The biography of Yagi

Reply by Ekaterina Gudkova, philologist, author of the portal “Culture. In Russian fairy tales, mainly magical, Yagaya, Yagishna or Egiboba often appear, among the Ukrainians-Baba Yaza, among the Poles-Baboenza, in Chekhov and Slovenes-Higher School. Therefore, the name itself brings the fairy -tale character closer to the inhabitants of the lower, underground world. The etymological dictionary of Max Fasmer indicates that the name of Yaga is related to the Baltic words denoting annoyance, irritation, something nasty, as well as the ancient Islands Ekki-“sorrow”, “pain”.

And most fully the image of Baba Yaga in the years was investigated by the Soviet folklorist Vladimir Propp. In a primitive society, where the main source of food was hunting, each boy had to go through the initiation rite - symbolically “die” and “be born” already in a new quality. Ancient people believed that the “journey into the afterlife” gave the future hunter magical abilities: animal scum and hearing, the ability to understand the language of animals and be invisible in the forest.

The dedicated was taken to the forest, where they hunger, tortured with fire, buried in the ground, cut their fingers, knocked out their teeth, gave hallucinogenic plants. After the tests passed, a man began to believe that he really visited the next world. In the image of Baba Yaga, according to Propp, the features of the manager of this rite and the guard guarding the entrance to the kingdom of the dead are connected.

In fairy tales, Yaga lives in a hut on chicken legs. The origins of this original architectural solution are interpreted differently. Some researchers believe that chicken legs are an echo of the era of totemism, when magical forces were attributed to animals. Others-that the huts on chicken legs called special log cabins on stilts, where the dead Finno-Ugric peoples were buried.

The hut of Yagi is usually on the edge of the edge, that is, on the border of the two worlds. The door is turned to the forest - the world of the dead. The hero of the fairy tale cannot cross the invisible border, simply bypass the hut and enter from the other side-and must say the spell: “A hut-hut, turn back to the forest backwards, in front of me! The hero will no longer earlier than he is subjected to interrogation and testing, whether he can follow.

Actually, the first test is already withstand. Ivan knew the spell and managed to blow on the hut and turn it. From the book of Vladimir Propp “The Historical Roots of the Fairy Tale” in some fairy tales, the appearance of the Yaga is described in the details: “Ahead of the head, in one corner, the other,“ Baba Yaga lies on the stove, a bone leg, from a corner to a corner, a nose to the ceiling has grown up.

” And Propp concluded that “the yaga resembles a corpse, a corpse in a tight coffin or in a special cell, where they buried or leave to die. She is a dead man. " From here, a bone leg appeared in fairy tales - a skeleton leg - and the blindness of the old women. True, it is not directly said in fairy tales that the yaga is blind. Having met the hero, she exclaims: “Fu, fu, fu!

Before the Russian spirit is not heard, it is not seen; Today, the Russian spirit sits on a spoon, he rolls into his mouth. ” According to the logic of ancient people, as living, the smell of death is unpleasant, so the dead do not tolerate the smell of the living. And the “Russian spirit in fairy tales” is precisely the smell of a living person. Having met the hero, the yaga begins to pry where and why he keeps the path.

And he receives a standard answer: “What are you screaming? You first drink it, take it to the bathhouse and ask after leading and ask. ” The ancients believed that the deceased becomes “his own” in the other world, only having tasted food there. Therefore, Ivan, eating pancakes at Baba Yaga, becomes involved in the world of the dead. Further, the “classic” woman-yaga gives the hero a good advice, gives a magical object or animal: a horse, a dog, a ball of thread, a plate with gold apples.

This type of Yaga Vladimir Propp called the yaga ditter. In some fairy tales, the hero abducts a magic tool or a magical assistant at Yaga, and then the old woman rushes behind him in pursuit of his mortar. This type is called a yaga warrior. For example, in the fairy tale "Marya Morevna" Ivan Tsarevich steals a magic foal at Baba Yaga, and during the chase behind him, the Yaga dies in the fiery river.

The third type of Yaga is the kidnapping of children. Geese-swans from the same fairy tale steal the boy and attribute him to Baba Yaga, and his older sister helps him out. Propp saw the similarity of such a yaga with “forest” and “water” teachers - other characters of Russian fairy tales that take children from their parents. And although it seems that the abducted child will definitely die - he usually returns to the family, having learned magical science.

There are also images of similar villains in French and German folklore - for example, a witch who lures the children to him to eat them. As a result, the children burn the witch in the stove and safely return home. Such fairy tales about kidnapping of children also arose from a primitive custom. In ancient times, children could initiate much earlier than puberty.

There were times when, even before his birth, the child was “offered”, that is, they promised to another tribe or a secret union. By this agreement, the child was taken from the parents when he reached the agreed age.For a long time, the researchers were perplexed: why is Baba Yaga a woman, if only men participated in the hunting initiation? It turned out that in many tribes, shamans and leaders for the rite changed into women's clothing.

Scientists suggested that the memory of the time of matriarchy was manifested when they revered the ancestor of the tribe. In this context, it is especially curious that the best woman-yaga in the movie was a man-George Millar, who played Yaga, dressing in the old woman, in the films of directed by Alexander Rowe. With the development of agriculture, the need for hunting initiation disappeared, and the rite began to exist in the form of a myth.

Then people and the myth ceased to perceive as sacred knowledge, and information about it “sank” to the level of a fairy tale. More - years old were listened to adults, and their modern versions are mainly adapted for children.

And such texts do not always allow you to fully evaluate the real folklore woman-yaga-terrible for the uninitiated, but helping the worthy. Ivan knew the spell and managed to blow on the hut and turn it. ” RF ”thank the reader Catherine from Ufa for the question. Victor Vasnetsov. Illustration for the fairy tale "Vasilisa Beautiful."