Crone Files: Baba Yaga
The OG Crone with the Coolest Motorhome Ever
Crone Vitals
Origin: Slavic/Russian
Era: 1700s to Present (likely much older)
Crone Type: Folkloric figure, chthonic goddess
Known For: Hut on Chicken Legs and Flying in a Mortar and Pestle
Crone Power: Never shoulds on herself
If she were an animal, she would be a honey badger.
Picture it. You are lost in the Russian woods and come across a clearing. In the clearing is a house—on chicken legs. The white picket fence around it is made of bones. Human skulls illuminate the path. You approach from behind and command “Hut, hut. Turn your back to the forest and your front to me!” The chicken legs jump, the house spins to face you. A low gruff woman’s voice calls you in, and you find her stretched out on the stove. Her legs reach all the way to one wall and her head to the other. Her nose is so long it hits the roof and her breasts are held up by a metal pole. She says she smells Russian bones as she licks her lips around her metal teeth. You ask for help finding your way home. This is where her test begins.
Meet Baba Yaga, the Crone of Slavic folklore. She’s the Crone’s Crone. The OG Crone. THE Crone to know. There is a reason we are starting the Crone Files series with her.
We don’t know when the myth of Baba Yaga was first told. She may be a very early earth goddess, goddess of the underworld, or a more recent folkloric invention. Her story was first written down in the 1700s in a ledger equating the Slavic folklore figures to Greek gods/goddesses. Baba Yaga, fittingly, had no equal.
Baba Yaga is sometimes portrayed as a chthonic goddess. She guards the fountain of life and therefore the liminal realm between the mortal and spirit world. In Slavic folklore, the underworld is literally a forest underground. While you are in the clearing around her house, you are in the mortal realm. Asking the hut to turn around—on its chicken legs—from the woods to face you is a request to enter the liminal space between life and death. Whether you know it or not.
That’s right. This amazing Crone lives in a chicken-themed crossroads between life and death. She lives in a liminal space, which perfectly sets up her dual nature.
Nobody leaves her hut the same as they entered. They are experiencing the biggest liminal moment of their lives. They are there for a test, an initiation, or an ending. It is all up to them and Baba Yaga’s mood. After entering her hut, they leave changed forever or they never leave.
Baba Yaga is a Crone, a trickster, a villain, a guardian, AND sometimes a protector. She has three horsemen who do her bidding and a flock of black geese who help her find naughty lost children to eat. But she also helps the worthy.
In one of her most famous stories, she helps a young woman, Vasilisa, get away from a wicked stepmother/stepsister situation. She only decides to help Vasilisa instead of eating her after putting her through multiple seemingly impossible trials of domestic labor and service. Vasilisa is obedient and minds her own business, so Baba Yaga reluctantly decides to help.
You never know which Baba Yaga you are going to get.
Perhaps her penchant for helping young women who are obedient and do domestic service is a holdover from centuries of patriarchal retellings, or maybe Baba Yaga just wants free maid service and to not have to deal with other people’s shit.
Baba Yaga has supernatural abilities, but her true power comes from living outside society, its rules, and doing whatever she wants.
The chicken-leg house? It’s so she can pick up and leave to make sure nobody can find her. The only ones who find her are in true need or make a very unfortunate mistake.
And speaking of transportation, she doesn’t have a car, a bike, or any such mundane method of getting around. She goes out every morning in her flying mortar and pestle. She steers with the pestle and uses a broom (besom) to sweep the clouds behind her to cover her tracks.
She is the perfect liminal Crone. This level of DGAF and desire to be alone is aspirational.
Now that we know the Crone, it is time to apply her lessons.
What Would Baba Yaga Do? (WWBYD)
Channel her when you are standing at a real threshold and are in a true crisis of choice. Like leaving the marriage, the job, or the identity that used to fit. You know the one—when everyone wants reassurance you will come back to being the same person, but you know you won’t.
You should also channel her energy the next time you are about to say yes out of duty instead of desire. The holiday party nobody wants to host. No. Staying five more years at that job that’s done with you. Leave. Explaining yourself to someone who was never going to be satisfied anyway. Stop. Baba Yaga would never deign to do any of that. She doesn’t should on herself.
She is the only Crone I know with her own advice column. So, if you have more questions for her, you can Ask Baba Yaga.
The content on Crone Powers is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice. I am a doctor, but I AM NOT YOUR DOCTOR. Always consult your medical and mental health professionals before ADDING—NEVER SUBSTITUTING—spiritual modalities to your care. Remember, woo only works when you do the work.
The views and opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent those of my employer or any institution with which I am affiliated.