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Baba Yaga is a witch, known in Eastern Slavic countries. In majority of tales, she is represented as an evil being who ride either broom or mortar, wields a pestle and scares and eat children, however in very few tales she gives her wisdom to protagonists. She lives in forest hut which has chicken legs.

Children are warned in Russia that Babayka (or Baba Yaga) will come for them at night if they behave badly.

Poland – "Baba Jaga" or "Muma" is a monster (often portrayed as a witch living in the forest) that kidnaps badly behaving children and presumably eats them. It is referenced in a children's game of the same name, which involves one child being blindfolded, and other children trying to avoid being caught. [62]

Similar Hags[]

Babaroga (not to be mistaken with Baba Yaga!) is creature known among Southern Slavs. She is represented as very ugly, hunchbacked old woman with horn on head, who live in dark caves. According to folktales, Babaroga likes to steal naughty children and to bring them to her lair.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia, the Bogeyman is called Babarogababa meaning old woman and rogovi meaning horns, literally meaning old woman with horns. The details vary from one household to another. In one version, babaroga takes children, puts them in a sack, and then, when it comes to its cave, eats them. In another version, it takes children and pulls them up through tiny holes in the ceiling. [26]

Iraq's ancient folklore has the saalua, a half-witch half-demon ghoul that "is used by parents to scare naughty children". She is briefly mentioned in a tale of the 1001 Nights, and is known in some other Persian Gulf countries as well.[52]

Black Annis was a hag with a blue face and iron claws who lived in a cave in the Dane Hills of Leicestershire. She ventured forth at night in search of children to devour.[39 Briggs, Katharine (1976). An Encyclopedia of Fairies. Pantheon Books. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0394409183.][40 the Folklore Society (1895). County Folk-Lore (Vol. 1). "Leicestershire and Rutland" (Charles James Billson, ed.). pp. 4–9, 76–77.]

Grindylow, Jenny Greenteeth and Nelly Longarms were grotesque hags who lived in ponds and rivers and dragged children beneath the water if they got too close.[41 Wright, Elizabeth Mary (1913). Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore. Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press. pp. 198–202.]

Peg Powler is a hag who inhabits the River Tees.

Popular Culture[]

In 1999 in Don Bluth's Bartok the Magnificent, she played as the suspect in the kidnaping of the Prince, only in the movie reveal that she never took him and was actually providing Bartok a vital clue by having him do daunting tasks. This reveals as she says, "People Believe what they will" as in she didn't care as along as she is happy to live in the woods and not be bothered.

In the 2015 game, Rise of the Tomb Raider, a DLC story called Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch, which focuses on Lara Croft investigating the legend of Baba Yaga and finding out the truth of it.

In 2020, Baba Yaga was added as a playable character in the MOBA game Smite, the second for the Slavic pantheon after Chernobog. She appears as an old woman in a mortar and holding a pestle.

Gallery[]

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Baba Yaga (view authors). As with Myth and Folklore Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported).
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