Part Two: Baba Yaga: Everyone's Favorite Witch From Folklore

creature out of folklore? What are you the personification of a gun? I can't remember, Jamie? Oh what was I? I? Actually, it's been heavily, it's been hotly debated over over time. Um, you know, I don't. I let people interpret it for themselves. It's not for me to say as as as someone who's not a real person, more of an idea than a person, It's not for me to say, Okay, that's fair. It's up for the listener to decide. What have you've been the what have you've been popularly interpreted to be

the personification of Margaret? Oh lord? Um? Well, what's fun about that is I think people actually do do that to me. But then they, like, you know, they pick like one aspect of your personality and run with it. And it used to be the like the like vagabond figure, right, like it's the like perpetual traveler. And then it was like the girl who lives in a black house that she built in the forest, and like, both of those are like true things about me. But yeah, I see

where they're coming from. To be fair, you did write a chapter in your latest book about a girl turned which that lives in a house in the forest. That's true. That's true. So you did kind of write your own folklore. Yeah, that seems like something I would do. Fair enough, they have cultivated people often think that I am extremely chaotic and don't have any semblance of control over my life. But that's not true. That is completely that is factually inaccurate.

You're far too productive for that to be true. I have my ship together just enough, thank you very much. But here we are. Here we are too, or three three women who represent ideas and are projected upon constantly. Sophie, what's your professionally? Even my folklore? I think I think you wrote my folklore if you told me I was the pope of podcasting. So it's probably just like the weird para social folklore that that all I do is say no, which is not true the personification of sometimes

I say absolutely not. Yeah, so the queen of yeah yeah, Well, Jamie, when you pointed out that, like, also professionally, we are like that is the odd thing about doing this kind of work is that you're like, oh, yeah, romanticize my life. You'll buy my books. Right, You're like, it's not it's not that negative, and it doesn't always even bother me.

But sometimes you're just like, well, I know what I'm like. Yeah, and and and for me, nobody even knows what my job is and that's fun and I'm not telling any of you. Yeah. Well, one person whose job we do know. Uh. The audio engineering is done by ian and the theme music was written by a woman. Yeah. And where we last left off, we talked about who Bobby Aga was, about her chicken hut and her bony legs, and how she ate children who misbehaved. Today we're going to talk

about what she means and where she comes from. But first another story. I'm excited. I literally I have my blanket here too, and I'm saying, okay, this story is called by command of Prince Daniel. That's a great name for a story. Okay, okay, as translated yeah by Leonard Arthur Magnus, also about a hundred years ago. I didn't forgot to write down the date I picked the public

domain translations. Is what happened. I'm inherently mistrustful of someone who actively goes by three names, so this will be interesting, that's fair. Yeah, I'm trying to come up with the counter example, but I don't have one off the top of my head. Three namers generally fall into the buckets of serial killers or child stars, and um, you know, and and so you're just like, this is going to

be a mixed bag. We'll see YEA. Once upon a time there was an aged queen who had a son and a daughter who were fine sturred each children, but there was also an yeah coming in hard. But there was also an evil witch who could not bear them, and she began to lay plots how she might contrive their overthrow. I think this is not even whatever I must pulling anything. So she to the old queen and said, dear gossip, that must be the queen's name. I don't know.

I am giving you a ring. Put it on your son's hand, and then he will be rich and generous. Only he must marry the maiden whom this ring fits. The mother believed her and was extremely glad, and at her death bade her son marry only the woman whom the ring fitted. Time went by, and the boy grew up. He became a man, and he looked at all the maidens. Very many of them he liked, only as soon as he put the ring on their finger. It was either

too broad or too narrow. So he traveled from village to village, from town to town, and searched out all the fair damsels. But he could not find his chosen one, and he returned home in a reflective mood. What is the mother? What is the matter? Brother? His sister asked him. So he told her of his trouble, explained his sorrow. What a wonderful ring you have, said the sister, Let me try it on. No, hey, bro um, that wedding ring. Why don't she slap it on this finger? No problems here? Meanwhile,

the water system is poisoned. There's all these policy issues. While this guy has been fucking off putting rings on the random people. People are dying. Meanwhile, we have some incest in progress. This is disgusting. Yeah, this is clearly an HBO show. Yeah. She tried it on her finger, and the ring was firm as firmly fixed as if it had been soldered on, as though it had been made for her. Oh, sister, you are my chosen bride and you must be my wife. What a horrible idea brother,

That would be a sin. But the brother would not listen to a word she said. He danced for joy and told her to make ready for the wedding. She wept bitter tears, went in front of the house and sat on the threshold and let her tears flow. Two old beggars came up, and she gave them to eat and drink. They asked what her trouble was us, and she needs must tell the two. Now weep no more, but do what we say. Make up four dolls and

put them in four corners of your room. After your brother calls you in for the betrothal, go and if he calls you into the bridal chamber, ask for time, trust in God, and follow our advice. And the beggars departed. We need less doll based solutions in this world. I don't know doll into girl to I mean, look, as the owner of many dolls, they have not solved a damn problem. And in fact, they've been an active deterrent. Uh, they've maybe cause more problems then they've solved for me,

thank you very much. You mean because when people come into your house, it's just dolls staring at you from the wall. Yeah, people don't like that, it turns out, Margaret. But people come into your house, they seed nine thousand dollars and they're like, um, interesting, I just got so busy and sick. Okay, So what we should try is we should trade and you can become a sword girl for a while and I'll become a doll girl for a while, and we'll just, yeah, like walking a mile

in each other's shoes. Um, it would be useful because the pigs and valleys of being a doll girl are I feel like I've really lived and I want to know what it feels like to be a sword girl. Also a horse girl. Yeah, I do want to be a horse girl, but horses don't respect my authority and go where they want. And it's hard. I've been saying that for years. Horses are so fucking disrespectful. Yeah. Yeah.

The brother and the sister were betrothed, and he went into the room and cried out, sister mine, come in. I will come in a moment. Brother, I'm only taking off my earrings. And the dolls in the four corners began to sing, cuckoo, Prince Danilo, cuckoo, dio ver leo ku Ku. It's as a brother Kukou weds his sister Kukou. Earth must be split asunder Kukou and the sister lie hid under. Then the earth rose up and slowly started to swallow the sister, and the brother cried out again,

did she do? Oh wait, you're here? Okay, sorry, I'm no, no no, And the brother cried out again, sister mine, come into the feather bed in in a minute, Brother, I am undoing my girdle. And the dolls began to saying, Cuckoo, Prince de nilo, cukoo, giver you hukou. It is a brother Kuku weds his sister Huku. Earth must be split

asunder cuckoo, and the sister lie hid under. Only she had vanished now all but her head, and the brother cried out again, come into the feather bed in, a minute, brother, I am taking off my shoes, and the dolls went on cooing, and she vanished under the earth, and the brother kept crying and crying and crying, and when she never returned, he became angry and ran out to fetch her. He could see nothing but the dolls, which kept singing, so we knocked off their heads and threw them into

the stove. Okay, I actually think I've maybe done this. Had four dolls in the corner while man slowly gets more and more furious and then just sucking bolt. It's like, where are you nothing? Yeah? Yeah. The sister went farther under the earth and she saw a little hut, standing on cox feet and turning round. Hout, she cried out, stand as you should with your back to the wood. Exactly how there's a forest under the earth is not explained,

Just to be clear. I like the idea, I know, right. Yeah, it's very gobliny, and I'm approve of all thanks goblining, especially my dog who was a goblin. So the hut stopped and the doors opened, and a fair maiden looked out. She was knitting a cloth with gold and silver thread. She greeted the guest friendly, and kindly but sighed and said, oh, my darling and my sister, I am so glad to

see you. I shall be glad to look after you and care for you as long as my mother is not here, But as soon as she flies in, woe to you and me, for she is a witch. When she heard this, the maiden was frightened, but could not fly anywhere. I think means like runaway. Okay. I was like, well, yeah, she's a person, yeah, exactly like I can't fly anywhere either. So she's not drink covid anyway, Okay. So she sat down and began helping the other maiden at her work.

So they chattered along, and soon at the right time before the mother came, the fair Maiden turned her guests into a needle because she's totally not a witch herself, turned her guest into a needle, stuck her into the bassom and put it on one side. But scarcely had this been done when Bobby Yaga came in. Now and then everyone's cheering. Everyone at midnight screening's like, yes, there she is, This is why we come here. Oh exactly,

what a rush she's back. Yeah, now, my fair daughter, my little child, tell me at once, why does the room smell so of Russian bones? Classic baba, you know, sniff in that blood. Mother, there have been strange men journey in past who wanted a drink of water? Why did you not keep them? They were too old, mother, much too tough a snack for your teeth. Henceforth, entice them all into the house, and never let them go. I must now go get about again and look out

for other booty. As soon as ever she had gone, the maiden set to work again, knitting, talking and laughing. Then the witch came into the room once more. She sniffed about the house and said, daughter, my sweet daughter, my darling, tell me at once, why does it smells so of Russian bones? Old men who were just passing by, who wanted to warm their hands. I did my best to keep them, but they would not stay. So the

witch was angry, scolded her daughter, and flew away. In the meantime, her unknown guest was sitting in the bassoon. Someone is listening, but I keep thinking bassoon and yeah it makes me laugh. And someone who's listening knows this word, and it's like, what the fund is wrong with you? You had two days to learn how to pronounce it. The maidens once more set to work. Yeah, I do like the bassoon. Okay. Anyway, the maidens once more set to work. So it laughed and thought how they might

escape the evil witch. This time they forgot how. The hours were flying by, and suddenly the witch stood in front of them, darling, tell me where have the Russian bones crept away? Here? My mother, a fair maiden is waiting for you. Daughter, mind darling, heat the oven quickly, make it very hot. If this were like a realistic story, Bobby AGA's daughter would be like, Mom, stop talking about Russian bones. Yeah, it's kind of weird, so embarrassing. I

have a friend over a. Yeah. So the maiden looked up and was frightened to death, for Bobby Aga, with the wooden legs, stood in front of her, and to the ceiling rose her nose. So the mother and daughter carried firewood in logs of oak and maple, made the oven ready till the flames shot up merrily. Then the witch took her broad shovel and said, in a friendly voice,

go and sit on my shovel, fair child. So the maiden obeyed, and the Bobby a god was going to shove her into the oven, but the girl stuck her feet against the wall of the hearth. Will you sit still, girl? But it was not any good. Bobby Aga could not put the maiden into the oven, so she became angry, thrust her back and said, you are simply wasting time. Just look at me and see how it is done. Down she sat on the shovel with her legs nicely

trusted together. So the maidens instantly put her into the oven, shut the oven door and slammed her in, took their knitting with them and their comb in their brush ran away. God, I do love the confidence that it takes to be like, um, this is how you sit on a shovel. Yeah, you're gonna get put in? Yeah yeah, loving it? Yeah? They ran hard away, but when they turned round there was bobby Aga running after them. She had set herself free, some real ex mocking a ship in this Yeah yeah,

who hoo hoo. They're run the two. So the maidens, in their need, threw the brush away and a thick, dense coppice, which is like a bunch of trees a rose, which she could not break through, so she stretched out her claws scratched herself away through and again ran after them. Whither should the two girls flee? They flung their comb behind them, and a dark, murky oak forest grew up so thick no fly could have ever flown its way through. Then the witch wetted her teeth and set to work.

She went on, tearing up one tree after the other by the roots, and she made herself away and again set out after them, and almost caught up with them. I like this one, Vasiline or whatever her name is, Yeah, totally Vasiline the sexy. What was that? Was that? Vasilisa the beautiful? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Vassiline sexy? Yeah, basically. Now, the two girls had no strength left to run, so through the cloth behind them, and a broad sea stretched out, deep,

wide and fiery. The old woman rose up, wanted to fly over it, but fell into the fire and was burned to death. Again with the burning, I know, the poor aiden's, poor homeless dubs did not know whither to go. They sat down in order to rest, and a man came and asked them who they were. He told his master that the two little birds had fluttered onto his estate. The two fairest damsels similar in form and shape, eye for eye and line for line. One was his sister,

but which was it? What is this? Oh? Yeah, okay, the master is the prince. Okay. One was a sister, but which was it? He could not guess. So the Master went to both of them. One was a sister, which the servant had not lied. He did not know them, and she was angry with him and did not say. What shall I do? Asked the master. Master. I will pour blood into an eu skin, put that under my armpit,

and talked to the maiden. In the meantime, I will go and I will stab you in the side with my knife, and then blood will flow, and your sister will betray herself as to who she is the Nothing could go wrong with this plan. This plan is air tight, no notes, what could very well? Yeah, as soon as it was said, it was done. The servants stabbed his master in the side, and the blood poured forth, and he fell down. And Margaret isn't the one who wrote

this story. So then his sister flung herself over him and cried out, oh, my brother, my darling. Then her brother jumped up again, healthy and well. Margaret, if the moral of this story is she should have fucked her brother. I'm gonna I'm gonna break my iPad. Okay, he embraced his sister, gave her a proper husband, and he married her friend. It's not Game of thron, it's got it got for the ring fitted her just as well, and they all lived splendidly and happily. Okay, they did not

stick the landing on that one. I'll be perfectly honest that that that one was going great and then it really turned to dogshit at the end. But like, oh, actually this ring also fits my friend, so you can have sex with her. And yeah, it's brother was so come to the feather bed my ass. That's wow, what a what it can And and also Bobby Yaga gone without Bobby Bobby Yaga. I'm hitting this, everyone says Bobby

Bobby Yaga. And then I just like watched a Russian cartoon where she's like, I'm Bobby Aga and I'm like, okay, cool, that's what I'm gonna try. And second, like, let's go with that one. But she once again, uh disappeared in the middle of the story. Yeah, because she's no one asks, um, how there's a joke here. I don't know. How to

do it? Um okay. I wanted to read this one because sometimes Bobbyaga is what's called in folklore stories a donor, like someone who will give you the stuff you need, right, like the skull with the fire to burn your slightly wicked steps a stepmother, right. And sometimes she's just a cannibal on a chicken hut. And I wanted to give you a taste. Yeah, exactly, um, give you a taste of the cannibal version. So who the fuck is she?

Where did she come from? We'll talk about her name we mentioned a little bit about it last time, and take a little bit more into it. The simplest but sort of an accurate translation is grandmother witch baba meaning grandmother short for babushka um. No, one's really presented a compelling case about the etymology of of yoga, but people have done it, and baba icily means grandmother in tons of Slavic languages. My own Irish grandmother went by baba,

which is not Irish at all. It might actually just be my family being weird, but maybe it's spread elsewhere. I I don't really know. It trips off that I was as you were saying that I realized that I've written on a show where there's the main grandmother characters called Baba, and I was like, wow, my memory is um bad. One of the things I found really interesting I found at least one reference to that um baba as a meaning grandmother is probably derived from the Old

Russian baba meaning midwife, sorceress, or fortune teller. So it's actually like grandma means which not the other way around or whatever. Okay, And I don't I don't hate that. I don't hate that. So basically her names means Granny Yuga the witch as far as I can tell. As a as a folkloric figure, there's actually no known origin.

There's a lot of guesses, and I have some guesses as well that well they're not my own guess is they're the guesses that I prefer esthetically and or I mean, it seemed more convincing out of the stuff what I've read about it. My question is like, in the chronology of witches, do you know, like where where does she come? Is she like an early folkloric which character or somewhere in the middle, or I guess I I there's just been so many witch figures throughout history. I don't really

know where she falls. I haven't done I actually at some point want to do um more of a deep dive into the history of witches. And I have like the stuff that I've read about it and stuff, but that's constantly changing as people present different ideas. So I the answers I don't know. UM I can say that I can because people don't know when she comes from.

It seems like she actually is a very similar actual origin as witches, but as sort of a a mythic figure rather than like, oh, that lady over there will like read the entrails of a chicken, so we should kill her, you know. I like, I mean, I like, I like the variations on like I don't know. I like the flavor of which that she is where it's like she's very powerful. It doesn't seem like the story has a vested interest in doing away with her or

like making a strong I don't know. I I don't think I've encountered this flavor of which before excited well, speaking of flavors of witches, uh, which flavored potato chips that you could buy called witch chips? Our sponsors today's here are some ads and we are back. I'm hoping that which is would be into dill pickle chips, only because I hope that I'm a witch and dill pickle chips are delicious. Have you have either of you ever tried them. I've had dill pickles and I've had chips.

I've had dill pickle chips. They're great. They have no no right to be as good as they are. It's just it's mostly just really loud salt. That's how I would describe the chips sort of. But like, but but what if what if vinegar minded her business and it was just salt screaming at the top of its lungs. It's all capital letters. Salt is what the pickle chip tastes like. And that is like as a sodium head. All right, I love it. I love it. Big sodium guy, um,

huge sodium guy. Yeah. Okay, So Bobby I got started showing up in written sources in the eighteenth century and things that we're talking about. How she's been around for a very long time, like collections of Russian folklore as well as eighteenth century Russian political cartoons. Okay, there are these single panel woodblock prints called love Key that were in the style of the time, and she was a common figure in these woodblock prints as sort of an archetype.

And she was used in a couple of different ways, and people like to argue about People feel very certain about what the interpretation of her and these are, but they disagree with each other, and I have no fucking

way of knowing. Some ways she was used to represent like the old ways and the old beliefs, but an other times she was probably used as like this, like finished lady married the tsar at some point, and it was like, here's this fucking evil which she's going to come funk up our good Christian czar by being finished and therefore like you know, a barbarian or whatever. Okay.

In seventeen fifty five she appeared in writing for maybe the first time, and it was a list of Slavic gods and their Greek counterparts, and so she was listed as a god and in it she was the only god or one of the only gods in that list with no counterpart. There was no counterpart to a Greek god. Wow, that's cool. I know, there's like later p who kind of comparative her sphone, but it wasn't. I think being

done at the time. I mean, I I like that as sort of being canonical to who she is of like she doesn't she has so much like power and intent that she doesn't need a sidekicker counterpart. Like that's amazing. Yeah, and it it makes her basically like unique and like indigenous to that area, and that is going to tie into some of the kind of ship that I find really interesting about it. Um. Okay, But there's one other at a station attestation people talking about her from back

in the day that's super interesting to me. There was this guy, his name was a Chokov MacHale, and he wrote a book in sev two called Dictionary of Russian Superstitions, and I cannot find an English translation of it. I'm very sad, and I almost bought a Russian copy of it because it's that rock and it's all about all the weird pagany ship that people were doing. Um, unlike the weird good normal stuff like being part of a blood drinking called like Christianity. Um, it's all about the

like superstitions. Blood. Yeah. I actually don't remember whether Orthodox. I don't know whether Orthodox believes it literally turns into blood in your body. The way that Catholics did. But um, I know that there was Catholics there too anyway, So it's all about like, well, yeah, Catholics famously chill. It's about blood, blood sacrifices and shamanic marriages and all this like stuff. And he doesn't like superstitions, and as far as anyone can tell, as as far as historians can tell,

he didn't make up anything in the book. But he also wasn't very great about vetting his sources, so he didn't like be like, oh, you know, would be funny as I like if we did this, um, But instead he's just like, oh, I met a guy in the road who told me this, and that's totally what people do, you know. So he's not the strongest source in the world, and this is the one of the main sources we

have about well. He he wrote down a lot of folk tales and folk songs, and he systematized Russian legislation, not in this book, in a different book. He's just like, I feel being like a guy who knows how to write books was like kind of just like a job at the time. I feel like that's what podcasting is right now, where you're like if you know how to do this, you can kind of talk about fucking whatever

or that's I'm banking on that. And in this guy's corner, I'm like, oh, yeah, you can just totally switch areas of expertise because you knew how to write something down. I mean that that is my job, yes, like tychically what we're both doing. He also wrote a book speaking of calendars that the devil could make in such or different sapphic things. He wrote a book called Comely Cook, or Adventures of Lewd Woman. I love him. I'm like yeah. In his seventy two Superstitions book, he talks about an

Eastern Slavic goddess named Yagi Baba. And so this is a pre Baba Yaga character who sits in an iron mortar with an iron pestle in her hand and is a death god. And I think the mortar and pestle for like grinding up the dead right, like like being returned to the earth kind of stuff. And there's very little information about a Yagia Babba and in English, um, basically just like the sentence or two from this guy's book. But people made blood sacrifices to her, which she used

to feed her two granddaughters. And in some Bobby stories she has two granddaughters, and sometimes she has two sisters. So and then the story you just told me she had a daughter, is that correct? Do we know who? Like, how does Bobbo go? Who bon reproduced? Yeah? Who? She? Who? She?

Fucking we will we will get okay good, because it seems like, I mean, at least in the story you just told, it seemed like the daughter was very maybe the I can't imagine Bobby got Jean are recessive, but like she seemed like she didn't have the Babby you got intensity about her. Yeah, yeah, but she was magic and like turned her and turned her friend into a needle and also looked exactly like the friend. I mean, that is some like doppel banger ship, right, Like that

is like oh, cute girls coming to the window. Let me just like, oh I am I am you No, I'm a cute girl. So yeah, that story was wild. I I got, I got, I got sidetracked by the the incest fake out. But there's a lot going on in there. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's it's weird. Um. Yeah, So from as far as I can tell, this seems like this is the main argument that Babbia is based on the Agia Babba is based on an Eastern Slavic goddess, that there's not that much information about the people perform

blood sacrifices. To Vladimir prop Right in the nineties talk about ho Bobby represents the guardian between the land of the living and the forest of the dead, and so this is where she starts getting compared to Persephone in Greek mythology though, the goddess of the harvest who ruled the underworld. M h. And there's actually some stuff about her being like an agricultural god to not Persephone, but um Bobbia god being like kind of an agricultural god.

And there's like some stuff about I actually literally don't remember if I put this in the script later and not, so maybe I'll end up repeating this or skimming past it. But like plowing the earth with her teeth um, and that's like why she has like the wild fucked up teeth, okay,

which is fucking cool. Her hut, her hut faces the forest, which is the land of the dead, and the people have to turn the hot around because they can't walk to the other side because that's the land of the dead in this reading of like the forest representing the land of the dead and death. So they have to turn her house around. Yeah, because okay, when you show up Bobby August houses facing the wrong way and you

have to say like hut hut, turn around and face me. Um, okay, And because you're kind of like, well, why don't you just walk around the house? Like when I think to myself, I would like to be um by the back door of a house, I don't think to myself, how can I entice the house to turn around? I tend to think to myself, I will walk around that. Margaret, you're being too accommodating. You need to ask for what you need if you need the house to turn to you.

And that's self care, and that's practice, and that's pottery class all in one turned to me. Yeah. And so this makes the stories tie into the hero's journey if it's about like the land of the dead and ship right. Um, And I kind of like low ki hate the hero's journey as like a plot structure that is like used for everything. But this concept throughout folklore, especially Western folklore, where you're like going into the land of the dead to return to the land of the living um and

sometimes it's like a death and rebirth. Sometimes that means sometimes I was symbolized by being swallowed by an animal, and so the chicken legs as part of the hut like could be like the house is the animal that you're getting swallowed by when you're being reborn. And so there's this this theory. And I also think that that sometimes the walls are made of bone, right, and certainly the gate walls are made of bone. I feel like

that ties into that too. There's this theory that Bobbia gott and the journey to her it was like this coming of age ritual in the pre Christianized version of all this, and so going on this hero's journey is how these characters become adults. And there's no actual like the people who have done a lot of research about Bobbia go like theorize this, but it's like mostly based on like, well pretty much every other culture we've looked at has this, so they probably did too, we don't know.

And so it's like, yeah, okay. To quote Andreas Johns, who wrote kind of the main English language academic study of Bobbiica, uh, and he's discussing a different author, Vladimir props Ideas quote as the initiation will died out only Bobby AGA's association with death was remembered. With the appearance of agriculture, a new religion replaced older hunting beliefs, and the old divinities were reinterpreted as evil spirits. Your god, the mother and mistress of the beasts, became a witch.

And I actually a little bit there's a lot of like modern anthropological stuff about how like this idea that like everyone was hunters and then suddenly was like, what if we throw the seeds in the ground. Now everyone's agriculture, And like there's been a lot of like anthropological ship about how like ship was like way blurrier than that,

And so I'm like less excited. I'm less quick to believe that has to do with like the coming of agriculture disrupting that traditional form, and probably more of the coming of Christianity that made her a demon, and like all the old gods become like myths or demons instead of God's you know that scans more for me as well. Yeah, yeah, And and so she becomes a boogeyman with coming to Christianity, and if you're obedient and listen to your mother, you

survive your encounter with her. She's the bad mother to be contrasted with the good mother, like we were talking about. And then one of the reasons I find that really interesting is that as I was doing all this reading about rural Slavic and rural Russian kind of like medieval early medieval and stuff families, not everyone lived in a nuclear family. A lot of rural people lived in extended

family units under in one household, under one patriarch. And then even that under one patriarch might be an assumption from patriarchal anthropologist, but I don't know. So a kid grows up with a bunch of mothers because you grow up with like a bunch of family units that are one family unit, because you live rurally and it takes a village to raise a child, right, all right? And the wackiest thing that people like to talk about Bobby at God that I have a unique interest in. She's

also perceived as a a phallic mother to some folklore scholars. Okay, she's unpacked that. Yeah, so she's presented as wielding a pestle and a broom. She has a bony leg and a large nose and making air quotes here, and sometimes she has a giant iron tooth or an iron hook, and she attacks with snakes sometimes and sometimes she has an entire army. These are all like masculine traits, and some of them are like penis traits, according to people who are under the like psycho sexual ship that I

don't really believe in personally. Yeah, so to quote Andreas John's about this again. Some psychologists have interpreted fantasies about phallic women as an expression of male castration anxiety. As frightening as the fantasies of phallic women may be themselves, they serve to deny women's genital difference and the more frightening possibility that a man might lose his penis. Freud states that the snakes which form Medusa's hair are quote

derived are are derived from the castration complex. It is a remarkable fact that, however frightening they may be in themselves, they never less sort of actually as a mitigation of the horror of Medusa, because they replaced the penis, the absence of which causes the horror. Huh. I think this is a bullshit. But I hear Freddian theory and I'm just like, sounds like it might have been more of a him thing, and uh, this is not our this is maybe not the collective issue that we're making it

out to be. Yeah, the whole like well you would say that is having penis of it, never the penis envy ship, the phallic woman thing. It's like and like, okay, so there's this a concept of like the phallic woman, and which is writing. Broomsticks is another example of this.

And there's like people who have written all the ship about Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a phallic woman because like she runs around staking people, right, and I'm just like weapons are pointing and sharp, like I know, I know he's like I didn't like the tree isaginal weapon like a net? I guess um yeah, no, no, it's it's um. I mean it's interesting to me because I'm interested in trying to explore like the concepts of transness throughout history and ship and so less is the like

phallack mother. But there's like this like it's this like male, I don't put this Okay, So it's like Shroedinger's genitals in the unobserved state a man or a woman could have any set of genitals, and so witches and Bobby Got could have anything. And it's like presented as like, that's part of the fear of witches and these like masculinized women is that they like could have dicks, and I think it's I think it's horseship. But the part of it I like is like, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I I know some women with dicks. And just the phrase Shrodinger's genitals stop being my tracks and I'll never move again. It's so good. That was an unbelievable turn of phrase. Thank you for that. Yeah, no, yeah, thanks uh and so okay, so this makes her like a potentially transfigure um and and in the ways in which she was a fertility goddess actually tie into that in that like, um like because she's she's the one

plowing the fields. There's like fertility shit about the like masculine act rather than the receptive whatever fucking nonsense that people are into that ship. Yeah, and she also seems similar to stop talking about drunk for a moment. She seems similar to me, to another another goddess, another Slavic goddess named Mokosh is a deaf god and a mother goddess and Mokosh is the ruler of death and fertility,

life and rebirth. And she's like more famous because she was one of the gods who was sort of like h canonized essentially, like not by the Christians, but by like a a formal codification of some of the pagan ship that was happening. She was the only girl that got just like the weird guy's book, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

This is like there's like more like statues and shipped to Mokosh around and like and like, um, I wish i'd remember wrote down more exactly, but like a guy who like formalized a lot of the pagan ship only picked one girl and picked Mokosh. And she's the ruler of death and fertility, life and rebirth. Her name probably means moisture, which rules. And she's related to another Slavic goddess. Go ahead, not sorry, just folklore. Sometimes you're like I guess,

so yeah, sure, great, Yeah. She's related to another slav At goddess, matt Zemla, who is called the moist Mother Earth. And in the nineteenth century, the two goddesses Mocash and Matt Zamiela sort of became one in a lot of like people's minds and stuff. Um, and the relationship is like super fuzzy, like sometimes they're related and sometimes they're not.

Like and Mokosh, there are claims that she has been portrayed with male genitals throughout time, and so you know, transgoddess is for the wind from from my book, um, and Mokosh probably came from the fins like Bobby Agamida, which we'll get to in a bit or I guess we get to it now. Okay, I want to talk about chicken. Yeah, yeah, yes, okay, this is the part that I feel most confident about. I know where the chicken legged hut comes from. I can't believe you've We've

been here, We've been here for two hours. Tell me, all right, does the chicken well, it probably comes from the vendors of No. I'm going to give you the actual answer, but first we have to do an ad pivot. Oh my god, advertisers support the economy that we all participated in gladly. We're all so excited about the way the economy works. Sophie's shaking her head and disbelieve it. How well I'm doing my job. Listen to the ads so I can hear where this damn chicken leg hunt

comes from. Already, all right, ads, ads over, Okay, I want you to google what you you're actually at an I pad, you might not be able to do this. I gotta, I gotta phone, I gotta telephone. What's up? Okay? I want you to google, Um, Sammy s a m I storehouse and an image searches say, Sammy storehouse. Oh god, my tabs are so embarrassing. I just had I just had to open the Minion's menu at eyehop so I can type this in Sammy storehouse. Okay, And we're hitting images. Oh,

this building has gams. Yeah, that is a chicken leg at hut Okay, okay, so that so it's I'm looking at um. The first result is kind of a log cabin, but it's got it's got sexy little legs. It's got four four sexy legs, which is chickens don't well. But her hot sometimes has four legs, sometimes as two and sometimes as four. This I can I'll tell you about it. Yeah, are these still? Are these still feasible? Can we still

do this, So I don't know. I mean, yeah, you can certainly build that, and and the some Sami folks still do. So this comes this chicken legged hut. As far as I can tell, and as far as a lot of other people can tell, I didn't come up with this idea. Um. It comes from the Sami people, who are indigenous to what is usually has historically been called Lapland, but is better known as a Sami Um, which is northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and like the northwestern

bits of Russia. And for centuries, the Sami actually had little contact with the Germanic Scandinavians who lived in southern Scandinavia UM, which is like the Vikings and the Norse and Germanic gods and all that ship. The Sami had their own fucking thing going on and still do. They lived in places that were too barren to cultivate, so they were left alone for a long time. UM. Coastal Sami traditionally sustained themselves as fishers, while those in the

interior traditionally heard reindeer. The nineteenth century caused force assimilation project of quote civilizing them as part sad and true, banning their languages, giving incentives to settlers to move into their territory. Their children were taken to residential schools to

have their culture destroyed. All the usual colonizers ship. These days, Sami lands are being exploited for mineral and oil and gas resources, disturbing the reindeer um and I don't know, um, just destroying an entire indigenous Yeah, because I think that's something that people don't recognize enough, is that colonization happens everywhere in the world. Um. And you know, indigenous people

getting shoved into states and then oppressed happens sucking everywhere. Interestingly, this is a theme that is explored in the movie Frozen two. That's cool. Yeah, that's just a fact. Yeah. I mean I have not heard about the um about Sami culture before. This is all new to me, okay, And so many of them, the Sammi were traditionally migratory, the folks who would follow the reindeer and heard reindeer, and so they built storehouses on stilts for all the

stuff that they weren't taking with them on migration. And I've read this both as storehouses of dried food, like you know, all the stuff that they prepare and they're like, why can't we can't take all this with us. I've also read it as storehouses of just like stuff, like all the stuff that when we come back here we're gonna want. And so wild animals can't get in because the stilts and sometimes they didn't have windows, and the stilts were sometimes for tree trunks with their roots looking

like chicken feet. And yeah, I I cannot imagine after seeing this sort of image, I cannot imagine another origin of this, because, um, the you know, the Slavs were, if at their like wildest, venturing into the far birch forests, you know, um, and traditionally Bobby Aga lives in birch forest. That's when you would be encountering something like this. I mean visually it is so fucking cool looking, Like I get why the image stuck because it it looks amazing. Yeah, totally.

And so the Sami aren't fins, right, There's a lot of different groups of people that share that little sort of vague. Um, it's not part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Finland part. But there are several Finnish ogresses, one of him is good and one of whom is bad. Who are seen as potential origins of Bobby a gaswell, or like influences on it that like Bobby Gas like both of those ogresses at once, and one more weird

thing that ties into the Bobby a myth. Now she's like shoving, um, shoving our protagonist into the oven on the like shovel or whatever into the huge oven. Boy do I okay? Well? Um? There was this Eastern Slavic traditional healing method called baking children where if the kid is sick, especially like a child who's born too early or like some other issues, you put them in the oven for a while, um not too hot obviously, instead of timer because it's easy to get distracted, you know,

like I get yeah, yeah, we've all been there. So that was a thing that people did, and it's like almost certainly the origin of the the The person who knows the traditional methods is like the evil witch who bakes children. Right, I feel, Okay, this did it work? I don't know the answer to that. I think there are probab probably some things that would have helped with

but I do not know. And I think that they did it in a way to your kid, Yeah, just made made it afraid of enclosed spaces for the rest of her life. What Yeah, wow, Freud would have had a fucking field day with us back into the womb ship too. It was a fucking weirdo. I just like, you know, uh that is um okay, so so bad witches put like baked children? Yeah yeah, question mark okay, okay, so that ogresses in this case. Yeah, well yes, sometimes

you know, sometimes she's an over us. And so, as far as I can tell, basically, Bobby Aga in post Christian folklore represents the fear of the pagan other, especially the sort of like indigenous pagan other, the knowledgeable, strange people in the woods in Siberia, it seems like Bobby Aga represents the fear of the indigenous people out there. And then in western Russia it was like the indigenous people who lived there are like the the people who

are being mothered by this. And I think that this ties into how she can always smell the Russian blood because she's not Russian. She's a foreigner. She's not from a different place, but she's from a foreign culture because Russia, clearly, you know, it's a very large place. And so it's that colonial storytelling tradition of um, implying that all of the evil comes from the indigenous character. That's being Okay, Yeah, that that's my organized And then it might be more

of like just purely about paganism. Um, it might be more a bunch of other stuff, but that that is my read of it, Okay. But she's also got the like entrancing power of the other two, right, because she's not just a villain. She's the villain in about two thirds of the stories she's in, and she's almost unique and folk and folklore because overall she's like this bad bit who eats kids. But she's the representation of the catalyst of change that's necessary in any person's life. People

have described as like the god of tough love. That's a cool that's a cool tital I could use that. And I like how a lot of the kind of pre Christian beliefs or morals like survive in monsters. I really have this whole thing where I really like monsters. And to quote Madame Pemita writing for Bust, if we look back even further, we see her in her truer guys as the forest Mother, the guardian of the woods. This is where her dicey nature comes in for our ancestors.

The wild was truly ambiguous. Nature provided food, materials, and beauty, but it could also be devil you, devour you, and destroy you. Babba Yaga is just like that, cruel one moment and achingly sweet and generous the next. An ancient Slavic paganism of three planes of existence. There's the middle world where we all live. We've the upper world where the gods hang out, and then you have the lower world, which isn't hell. It's like where the plant spirits and

the animals and like the mythical things hang out. And Bobby as like lower world all the way. Okay, I I like that, uh that kind of not I I don't even know if that's a hierarchy, but I like I like that concept of the lower world. Yeah, yeah, me too. I want to learn more about a lot of this stuff, like because a lot of this is like mentioned in Passing and stuff about Bobby at God. And then I like start digging into it because I get excited, and then I remember that I um have

to eventually finished projects. But even like the concept of the forest beneath the ground and like stuff like that, it just I don't know all of that imagery is so cool. Yeah, totally, um, and so so Christian Russians don't actually have to go very far to find a pagan other. There's been an unbroken tradition of paganism right

to the present day within Russia. Um, about five miles east of Moscow, there the Mari people who are ethnically finn U grick I believe, and they claim that their religion is about seven thousand, five and thirty years old. And when I say about, I mean they claim that their religion is seven thousand, five and thirty years old. I was like, that's a very precise about um, which

which implies that they have a specific start date. Yeah, and in so many ways they're just like the archetypical pagans that people when they think about European paganism, Um, they're polytheists. They meet in sacred groves instead of churches, and and they've run across some problems over the years. You'd think that, Um, the history of history is the history of people accepting religious differences. That's I mean, that's the way I've understood it, and I've only read books

from the winners, So I think that that's probably chill. Yeah, they're like, oh, we totally accepted them. And then they just stopped believing what they believed peacefully. Yeah, there's a holiday about that coming up. Garbage. Sorry, continue. So the problems that they've run into first, they ran into the problems of Christians. Russia started christianizing more intensely around the yearth a thousand, and a lot of Pagans had to resettle or do what Christianized people have done all over

the world, especially Catholics, they syncretize. Um, there's this like dual faith thing that people have going on where people managed successfully for hundreds of years, if not thousands of years, where they're like, oh, yeah, I'm like Catholic or Orthodox or whatever, and then they go out to the glade and keep up their actual religion. And so a lot of the Mari religious believers were practicing that, and then they had a bigger problem the Bolsheviks. When the Bolsheviks

took over Russia created the USSR. They didn't like religion, sort of a classic thing. Mosques and churches were raised all over, and so were the sacred growths. They would run through and be like, that's also a thing you're not allowed to do. One Mari practitioner describes life under the Soviet Union about how they creep into the forest to practice. Quote the police, fervent atheists, communists would come. They kicked over our cauldrons and chased us away. And

that was mostly the seventies and eighties. I think a lot of the more intense anti religious stuff that was happening. But again, this is like a thing I like to have touched on peripherally but not dive deep into. Yeah, I'm interested. I mean every uh, every sort of like alley this story leads down. Is that's wild. After the fall of the uss are the practice started back up again, more more openly, until the other classic monster on the world stage Putin. Yeah oh Putin Uh is not a

huge supporter of religious freedom. Yeah, no, weirdly um persecution And the article I'm reading is about who that's talking about. This is from about when it was like starting to kick back in. I have not been able to find the follow up about Putin changing his mind and suddenly

being very tolerant. And he actually specifically used an anti extremist law that persecutes a ton of religions UM like Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses and the Marii Pagans, where it's like if you're book is like, hey, our practices are cool. We don't like churches. They're like, that's extremism because you said this other thing. Okay, And so I don't know. I don't know. I think putin bait and swing. Yeah. Yeah, And I don't know a ton about them. But they're

still around, They're still doing their thing. They consciously stand in solidarity with indigenous and pagan religions the world round, especially as relates to climate change. One practitioner said, they say, we need to increase consumption to get out of the economic crisis, but if we all start to consume on the level of England or America will destroy the earth within a decade. So at least on this level, I like them, you know. I was like, yeah that, I'm

I'm on board with that. Yeah, I'm so, I'm I wanna learn more about this. Yeah. So back to bubbya Got. The thing is, she's never centered in the story. She's never the protagonist. She's a force of nature that people contend with. No One ever asks how is Bobby Aga? They only ask um, you know about about the arch Crone, the bone Mother. These are other names I found for Um.

The way you're describing this, it cracks me up. It just like sounds like you're like teeing up to pitch a really shitty Disney Plus series about like people always ask like no one ever asked how is Bobby and in this reboot starring insert a woman here, This is a this is a terrible Catherine Han mini series rating to happen. I think we can do it well, I've been This has all been my long pitch to to get you as co writer. I'm in. I'm in, baby,

all right. She's almost never married in any of the stories, which good for her, right, sometimes she has children or grandchildren. She's clearly doing what she wants even when she has children and is unmarried. So fuck yeah. Um. There's one guy she sometimes represented as hooking up with another pagan fear of the other guy. And his name is Coche the Deathless, and he's kind of cool because his name is I mean, it's a cool name. I mean, I was like, I'm i I'm I'm into the name. What

does deal? Well, Jamie, I'm glad you asked. He's a weird and more immortal wizard warrior guy who can't die because he hides his soul and objects like in a needle and an egg and a duck and a hair and a chest buried on a far island. All right, well, none of this is disqualifying to me, so continue. He's got a ton of magical items, and he has a super fast magical horse. In one story, he gets this

horse from Bobby at Goa. And sometimes the horse is three legs, sometimes a seven legs, sometimes has the normal boring amount of legs. And this guy is probably or at least has been conjectured in a way that I find convincing enough to make this in action, because it's entertaining. He might have been an actual guy. Uh. There was a twelfth century pagan Cohn of the of the Kuman people named Khan con Check, who maybe let us he had the hardest time finding this part out. I'm like,

maybe he led a slave uprising. I'm not sure. Um, I don't feel confident about that. But he also is conjectured to have like lived over a hundred years old, unless maybe his kid was using his name too. But basically he was the immortal because Um, he lived over he like saw six generations of people, and so everyone's like that guy is never gonna fucking die. He keeps sucking conquering everything because everyone lived six years back. Yeah, exactly.

And he wore an ombulet of protection that was an arrow head inside of an egg shape, and so that's probably where you get the like needle in the egg and the dock and the goose and the hole in the bottom of the sea. There's a hole. There's a hole. There's a hole in the bottom of the sea. I was like, keep going, keep And since he was a successful battle guy, he was a pagan, he became a batty, right.

I mean most battle guys are batties to be to be real that what they do is run around hit people with swords, which is like not usually a polite thing to do. It's not usually smiled upon in polite society. Um. But because him and Bobby and God were both baddies, people like to ship them together and sometimes they got together in stories and that's so God. I love when you're like, yeah, folk like folk tales and fan fiction, are they live in the same neighborhood. And it was

we're just like, uh, they're both pretty bad. What if they fucked totally? Totally? People have been horny for so long. And you know that's my controversial statement. Since he hid his soul and other objects, we could call this book which for lich swish. Yeah, thanks, um And and that's what I've got about Bobby A gum cool. I love

Bob the as I was, Um I was. I googled, I hit Google images bravely to see, like what different interpretations of her look like, and it is like, well, I mean, I think we talked about this in the last episode, but all of the kind of cartoon like anti an't I any woman who isn't like aggressively Western beauty standards. You've got the cartoon anti semitism, and you also have Bobby Agawa was an antagonist in a Miyazaki movie which I didn't realize. I haven't seen it. Have

you seen it? Which movie is it in? Um? It's when I haven't seen. Sorry, it's um the main antagonist and Mr Dough and the Egg Princess. She brings the Egg Princess to life. Her home is the Castle of the Dark Forest. Seems like a loose interpretation, but I think this is a short film, but I wanna I want to go back and watch it now to see how Miyazaki interpreted. But she was still a cannibal okay okay.

And and also, um, if you're familiar with the Miyazaki character you Baba from Spirit in a way which I have seen, I guess that Bobby Yaga has you Baba energy as well. I was like, oh, I want to see more Bobby Yaga. Seems like there should be more modern interpretations of She's cool. I know there's a um. I watched a Lost Girl episode, um, Bobby Aga in

preparation for this. I've never actually seen Lost Girl, and my friend was like, what the fun and then it was and then described it as in the genre of entertainment that is people who fight demons and quip. Oh see, that's what I like. That that can be you You got to be in the right mood, but that can be a good genre. I have written to novellas that are people who fight demons and quips, So I like, I'm into it. Yeah, you're damn good at it, thank you,

thank you. M Yeah. No. And there is the Japanese analogue. I didn't get into it more. There's like um, comparisons that made and to two cultures especially nearby like Japan and Siberia, and I want to know more about how all of that traces around. Um. But that is also the stuff that people get doctorates in. I'm a lowly the equivalent of the the guy who writes the like I'll write down your legal structure and write erotic fan fick about a maid. Um. Yeah, I think that that

is a beautiful place to be. That is a culturally significant and impactful place to be. Thanks, well, this has been so fascinating. Yeah. Uh, if people want to hear you occupy that cultural space, how can they do so? Yes, Uh, you can do all sorts of stuff. I was because we're talking about Baba, I would recommend watching a show called Teenage Euthanasia, in which there is a character named Baba written on the show for a couple of years. It's streaming on HBO Max. It's a really fun show, um,

and Baba is also kind of a mystical, mysterious figure. Um. You can also preorder my book Raw Dog, which is about hot dogs, which Baba you got famously loves, and you can listen to any of my podcasts about extremely specific topic on cool Zone Media, I ever heard of it, Sophie. Anything you want to plug, just follow up closon media on Instagram and Twitter for all the all the things, um and then and then and then Margaret, Robert Evans and myself will be doing a special live stream I

believe on December eighth. More details to come, um, but it's going to be a good time. And if you want to read my Fight Demons and Quip book, uh, the first one is called The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion and the second one is called the Barrel Will Send what it May. And yes, I realized I named my books things that no one remembers. But the Lamb will Slaughter the Lion or just like Margaret Killjoy books will probably do that for you as a blue cover, the cool cover. And you can hear us next week

when we talk about more things. Hi, Hi, Hi, cool people. Who did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. But more podcasts and cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Zo