October is a vitally mystical and folklore-rich time of year in the northern hemisphere. In Massachusetts where I live during this in-between season the landscape starts to turn golden, She puts on her golden Crown. Autumn’s trees remind us that aging, dying and beauty can sometimes intertwine. . . with their vibrant colors they whisper this Mary Oliver poem:
“We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body”.
This season’s folklore is filled with heroes and heroines who raise our awareness of this bothness and one such character is the Slavic folk heroine and wilderness witch: The Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is a courageous crone who dares to dance with the dying and also the mystical old mother who midwifes new life. She is a time spinner, a bone picker, a magic maker, a wild forager, a wilderness wanderer, a dream weaver, and stories of her are almost always subversive. . .
Details of a handcarved piece of artist’s linoleum revealing a design which includes the wilderness witch Baba Yaga who appears in a different folktale Katrina and the Bright Falcon.
Baba Yaga appears in the beloved Russian folktale Vasilissa the Beautiful. In the story Vasilissa’s dying mother gifts her a magical doll who offers her comfort, advice and helps her endure the cruelty of her stepmother and stepsisters after her mother dies. The doll goes with Vasilissa on her journey into the forest where she must confront the fearsome Baba Yaga, the great witch of the woods. By exceeding even her own expectations and meeting all the demands of this “evil” elder, Vasilissa discovers her true strength, courage and resilience which she then uses to return home and protect and defend herself against her nasty stepmother and stepsisters.
In the end, it is the nurturing spirit of Vasilissa’s mother and the challenges of the wise elder Baba Yaga that work in tandem with each other to provide Vasilissa the experiences she needs to let go of her more submissive small sense of self and become a more empowered version of herself. The story reminds us of autumn’s bothness, a reference to the tree’s letting go of their leaves while revealing the season’s vibrant golds, yellows and reds. . .a combination of opposites that characterizes a transitory time in the year that ushers us from summer to winter, as well as a transitory time in our lives that ushers us from one stage of development to the next.
Contrary to the “evil” one might think the Baba Yaga represents, Jungian Analyst, Poet, and Cantadora (keeper of the old stories in the Latina tradition), Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes, reminds us that powerful women are almost always villainized, and if we recognize this and are open to Baba Yaga’s wisdom, we discover that in many folktales she is inviting the heroine to tap into her own power and how this act often involves letting go of a previous more submissive small identity, and stepping into a new, more powerful one. In many tales featuring Baba Yaga, the younger heroine is often put to the task of developing skills needed to become courageous enough to risk displeasing others, and this is what allows her to defeat those who truly mistreat her. Dr Estés, calls ancient elders like Baba Yaga “Dangerous Old Women”. She considers Baba Yaga to be, first and foremost, a “Protectress”: a woman who guards the soul. Bold and brave, soft and fierce, this ancient powerful elder witch of the woods gives us the inner alchemy to transform ourselves and step into our full potential. . .
The forest is a defining feature of this folktale (Baba Yaga is believed to live in a birch forest) and many others. We often hear of “enchanted forests” or “magical forests” or “the deep dark woods” which show how the forest is a storied landscape, deeply rich with symbolic meaning. In the process of courageously venturing through a fairytale forest, a hero or heroine often undergoes a significant transformation by confronting an evil villain or enduring some kind of hardship, or overcoming a difficult challenge, and returns home a different person. For this reason forests serve as a portal, a doorway between worlds, or threshold between one two different stages or seasons of life, an intermediary or liminal place where the fairytale hero or folktale heroine undergoes a rite-of-passage. Terri Windling, author, essayist and blogger says: “The forest, with all its wonders and terrors, is not the final destination. It is a place to hide, to be tested, to mature. To grow in strength, wisdom, and/or power. And to gain the tools needed to return to the human world and repair what's been broken...or build anew”.
We see this happening in many folktales, fairytales and myths featuring forests from around the world. In Brother Grimm’s beloved fairytale Hansel and Gretel, two siblings are abandoned by their parents because of poverty and wonder through a forest where they confront an evil witch and steal her treasure before they find their way back home. In Woodcutter and Tiger Brother, a ancient Korean folktale, a hunter ventures into the heart of a forest and discovers that the tiger is his brother transforming their relationship from hunter and prey to one of kinship. In the Greek myth of Athena, Athena wonders into a forest and befriends an owl who sits on her shoulder giving her the gift of double sightedness, which transforms her into the Goddess of Wisdom.
What we discover in all these stories is that the forest’s value to humankind is much more than just functional. . .Forests serve our human psychological needs. We depend psychologically on enchanted forest landscapes as representations of the internal landscapes we traverse on our journey of inner transformation. Folktales like Vasilissa the Beautiful, and many more that feature forest landscapes, reveal our deep and intimate human psychological and emotional relationship with the wild, and how deeply vital forests are for making sense and meaning of transformation in our human experience.
Vasilissa the Beautiful captivates us with its magic and sorcery, an enchanted forest, a brave and courageous heroine, and the quintessential enigmatic wilderness witch Baba Yaga. Vasilissa’s transformation from a submissive, compliant step-daughter and step-sibling to a heroine who stands up for herself parallels the seasonal transformation that comes with Autumn. Witnessing a change - whether it is the changing colors of the autumn leaves, or a change in another person - can seem very magical, and supernatural almost and sometimes evokes fear. A character like Baba Yaga, who lives in the heart of a forest, is a personification of this wild, untamed, supernatural and magical and liminal place and time of transformation. Even the festival of Halloween invites us to try on new identities, engaging our imagination, mimicking and amplifying this folktale’s theme of self-transformation. . .removing the discomfort that comes from change and allowing us to play with it instead. The wise words of poet Robert Bly resonate so much with the meaning of this folktale:
“I love you with what in me is unfinished.
I love you with that in me is still changing”
Vasilissa the Beautiful resonates with the spirit of Autumn telling us we change can be beautiful as we let go of our old selves to make room for what is waiting to emerge, vibrant and gold . . . . .
Blog post cover image credit: Kazuend on Unsplash
References:
Pinkola-Estes, Dr. Clarissa. (2010). Dangerous Old Woman: Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype. Sounds True. Audiobook.
Pinkola-Estes, Clarissa (1992). Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: The Random House Publishing Group.
More Witch Blog Posts
October is a vitally mystical and folklore-rich time of year, a between and betwixt season of transformation characterized by the changing colors of the leaves and filled with heroes and heroines who symbolize our own transformative potential. One such folk heroine is the quintessential enigmatic wilderness witch Baba Yaga: a courageous crone who dares to dance with the dying and also the mystical old mother who midwifes new life. She resonates with the spirit of Autumn telling us we can be beautiful as we let go of our old selves to make room for what is waiting to emerge, vibrant and gold . . .