of Russian bone," is an-
other su~chs`tylized epithet. Another variation of this is "from a Russian bone,
not a sou n.~ was heard, not a glimpse was seen, and now a Russian bone
has cQme 1[o me of its own free will."
One tore! of interpretation, then, connects her to primitive symbols of
cosmic significance, and certainly these are among the earliest characteriza-
tions. Added to an akeady established skeletal frame come other gross mis-
representations of the human body. Generally she is a hideous creature.
Sometimes` s`he possesses iron teeth or nose or breasts, or she may' have the
veined snout associated with the devil or the clay feet of an idol. Once in
her h~t, her body becomes distorted so that her nose may grow into the
ceili~g~ and her legs, s.pread apart, touch the two distant walls. This position
is reminiscent of a bony corpse stuffed in a coffin or a grotesque sexual
position, Purther, some variations describe her as possessing massive breasts.
In shQrt, each of these physical details describes a distortion of the body that
suggests anxieties over sexual development and that makes the witch threat-
ening. Thig is especially true in comparison with the external beauty of the
heroine.
Her hu~ iS always fO.und deep in the forest. While this symbol for the sub-
cons(ious may be considered universal, certainly it must have had special
significance for a people living among particularly dense wooded growth.
Most cQn¢~tely, the e:ntrance of children into the forest was the entrance to
death~ Symbolically, the forest in Russian fairy tales is "les~ drem6chiye." The
170 OTHER VOICES

first word, meaning forest or woods, is found here in the plural, lending
a universal, rather than specific tone. The word "drem~chiye" in modern
Russian means dense or thick, but coming from the root of such words as
"drem6ta" or "drem~t'," it means drowsiness or slumber and lends itself to in-
terpretation as a dream world or realm of the subconscious.
B~ba-Yag~'s hut in the forest is bizarre. Usually it is described as standing
on chicken legs and dog heels, animal elements that are skeletal, weak, and
domesticated. Protecting the house are death totems: a fence of human
bones, spikes of human skulls with staring eyes. The doors of the house can
have human legs for doorposts, hands for bolts, and a mouth with teeth for
a lock.
The hut is noted as standing with its front to the woods and back to the
heroine, and the guest must specifically ask that the hut turn around, in
which case there is a special set formula to be recited. One must ritualis-
tically ask access to the hut of the witch's wisdom, but upon request, the hut
never fails to turn around and afford entry.
The favorite transportation of the witch is a mortar and pestle, both sex-
ually suggestive and a convenience for grinding the bones of victims. She
rides sweeping away her tracks with a broom, a prosaic variation of the
phallic magic wand.
These salient features of B~ba-Yag~ from folklore are for the most part
negative and threatening; they do not completely satisfy her image in the
fairy tales. From her negative attributes she is the cannibalistic personifica-
tion of death, the devourer of little children, totally malevolent. But in her
actions as a good witch, the giver of help and advice, she is more connected
to the wise snake goddess regarded with such honor in pagan times.
B~ba-Yag~ has been catergorized into three distinct forms: the beneficent
giver of magical gifts, the kidnapper of children (whom she threatens to ea~,
but who escape to safety), and the warrior or fighting witch. Some commen-
taries call her the guardian of the forest or its animals; others, the personifica-
tion of storm. Jung refers to her as a type of"mater natura," the matriarchal
state of the unconscious appearing when help and adviceare not sufficient
within the reserves of the human child. And Soviet analysis rewrites her as a
spirit unfair to the working class, for the hero has to labor for someone not
his social equal. B~ba-Yag~ here is in the social class of the tsar! The work
done by the child, furthermore, is dangerous and therefore unfair; and the
payment gifts, usually magical, do not belong to the witch, but to nature
itself.
Even so, understanding the individual epithets constantly connected with
B~ba-Yag~ and her generalized interpretations, the message of the fairy tales
does not readily reveal itself. Why have the stories of B~ba-Yag~ lasted
through the centuries, and what are they telling us?
The Afanas'ev collection, available in its original Russian and in English
 OTHER VOICES 171

translation, holds another key to the solution by offering a number of the

fairy tales in which B~ba-Yag~ appears. In some of the 16 variations selected
from this collection, the witch is used as a frightening name only, and her
secondary role could be performed by a number of fantasy characters.
Other tales develop her characteristics to varying degrees only, and some
are clearly regional reworkings. Half of the stories prove her beneficent,
half do not. Almost all of the stories do involve a young girl's trial in the forest
with the witch, and these are the fairy tales demanding inspection. Afanas'ev
selections 102, 103, and 104 are the best known classical tales.
In the first instance, a remarried father takes his young daughter to the
forest to be B~ba-Yag~'s servant. The girl's kindness to animals facilitates her
escape with magical rewards. Her unsympathetic stepsister is killed by the
witch for her domestic sloth, leaving only a basket of bones for the greedy
stepmother. In some reworkings B~ba-Yag~ is replaced by the character
Mor6zko, or Father Frost; and Afanas'ev agrees that this fairy tale is a varia-
tion of the main theme.
The second tale has a stepmother sending her young stepdaughter to
B~ba-Yag~. Before venturing into the forest, the heroine visits her aunt and
gets advice on how to avoid menacing objects in her pursuit of needle and
thread. The young girl returns to tell her father the full story, and the father
kills the evil stepmother and lives with the little girl thereafter. Fortunately,
for its latent approval of incest, this story also is a variation.
"Vasilisa the Beautiful" is fairy tale 104 of the Afanas'ev collection. The tale
seems to be a literary reworking of a folk original, since it appears in this
single variant. Afanas'ev dismisses the possibility that it is an imitation, since
the basic elements of the story arise from Russian folklore. When retold with
its psychoanalytic implications, "Vasilisa the Beautiful" appears to be a
uniquely Russian version of the maturation process found in familiar West-
ern fairy tales.
The story begins when Vasilisa's dying mother bequeaths to her a maternal
blessing and a magical doll. Not only has the mother planted in the child's
mind a memory of her love and wisdom, but from the recesses of the mater-
nal bed, she has granted her a magical symbol of womanhood.* Vasilisa is
instructed to ask the doll for advice** in time of need, and to show the doll
to no one.
After a mourning period the father remarries. His selection was prudent, a

*The use of dolls as fertility charms comes from ancient Chinese folklore and is widely be-
lieved to be effective. In the Soviet Union today, dolls, and teddy bears, if the wish is spe-
cifically for a son, are tied on the car of newlyweds as such a charm; and in the United
States doll figures of the bride and groom often appear on wedding cakes.
**This aspect of the doll's capabilities stems from Egyptian sources. Offered food, which is
eaten, not only connects the worlds of the living and the dead (the reason it invokes such
taboo in Western tradition), but eating the food opens the mouth of the dead and allows
them to talk and give advice.
172 OTHER VOICES

widow with two daughters about the age of Vasilisa; but deception occurs,
for the new family members are cruel and unloving to Vasilisa. During this
period the doll helps Vasilisa not only to fulfill her domestic tasks, but to
continue to grow as the most beautiful. Her evening retreats to the doll con-
sistently accuse the evil stepmother of driving her from "the white world,"
reflecting her fears of psychic death, and she asks the doll, "how I should be
and what I should do."
Vasilisa eventually reaches the age for marriage. While apparently the doll
s-ust-ained-her inner life during her latency period, Vasilisa's approaching sex-
ual maturity now intensifies a need for definition and integration of self. A
doll is, after all, a child's play toy, and, in spite of its magic, inanimate. It is a
separate entity from Vasilisa, who must incorporate its "magic" if she is to
achieve adult feminine wholeness and marry.
When the father leaves for a long business trip, the stepmother moves the
family near the forest, and when the stepmother extinguishes all candles in
the home, Vasilisa is sent to B~ba-Yag~ for a light. The doll assures the trem-
bling girl she has nothing to fear from the witch, and they enter the forest
together.
Vasilisa meets three horsemen: one all white, riding a white horse; the
second likewise red; the third, black. In nature she witnesses daybreak, the
rise of the sun, and night. Emotionally she sees three stages of human devel-
opment: white birth and innocence, the red of female sexual maturity, and
the darkness of death.
She arrives at B~ba-Yag~'s hut with all its constant epithets, and she en-
counters the witch. Vasilisa bows deeply to the witch, identifies herself, and
says she has been sent for some light. This statement is, of course, true on
every level of the fairy tale. Not only has "light" universally stood for good-
ness and virtue but denotes life and rebirth, the very stage necessary now to
Vasilisa. She must "get the light" to "see clearly" and return from the subcon-
scious forest whole as a woman. She now asks the witch to help her. B~ba-
Yag~ knows her family and says that, before she gives her the light, Vasilisa
must work for her.
With the help of the doll, Vasilisa fulfills her assignments and the witch is
satisfied by the skill of the guest. Granted a question, Vasilisa asks about the
three horsemen and is told they symbolize bright day, the red sun, and dark
night, all faithful servants to the witch. Pleased with the girl's question, B~ba-
Yag~ now asks her how all the work was done, and when she hears of the
mother's blessing, she returns the girl to the real world. Dragging the girl
past the gates of the hut, B~ba-Yag~ gives her a pole with a skull from which
eyes burn, saying it was, after all, what she came f o r - a light.
The light of the skull sees Vasilisa out of the forest by daybreak of the third
day of her adventure, and by that evening she is home. She considers
throwing away the~skull, but a voice from within it tells her to deliver it to
 OTHER VOICES 173

her stepmother. No light had shown in her home since her departure, and
Vasilisa and her light are welcomed. The glare from the eyes of the skull
stares at the stepmother and stepsisters and burns them to ashes. Vasilisa
buries the skull in the ground and leaves for town.
Certainly one major aspect of the story is now completed. The encounter
with B~ba-Yag~ and its fantasy ended, Vasilisa has emerged triumphant and
wiser, and having found the light, has destroyed her cruel female tyrants.
Were the tale a simple witch encounter story, this would be an adequate
ending, but the full meaning has not been achieved.
The final part of the fairy tale takes Vasilisa to a childless old woman in the
town who shelters her. The town offers her more contact with people than
did life near the forest, but she still seeks feminine protection. Vasilisa must
now develop her own family ties, or she faces the possibility of being sterile
like the old woman. Again her desire and ability to work lead herto spin the
finest linen, which is taken to the tsar. The gifted seamstress is sought out,
and Vasilisa wins the tsar as a suitable husband and mate.
Vasilisa's father soon returns, happy in his daughter's good fortune and
goes to live with her. Vasilisa takes in the old woman, and for the rest of her
life, carries the little doll in her pocket.
There are aspects of this story familiar to all readers of fairy tales. The ever-
popular substitution of a stepmother and stepsister is a more comfortable
replacement for real family members viewed as mean and cruel. Here ven-
geance or punishment of evil characters plays a cathartic role, and in the
Russian version, the child's secret wish that the mother be gone or dead is
acted out twice. The good, real mother actually dies, and the evil step-
mother is killed by the light of consciousness given Vasilisa by the witch.*
The absence of the loving father, if only for a day's work, is an acceptable
fantasy of abandonment.
Thus reminders of oedipal conflict and sibling rivalry are present in the
story and, particularly in the beginning, are reminiscent of such universally
known fairy tales as "Cinderella." A child enters the story with profound ten-
sions of the oedipal period and through the fantasized adventures works
toward a resolution. In the fairy tale structure individual effort and courage,
in spite of magical assistance, are the deciding factors in growth.
What is new for the Western reader, and at the basis of the Russian myth,
is the intricate fragmenting of the young girl's psyche within the fairy tale
and its subsequent need for reconciliation.** Thus the oedipal conflicts,

* Rarely, incidentally, does the heroine or her magical powers actually kill the offending
mother figure in fairy tales. If we assume that Vasilisa's wish for her real mother's death acti-
vated a fantasy rather than a reality, then the very existence of a stepmother, evil as a fitting
guilt punishment, was a mental exercise terminated by the acquisition of the light.
** In "Beauty and the Beast" or such stories involving the frog-prince, a duallity occurs be-
tween flesh and spirit, but not involving the psyche of the searching child.
174 OTHER VOICES

valid and poignant, become a battleground for another deep struggle mani-
fested in the Russian psyche: the search for integration of a fragmented self.
The dying mother, the doll, B~ba-Yag~, and the old woman are all emana-
tions of Vasilisa's feminine self, each with its drawbacks, each with its posi-
tive attractions; the stepmother and stepsisters are obstacles to be tolerated
and overcome. The real mother is quickly characterized in the first para-
graph literally as a blessing; but, from a negative point of view, she dies, or
abandons the child to her fate. Vasilisa must begin the process of assuming
responsibility for her own life prematurely as her natural mother can no
longer sustain her.
In obtaining from her mother the little magical doll, Vasilisa further be-
comes fragmented into two separate entities. The doll establishes a concrete
attachment to the "real" mother and follows her throughout the struggle as a
source of comfort and magic aid, yet the doll is an immature object and not
sufficient to see her through to maturity.
The subsequent and necessary trip to B~ba-Yag~ is a retreat to atavistic
feminine essence which can be achieved only by confronting the deepest
realms of the subconscious in search for integration. The witch is another
part of Vasilisa's psyche, and it is no surprise that B~ba-Yag~ knows the cir-
cumstances of the girl's family conflict. At this point traditional Russian folk-
lore supplies epithets for characterization, and death images and fear of
cannibalism materialize. Sexual anxieties are masked by a concern about
releasing self into the sphere of death, and the fear of incorporation into the
personification of this death appears as the witch. Similarly, the images have
been reduced to the bone of the matter and portrayed as skeletal parts of
humans and domesticated animals. Vasilisa must, in fact, cross the barrier,
and the fear of death is overcome for the procurement of this "ancestral"
wisdom.
The ancestral retreat in the Russian myth is a feminine image, appropriate
for expression of the matriarchal basis of the culture. B,~ba-Yag~ has the
necessary requirements, being connected to the forest and claiming nature
itself, the bright day and dark night, as her servants. She thus is symbol of
the basic Russian fantasies of a Mother Earth, ever offering rebirth and
promises of fertility.*
For the fairy tale the atavistic Slavic Mother offers aid in reconstructing a
fragmented psyche. In her role as an integrator the Russian witch herself is
integrated and displays a mixture of positive and negative traits, both
aspects being simultaneously valid. The frightening B~ba-Yag~ demands

*Only Morozko or Father Frost is a male spirit who reassures young girls in their oedipal
struggle in the forest, but he is weakly developed and interchangeable with B~ba-Yag~ in
variations. More typical male characters are malevolent demons such as Kashchey the
Death less.
 OTHER VOmCES 175

from the rejected Vasilisa traditional feminine domestic skills, answers her
question about the natural passage of time, and gives the light the girl had
sought. The light comes from inside a skull, an inner light, referring to a
mental process. Once its work has been done to place Vasilisa again in the
real world and satisfy her need for vengeance, the totem skull is buried.
The experience heals by showing the girl her proper reality outside the
forest realm and literally giving her an inner light. The story is complete
when Vasilisa makes the transition from a rejected child to an integrated
woman ready to begin her own family. The nameless old woman is the last
facet of mother substitution. The older woman offers Vasilisa protection and
support and in cultural terms plays the role of matchmaker.
The final work is left appropriately to the girl herself. At the end of the
fairy tale Vasilisa is a more complete version of the beginning heroine, with
her beloved father and the old woman as a reconciliation to the good
mother still with her. Reunited with her positive "parents" and having de-
feated evil pretenders within the family structure, having put away her doll,
she has buried the fantasy-adventure, resolved her family conflici:, and tran-
scended into womanhood. She is now ready for marriage as she has re-
solved through her own inner resources the conflicts hindering her integra-
tion and maturity. Vasilisa may now function in reality.
The Russian witch B~ba-Yag~ is indispensable for this process to have
occurred. Foreboding as she is in her grotesque external manifestation, her
presence provides the key to Vasilisa's ultimate integration. Her hut pro-
vides shelter in the subconscious forest of Vasilisa's mind. Her gift is just the
necessary light. Without her journey into the dark forest of the witch,
Vasilisa would have remained tormented in her family drama. Instead, she
has confronted the conflicts in her Russian psyche, integrating fragments of
her experience and resolving her Oedipal tensions through her meeting
with B~ba-Yag~.
The level of viewing the role of B~ba-Yag~ and her significance in the Rus-
sian fairy tale supplies a more psychologically satisfying explanation of her
popularity and longevity. The story of Vasilisa and the witch B~ba-Yag~ is
frightening; it is optimistic; and it is true in its own way.
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