The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

Baba Yaga, “Old Woman Yaga,” is a far more ambiguous and powerful figure.12 Witch, cannibal, earth goddess, Mistress of the Forest, she lives in a hut on chicken legs that rotates in expectation of the unwary visitor. This quasi-animate dwelling is surrounded by a fence made of stakes readied for human heads. Inside her hut, Yaga’s sprawling grotesque body cannot move; one leg is always of bone (or iron), the other often of excrement, her nose is hooked to the ceiling, her breasts hang over a rod, her genitals foam. Outside her hut, she travels in a mortar and pestle. (The famous ninth episode - or “picture” - in Musorgsky’s 1874 Pictures from an Exhibition, “The Hut on Hen’s Legs [Baba Yaga],” depicts her ferocious ride in this strange kitchen vessel.) Baba Yaga can be Koshchey’s consort or his sister, but she can also do battle with him. And significantly, she can be the “donor” or enabler of the hero, the one who insures his success against Koshchey in quest of his lost princess. But Baba Yaga extends her help to a hero only after he has been tested for manliness. First she announces that she will eat her visitor (his bones will be ground up in that mortar) - and waits to see how the guest responds. If he ignores her hideousness and demands proper hospitality, she will feed him and provide him with talismans and secrets for his journey. If he trembles and goes limp with fear, she will destroy him.

We will now consider two variants of the same exemplary tale. The first, “Faithful John,” was collected by the Brothers Grimm; the second, “Koshchey the Deathless,” by their Russian counterpart Aleksandr Afanasiev. Placed side

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by side, they suggest how a specific folk-tale plot might change in emphasis and value system as it migrates east. The most prominent difference between the two variant tales is the presence of Koshchey and Baba Yaga.

From a Russian folk perspective, “Faithful John” is a very Western plot. The many European versions of this tale – including the French “Old Fench” from Lower Brittany and the Swedish “Prince Faithful” – all open as an incipient love story. All are fueled by mercantile interests and test the hero in the manner of a knight from the Age of Chivalry. The old king dies, leaving his adolescent son in the care of Faithful John. The new young king is allowed access to everything in the palace but the room with the portrait of the Princess of the Golden Dwelling. Of course the king glimpses the portrait and falls instantly in love. To court her, he orders that five tons of family gold be crafted into various artifacts. He packs these into a ship, and he and Faithful John sail across the sea to the princess. She adores gold and is persuaded to come on board to view the wares of this “merchant.” Only after the ship has sailed away does she discover that the merchant is a king; swayed by the gold, the royal lineage, or perhaps even the prince himself, she consents to be his wife.

While still at sea, Faithful John overhears three ravens predict that the young king will not consummate his marriage. He will mount a horse that will fly off, his bridal costume will burn him to death, and his bride will faint away during the nuptial ball. Interventions and antidotes are possible against these disasters, but anyone who warns the king in advance of them will be turned to stone. John intervenes in the first two temptations and the mystified king tolerates it. But when Faithful John revives the insensate queen by sucking three drops of blood from her right breast, the king loses his temper and condemns his servant to the gallows. Then John tells all and turns to stone. He is only brought back to life several years later when (such are John’s terms) the king agrees to behead his own twin sons with his own sword. The sons are beheaded, the stone statue revives, John replaces the children’s heads, and all five dwell together in happiness.

As this well-known folk tale migrated throughout Eastern Europe, it absorbed local motifs and amplified different virtues. One commonly anthologized Russian variant appears in conjunction with a “Koshchey the Deathless” tale. A number of crucial details are altered. Romantic love is far less in evidence. There is no positive mercantile theme (no courtship that exploits the princess’s appetite for gold), no ships at sea (Tsarevich Ivan sets out in search of his bride on foot). A great deal more casual violence is encountered on the way – and the tests administered to hero and heroine alike come from the world of untamed nature, not from the realm of domesticated animals or manufactured goods. The tsarevich comes upon his “Faithful John” – here, Bulat the

70 The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature