LEGEND: Baba Yaga

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So like many kids who grew up somewhat pre-internet, I loved a good fairy tale or Disney movie.

I mean, come on, handsome princes, fairy godmothers, animals that land on you when you sing?

Who doesn't want to be in one of these stories?

But there was one thing about these tales that scared scared the living daylights out of me:

the wicked witch.

She was enough to make me say, you know what?

Maybe I'm good without the Prince Charming as long as I never have to cross her.

I'll keep my voice, my beauty, my integrity right where it is.

Thank you very much.

But if you think evil stepmothers and sea witches are bad, then you need to meet the OG Wicked Witch, Baba Yaga.

With roots in Slavic traditions, she's said to be a trickster, an ogre-like woman who fries and eats little children and decorates her house with their bones.

But others say if you treat her well, she can be a guide who helps you along your journey.

Though there are some who think Baba Yaga is more than just a creepy old legend meant to keep kids out of the woods.

Because stories about her might actually be grounded in reality.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is So Supernatural.

Welcome back to So Supernatural.

I'm Yvette Gentile.

And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecaro.

And today we are talking about witches.

And my whole life, up until recently, I was pretty afraid of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz because it was our mom's absolute favorite movie.

And we watched it what every Thanksgiving, every Christmas.

Yeah, that's right.

It was on repeat in our house.

We loved it so much.

Yes.

And it wasn't until Wicked came out, and I never actually saw the musical on Broadway, but I do want to one day.

But when Wicked the movie came out, my entire

perception of everything I knew about Alphaba, the wicked witch, was totally blown away.

And it actually made me feel so happy to know that someone who was supposed to be evil was actually good.

Wicked did such a great job reimagining the wicked witch.

And it really truly reminds me of today's story.

And if you're from Russia or Ukraine or even Belarus, you probably already know who I'm talking about.

Her name is Baba Yaga.

And just a side note here, it seems like in Slavic cultures, they say Baba Yaga, but we're going to stick with the more Americanized pronunciation here.

Eastern European fairy tales say she's an old woman who lives in the woods doing magic, and she's known to eat children from time to time.

If you're not brushed up on your Slavic languages, it's worth mentioning that Baba roughly means grandmother in English.

Yaga doesn't have a direct translation.

Depending on the context, it can mean witch, torturer, or something like a person who inflicts pain.

So Baba Yaga essentially means grandmother witch and not a nice one.

That's an entirely appropriate name because in the oldest stories of her, she's very grandmother-like.

Mostly because she's so impossibly old.

And as are the stories about her, she's been appearing in Slavic tales since 1755, or at least that's the oldest written record of her that we know about.

But the oral traditions about Baba Yaga may be even much older than that.

So here's what the accounts say.

Baba Yaga is an old, ugly woman.

Her nose is so long, it hits the ceiling if she looks up while she's indoors.

And if she needs to stir the coals in her fireplace, she uses her nose instead of a shovel.

She lives in the woods and depending on who you ask, she's usually all alone.

Though some say she has either two or three daughters or sisters, her siblings and children are also named, get this, Baba Yaga.

And they all have the exact same personality,

almost like it's one person living in multiple bodies.

And while most witches fly on brooms, Baba Yaga likes to travel in a giant mortar and pestle.

So if you do a lot of cooking like Yvette does, you probably know that a mortar is a small bowl and a pestle is a tool you use to grind up herbs in the mortar.

Well, Baba Yaga likes to ride in the vehicle-sized bowl almost like a boat and she uses the pestle to steer the boat.

Even stranger, the legend says her house has chicken legs, which it walks around on.

That means you never know where you'll encounter Baba Yaga.

An open field that might have been empty and safe a day ago could now be the witch's new home.

Which isn't great because the stories say Baba Yaga is not someone you want to encounter when you're unprepared.

Supposedly, Baba Yaga is very dangerous to be around, and the legend goes that she eats people, and usually it's children, but she'll occasionally prey on adults too.

Her hatred for men and boys is so fierce, she will often attack them on sight.

But if women or girls come to her for help, She'll usually assist them.

And that's what happens in one of the most famous stories about Baba

It's called Vasilisa the Beautiful.

The first written version was published in a Russian fairy tale collection in the 1850s or 60s, but it might even be older than that.

So the story goes that Vasilisa was a happy little girl with a beautiful life, but things started to change when she was eight years old.

That's when her mother gets very sick.

Her mother can tell that she won't live for much longer.

So one day she calls Vasilisa into her room and gives her a gift to remember her by.

It's a magical doll.

She says the doll will protect Vasa Lisa after she's gone.

In exchange, Vasilisa has to feed the doll and give it water to drink.

And she can never tell anyone about it.

Of course, Vasilisa promises that she'll do whatever she needs to take care of the doll and that she'll keep quiet about its existence.

And she's able to make that promise right before her mother passes away.

Not long after, Vasilisa's father remarries and her new stepmother is an absolute nightmare.

She has total villain energy.

She and her two daughters, Vasilisa's new stepsisters, make her do all of the chores and they insult her and physically abuse her while doing doing it.

But Vasilisa has an ally, that doll and it comes to life when no one is around and supposedly helps her with all of the chores.

It's totally giving me Cinderella vibes right now.

Still, things only get worse for Vasilisa with time.

Because as she gets older, she gets more and more beautiful, something her stepmother and stepsisters absolutely hate, Especially because there are a lot of men in her village who want to marry Vasilisa.

And that is just not something her stepmother and stepsisters want.

Because if Vasilisa gets married, that means she's going to move out and they won't have anyone to order around or clean up after them.

Exactly what you said earlier, Rasha.

This sounds a lot like Cinderella.

Well, it turns out Cinderella is inspired by this story.

Only this one gets way darker than any Disney movie I've seen.

One day, Vasilisa's stepmother decides it's not enough to treat her as a servant and basically keep her prisoner.

She wants Vasilisa to die.

But she's not willing to do the deed herself.

Instead, she decides she's going to put Vasilisa into danger.

and hope something else will kill her.

And she knows just the thing to get the job done.

Turns out, Baba Yaga lives in the forest nearby.

She's been known to hunt and eat anyone who sets foot near her home.

So the stepmother starts assigning the teenage Vasilisa new chores that force her to go into the woods.

Chores like gathering certain kinds of berries, mushrooms, or flowers.

But Vasilisa is smart.

Every time she walks into the forest, she brings something along with her.

That magic doll.

And sure enough, the doll protects her.

It even helps her with those chores quickly.

As soon as they're alone, the doll comes to life and tells Vasilisa how to find exactly what she's looking for.

More importantly, she helps her avoid Baba Yaga's home.

Every day, Vasilisa goes into the woods and each time she makes it back home safe and sound.

Her stepmother gets angrier and angrier.

So one day, the stepmother gives her a new task.

She has to go to Baba Yaga's hut and ask the old witch herself to give her fire.

What does that even mean, give her fire?

I have no idea, so let's just continue.

Okay.

Vasilisa knows she can't avoid her fate any longer.

So she walks into the forest with her doll in hand, of course.

But Baba Yaga's house is so far away that she has to walk all day without stopping.

Finally, at sunset, Basilisa makes it to the front gate.

And the gate is made entirely of human bones.

Of course, she's terrified, but she knows she can't go home without the fire.

or she'll be punished by her stepmother.

So she swallows the lump in her throat and approaches this this little hut, which remember, the hut is on chicken legs.

But she doesn't even get a chance to knock before the trees in the forest start rustling all around her.

Something is passing through them.

This is also giving me Hansel and Gretel vibes, but without her brother.

For sure.

So sure enough, it's Baba Yaga that is flying with her mortar and pestle, and she lands in the front yard and asks Vasilisa what she's doing on her property.

Vasilisa explains that she is on a mission to get fire and bring it home.

After she tells her story, she waits to see if the witch will attack her or fly into some type of rage because she knows the legends and they all say the witch is something to be feared.

But instead, Baba Yaga offers her something.

A deal.

She says she'll give her fire if Vasa Lisa agrees to help her with some household chores.

Now, like we said, Vasa Lisa is pretty smart and she has to be thinking this is some sort of trick.

But at this point, she really doesn't have a choice.

Plus, chores are the things she does best.

She's been taking care of her family's household for her entire life.

Not to mention, she has her magic doll.

So she figures she can handle anything Baba Yaga throws at her, which is when Baba Yaga gives her her first task.

Grab a broom and sweep the front yard until there's absolutely no dirt in it.

Okay, let me repeat that.

Vasilisa isn't sweeping inside Baba Yaga's house.

She's supposed to get rid of all the dirt outside of it on the forest floor.

The task seems impossible, and Vasilisa fears that if she doesn't do it, Baba Yaga Yaga will throw her in the oven, cook her, and eat her.

But then when the witch isn't looking, Vasilisa's doll comes to life.

It magically sweeps all of the dirt off of the ground.

So then Baba Yaga gives her a new and impossible task and the doll helps her with that too and the next and the next.

And as far as Vasilisa can tell, Baba Yaga doesn't know about the magic doll.

She thinks Vasilisa is doing all of this herself.

And Baba Yaga is impressed with her work.

So eventually she sits Vasilisa down, and that's when she makes her a different offer.

She's still not ready to give the young woman any fire yet, but she's willing to give her something arguably better.

Baba Yaga says she'll teach Vasilisa everything she knows.

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After Vasilisa the Beautiful visits Baba Yaga in the woods near her home, the witch actually takes a liking to her.

So much so that she offers to teach Vasilisa everything she knows.

Except, Baba Yaga's offer isn't a kind gesture, it's a trap.

Vasilisa's doll even warns her not to let the witch teach her anything, because if she does, she will turn into an evil crone just like Baba Yaga.

So Vasilisa actually says, uh, thank you, but no thank you.

But the good news is that after this conversation, Baba Yaga just kind of sends Vasilisa off on her way.

She even gives her some fire to take home.

Yeah, that's right, fire, but the fire is inside a magic burning skull.

And Vasilisa carries it home, no problem.

But the moment she walks in the front door and sees her stepmother and stepsisters, the flames leap from the skull and burn them alive.

Well, that was gruesome and violent.

Not exactly something you'd expect out of a fairy tale.

Definitely wasn't in Cinderella by Disney.

But it's painted as sort of a happy ending because once Vasilisa is free from her abusive family members, She gets to date and marry whomever she wants.

And she accepts a proposal from none other than the king himself.

They get married and live happily ever after,

all because of Baba Yaga's help.

Which is why there's one detail about that story that stands out to a lot of people, that Baba Yaga isn't purely evil.

To be clear, She did sort of murder Vasilisa's family, but she also set her free from all of the abuse she was going through, both from her house and Vasilisa's problems.

So in other words, she's not a hero or fairy godmother, not by any means.

But she's not exactly your traditional villain either.

She operates by her own rules and with her own sense of fairness.

And it's because of this, ever since the 20th century or so, that some feminists have sort of adopted her as a symbol of female power.

They see her as someone who won't let anyone tell them what to do, especially not men.

She's also there to lend a hand to women in trouble.

She's like legit the girl's girl.

She cares about solidarity and she enforces her own boundaries and definitely looks out for herself.

Those might have been considered flaws for women back in the 16th century when people wrote the first stories about Baba Yaga.

But we'd consider those positive traits today.

And here's where things get interesting.

Now, most of the stories about Baba Yaga are fairy tales.

They're not meant to be taken literally.

But some folklore experts think Baba Yaga might be a nature goddess.

Think about it.

She has the power to bring storms, drought, and freezing cold winters, but she also provides sunshine, food to eat, and water to drink.

So Baba Yaga balanced the light and the dark, sometimes helping her worshippers and sometimes hurting them.

She wasn't necessarily good or bad, but she was a powerful woman who deserved respect.

Other scholars believe Baba Yaga was a version of another goddess called Iagaya Baba.

Now, it's hard to say much about Iagaya Baba because a lot of information about her has sadly been lost to time.

It's not even clear when people began worshiping her or when they stopped.

But as far as anyone can tell, she seemed to be a very ancient Slavic goddess of death.

According to the scholar Mikhail Chalkov, The Slavs made blood sacrifices to Iagaya Baba, who sat on an iron mortar and wielded an iron pestle.

She was said to feed the blood to her daughters.

The point is, lots of people believed in Iyagaya Baba.

They fully accepted that she was real.

But there's another group that worships Baba Yaga as a real goddess to this day.

Wiccans.

Wicca is a belief system that's been around since the 1940s or 50s, but it's based on much older practices.

It's inspired by the ancient European pagans and what they believed before Christian missionaries actually arrived.

Now, before I go much further, I want to be clear about something.

There are a lot, and I'm talking a lot of different valid ways to practice Wicca,

but I'm only going to talk about it in broad strokes.

Essentially, many Wiccans believe there's just one powerful goddess, but she can appear in many different forms.

Specifically, she takes the forms of other goddesses, including Baba Yaga.

So basically, if Baba Yaga appears to you in a vision or dream, you're actually talking to the Wiccan goddess.

But she talks and acts like the old grandmother witch from old Slavic fairy tales.

And there's at least one practicing Wiccan who says he he did meet Baba Yaga in one of those very visions.

His name is Jack Chanik.

So here's what you need to know about Jack.

He's a published author with multiple books about witchcraft and how it works.

He also has a PhD in philosophy.

So let's just say he seems to have a good grasp on religion, belief, and spirituality.

But when it comes to Baba Yaga, Jack says he saw her for the first time while he was meditating.

So it was one day in the summer of 2019.

And Jack claims that while this might sound like a dream or a hallucination, he feels confident his encounter with her was incredibly real.

Jack says it all started on a day where he was feeling especially discouraged about the state of the world.

Politics, climate change, I mean, just a general sense that everything was falling apart.

So Jack hoped that maybe if he meditated, a powerful spirit would appear to him and make things right.

He wasn't thinking about Baba Yaga or trying to summon her specifically.

In fact, everything Jack ever heard about the grandmother witch told him it would be very bad to talk to her.

And that's because Baba Yaga is very choosy about who she helps.

If she doesn't like you, she tends to make your problems even worse.

Plus, we know we talked about earlier, she's not a fan of men.

So Jack has no reason to think Baba Yaga would want to help him.

But sure enough, while he's meditating, Baba Yaga appears to him anyway.

Jack hasn't spoken about all of the details of her sudden appearance, but from the sound of things, she's standing right in front of him.

And she looks like an old woman with teeth made of rusty iron.

And this probably goes without saying, but as soon as Jack sees Baba Yaga, he's terrified of what she might do to him.

He even admits it out loud, saying, grandmother, grandmother, I am frightened.

Then Baba Yaga says, of course you are.

They are always frightened when they come to me.

Jack tries to explain why he's meditating and what he's looking for.

but she already knows exactly what he's thinking, almost like she can read his mind.

Then she gives Jack some bad news.

She can't help him.

Or as she puts it,

you want Baba Yaga to make it so that poof, the world is no longer dying?

It no longer topples like magic?

This is what you do not know.

It will topple anyway.

Tipsy topsy turvy topple.

It is what the world does.

Always things fall apart.

Always things are sick.

Always they die.

Which is not the answer that Jack was hoping to hear.

And I mean, I don't blame him.

But then Baba Yaga does offer a glimmer of hope.

She wants to make a deal.

So she says that what Jack really needs to learn is how to accept the dark parts of life.

You can't stop death or decay, but you can make your peace with it.

And Baba Yaga can teach Jack how to do it if he's willing to learn from her.

So she gives him a red hot coal from her stove and tells him to take it home with him and think over what she said.

Then, if he's willing to worship her as a goddess, she will educate him in the art of acceptance.

I also need to know if he can actually feel that red hot coal.

Yeah, did it burn his hand?

Or in the meditative process, he doesn't.

I don't know.

But anyway, Baba Yaga can see that Jack's on the fence.

She tells him, you came seeking my help.

Do not refuse it when it is given.

Then she shoves the red hot coal into Jack's hands.

Jack promises to think it over, and then he comes out of the meditative trance.

And even then, he's totally convinced that the vision was authentic, that he really did see Baba Yaga.

I assume he moles over Baba Yaga's offer, just like he promised he would.

But unlike Vasilisa, who declined Baba Yaga's offer in her story, Jack makes a different choice.

He summons Baba Yaga again and tells her that He does want to learn from her and in exchange, he'll worship her.

Now, I know y'all are probably thinking, This is nothing more than some vibrant dream or hallucination.

Maybe he's on drugs.

Who knows?

It's probably not real, right?

Except, this doesn't happen just once or twice.

Jack keeps seeing Baba Yaga for years,

and these visions feel very authentic to him because they completely change the course of his life.

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In 2019, author, philosopher, and Wicca expert Jack Chanik supposedly accepts the deal with Baba Yaga.

He says he'll worship her and in exchange, she'll teach him him deep truths about the world.

Let's just say he regrets that decision almost immediately.

Now, I don't know a ton of details about how often Jack sees Baba Yaga or what they talk about specifically.

But apparently, these conversations are very intimate and he doesn't feel comfortable saying much about them publicly.

Here's what I do know, though.

The first time they spoke, Jack said he was concerned about all of the injustices injustices that were happening in the world.

But each time he meditates and sees Baba Yaga in a vision, her response to that sort of thing is always the same.

Everybody dies.

It doesn't matter if they were good or bad, fair or unfair.

We all end up in the same place in the end, so there's no point in getting worked up about it.

In Jack's mind, it feels like she's telling him to ignore all of his personal morals and beliefs and learn to be okay with evil.

But that's not the person he wants to be.

And over time, he comes to hate the lessons that she's teaching him.

At one point, he gets so upset that he snaps at her during one of his meditation sessions.

He says she clearly doesn't care about his morals or ethics.

So why did she offer to work with him anyway?

That's the wrong question to ask.

And of course, Baba Yaga is furious.

She goes on a long rant where she says something like, you ask why you should worship me?

Why should I tell you?

I do not justify myself to nagging little boys.

You do not need to love me or trust me, but you will respect me.

I am finality.

I am at the end of all things.

Her outburst is enough to scare Jack into silence, but he's still not sure if if he's on board with all the things that she's trying to teach him.

However, while Jack has doubts, he does everything that Baba Yaga tells him to do, in part because he wants to be a man of his word.

He made a bargain and he's going to see it through, even if he's doubtful about whether it was a good deal or not.

Plus, Jack isn't sure what Baba Yaga will do to him if he doesn't hold up his end of the deal.

At one point, she even shows him a very powerful vision.

He sees the end of existence.

The universe is actually collapsing in on itself.

The suns and the planets are being ripped apart.

And after all of the matter and gravity, and energy in the universe is destroyed, Baba Yaga remains.

So Jack continues to worship Baba Yaga.

She gives him a list of rules that he has to follow.

Like he has to have a little altar of her in his home where he leaves offerings of chicken bones and vodka.

That's interesting.

Apparently, I guess Baba Yaga likes to drink and eat chicken, who wouldn't?

But he's also supposed to wear a ring with a big skull design on it.

And it's so he always has a depiction of death on his body.

He also makes sure there's always a lit flame somewhere in his home.

It's his way of honoring that original request of hers that he would take a burning hot coal and keep it with him.

Well, three years go by exactly like that, and Jack does everything he's supposed to do.

He meditates and sees Baba Yaga in his visions and she teaches him lessons that he disagrees with, but he does his best to at least think over what she has to say.

Then one day in 2022, he's doing yard work when the skull ring just falls off his finger.

He searches all through the grass, but he can't find it anywhere.

Now, Jack is hardly the first person to lose a piece of jewelry.

But just remember, he isn't just wearing this ring because he likes it.

He's doing it because Baba Yaga told him to.

So he orders a new one online and once it arrives, he starts wearing it.

Except a short while later, he's out with some friends when the replacement ring falls off too the good news is that he eventually finds it and puts it back on but jack is the sort of person who believes in signs and omens he finds it kind of interesting that the ring has slipped off his finger two times now

almost like the universe is rejecting his connection to baba yaga I mean, he doesn't want to read too much into it, but he decides to pay attention just in case any other strange signs come his way.

And sure enough, a few days later, the ring falls off of his finger again.

Or at least, he thinks that's what happens.

The truth is, Jack doesn't know what became of the ring.

One minute it was on his hand like normal, and the next, it was just gone.

He didn't feel it slip off, and he certainly didn't take it off himself, but it's nowhere to be found.

But by this point, Jack's like, okay, this has to mean something, but he still doesn't want to jump to conclusions.

So his next move is to ask a friend of his to do a tarot reading for him.

Presumably, his friend knows about his deal with Baba Yaga because she looks at the cards and she tells Jack, Baba Yaga is willing to let you out of the deal.

Apparently, she can tell that Jack is still very resistant to her teachings and she doesn't want a worshipper who's going to fight her every single step of the way.

So Jack has a choice now.

He can set aside his doubts and his hesitations and really go all in on her worship, or he can walk away now.

No harm, no foul.

Okay, you might hear that and think,

this is great.

Jack didn't want to worship Baba Yaga in the first place, and now he doesn't have to anymore.

He's actually free.

But Jack has more conflicted feelings about this.

After all, he's been studying with her for three years now.

She's been a huge part of his life.

And while he hasn't loved every minute of it, he's not sure he's ready to just walk away from her either.

So Jack decides to go with option A:

stop fighting, stop resisting, and be the best follower of Baba Yaga that he can be.

He keeps meditating, but he tries extra hard to really focus.

He makes all of the right offerings, he does everything he's supposed to do.

But in spite of that, one night he hears a voice in his ear.

It's Baba Yaga telling Jack, she's done with him for now.

But she'll be back.

Specifically, and this is a quote, when it is time for you to know death again, end quote.

Well, there's no arguing with that.

Even if Jack wants to keep serving Baba Yaga, she's not willing to see him or talk to him for the time being.

So he just moves on.

She stops appearing to him in his visions.

And he tries to find other new ways of exploring his religious beliefs.

But eventually he realizes maybe Wicca isn't for him.

He still believes in spirits and magic and he knows Baba Yaga is real, but he thinks he needs a different framework to understand all of it.

So in January of 2024, he posts in his blog that even though Baba Yaga promised she'd come back eventually, She hasn't.

Not yet, at least.

Which is probably a good thing because Baba Yaga said she was basically coming back when death was near, right?

This is true.

If you take Jack's story at face value, it sounds like Baba Yaga may have taught him all she needed to,

or she had no further use for him.

But he still acknowledges that Baba Yaga taught him a lot over the years, and he's grateful for the time they spent together.

He seems to think it was all worthwhile, even if it didn't amount to any positive global change.

Which brings me back to one of the core questions about Baba Yaga.

Is she good or evil?

The answer seems to be that she's both and neither.

I mean, she has good qualities and bad qualities, just like the rest of us.

I mean, it's inevitable that we'll live in a world that has shades of gray, and that's what Baba Yaga truly represents: inevitability.

You can't escape death or destruction, but you're guaranteed to get rebirth and renewal afterward.

So, maybe to truly understand Baba Yaga, you have to stop trying to classify things as good or evil.

Instead, we can just accept the world as it is,

Warts and all.

This is So Supernatural, an audio chuck original produced by Crime House.

You can connect with us on Instagram at SoSupernaturalPod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com.

Join Yvette and Me next Friday for an all-new episode.

So what do you think, Chuck?

Do you approve?

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If you enjoy the mysterious and eerie stories we discuss here, then we've got another show you need to check out, Park Predators.

Hosted by our friend Delia Diambra, Park Predators dives into the dark and twisted crimes that have taken place in some of the most beautiful places on earth.

These haunting cases range from stories of disappearances and murders to unsolved mysteries.

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Listen to Park Predators available wherever you listen to podcasts.