The story of Baba Yaga is old and one I have been familiar with since an elementary school book fair impulse buy of “Bony Legs” by Joanna Cole based entirely on its cover, which featured a crazy looking house standing on a foundation of chicken feet with an evil looking witch leering out from a corner window.
The book was everything I hoped a book about a witch’s house traveling around on chicken feet deep in a mysterious forest would be. As I grew older the story stuck with me and over time, I learned it was more than a quirky children’s tale; Bony Leg’s real name was Baba Yaga and she actually was a real-life witch straight out of old Slavic folklore.
Depending on who you believe, Baba Yaga is either a hideous ogress who steals, cooks, and devours children; think Lilith with an oven, or other accounts of her reputation describe her as kind and helpful. In every version of her story, Baba Yaga is known far and wide for her home that stands on bird legs. When traveling sans house, Baba Yaga is said to soar through the air in an iron kettle, which sounds like a tough feat for anyone to do for a sustained period, if you ask me. She is also said to accompany Death, riding shotgun on his grim travels and eating the souls of the newly departed. Another unappealing trait credited to her is iron teeth, all the better to gnaw your soul with my pretty.
The first time Baba Yaga appears in literature is 1775 when she is briefly mentioned in the Russian children’s grammar book by Lomonosov. According to the book, forest travelers are sometimes unlucky enough to come upon three Baba Yaga’s at once! The story being there are three sisters, all named Baba Yaga, living deep in the woods in a hut walking around on chicken feet.
In my beloved childhood story, old Bony Legs was prepared to eat a little girl named Sasha who lost her way in the forest. Expected at her granny’s, Sasha soon ran into trouble but still managed to help several other characters along the way out of the goodness of her heart. When it came time for her to bounce out of Bony Leg’s chicken feet hut, each one of the characters helped her escape, saying every time they were assisting because of her earlier kindness to them. A moral I have never forgotten, it is one I strive to live daily.
Often, we find ourselves lost like Sasha, maybe not in the trees, but in life, and it is in these moments when we can look past our own fears and anxieties and be there for another person that we learn the most about who we are. For instance, are you the sort of person who can look past their own problems to see the hurt in another?
It can be challenging to get out of your own head, but I know when I focus on helping someone else, it not only makes me feel better, often it ends up being a future help to me as well.
There have been quite a few times in life when people have shown up for me, saying it was because I had once been there for them. I credit this to Bony Legs scaring me straight at such a young age. One thing I know for sure, if I’m ever lost in the woods and see a hut standing on chicken feet, I’m turning and running in the other direction!