Baba Yaga Tales

by Jennifer Wiginton

Baba Yaga has fascinated me ever since I read her stories as a child – the images created of this unique witch were fantastic. Who wouldn’t want to live in a house on chicken legs, that can turn or walk from place to place whenever you wanted it to? And flying around in a mortar that moves when pounded with the pestle? Simply wonderful. I also found it interesting that Baba Yaga – unlike the witches in other fairy tales – is not necessarily evil, but actually helps out the characters in some stories, under the right conditions. When I began telling stories professionally, Baba Yaga quickly took her place in my repertoire. As with all fairy tales, several varieties of Baba Yaga exist. Many stories include her only as a minor character. Each story in this collection has distinct elements of the Baba Yaga legend, and each has been retold in modern English. I hope you find them as fascinating as I do!

116 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 30, 2017

Reviews

[JLJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hmph," said the old witch. "Just remember that not every question leads to good."

A great collection of fairy tales featuring the Baba Yaga. I really liked the author's style of writing and she sometimes addresses the reader themself, which really made it feel as though you are being told told these tales orally by a storyteller.

[Jean-marie Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable folk tales, nice to find several in one publication. As someone who studies witchcraft I find the Baba Yaga folklore particularly interesting. I wonder how many kids these tales have kept in check over the years?

[Me · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super neat tales!

[Bronwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baba Yaga the legend is fascinating. Loved all the short stories highlighting the witch in all her glory

[Hugo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that, when I purchased this book I did so because I was so keen on reading a particular tale included in this compilation: Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga. Nevertheless, I came to like two tales more than that one. I am not saying that the Vasilisa one is a bad tale. In fact, I can see why it is so popular. It has got a hidden message which is all about following your intuition (which is represented by the doll) which I love, especially because I am someone who's intuition has always been with me, but I just did not know what it was, nor did I take advantage of it. Now that I am older, I know we all have it, and that it is a split-second emotion that we get in certain scenarios which alerts us about something.

However, there are two other tales in this book that are such a page-turner: The Frog Princess and Maria Morevna. The second one contains several elements of folktales, including events happening in threes, magical beasts, and impossible tasks. There is something about events happening in threes that made me keep reading. Even though some events were about the same, the description of what was happening was a little different and that keeps you interested.

What I liked about The Frog Princess is that there might contain a hidden message which I relate with.

I read this book in a nutshell. I have come to discover that folktales are my cup of tea! I am looking forward to reading more of them.