Baba Yaga - Slavic

The deep woods have a breath of their own, cold and smelling of damp earth and pine. My name is Vasilisa, and I was sent here on a fool's errand by a stepmother who wished she had never seen my face. 'Go to my sister in the forest,' she said with a cruel smile, 'and ask for a light.' But she didn't have a sister in the forest; she was sending me to the one whose name is only whispered, the wild woman of the woods. This is the story of how I met the fearsome Baba Yaga. I walked for what felt like days, my only comfort a small wooden doll my mother had given me before she passed away. 'Keep this with you always,' she had said. 'If you are ever in trouble, give it a little food and ask for its advice.' The trees grew so thick their branches knitted together, a dense canopy that blocked out the sun and plunged the path into twilight. As I journeyed deeper, strange horsemen rode past me on silent hooves. First came a rider dressed in brilliant white, mounted on a white horse with white tack, and as he passed, the dim forest brightened into day. Hours later, a rider in crimson on a red horse galloped by, and the sun rose high in the sky. Finally, as my courage began to falter, a rider cloaked in black on a black horse appeared, and with his passing, night fell like a curtain. My doll, tucked safely in my pocket, whispered advice in my ear, telling me to keep walking, and so I did. At last, I saw it: a strange, gruesome fence made of human bones, topped with skulls whose empty eye sockets glowed with an eerie, internal fire. Behind it stood a hut that defied all reason, for it spun and danced on a pair of enormous, scaly chicken legs.

Suddenly, a sound like a hurricane roared through the trees. The ground trembled as a giant mortar came crashing through the forest, with Baba Yaga steering it with a pestle and sweeping her tracks away with a broom. She was gaunt and fierce, with a nose so long it nearly touched the ceiling of her hut and teeth made of sharpened iron. 'What do you want?' she screeched, her voice like grinding stones. Trembling, I held my ground and explained my stepmother's request for a light. 'Very well,' she rasped, her glowing eyes narrowing. 'You will work for it. If you complete my tasks, you shall have your fire. If you fail, you will be my dinner.' She set me to tasks meant to be impossible. First, I had to clean the yard, sweep the hut, cook her dinner, and separate a bushel of mildewed corn from a bushel of poppy seeds, kernel by tiny kernel, all before she returned. As I wept in despair, my little doll hopped out of my pocket. 'Do not worry, Vasilisa,' it whispered. 'Eat your dinner and go to sleep. The morning is wiser than the evening.' I did as it said, and when I awoke, the work was miraculously done. The next day, she gave me another task: separate a pile of dirt from a pile of seeds. Again, the doll helped me. Baba Yaga was suspicious but seemed grudgingly impressed. 'I will be away for a time,' she announced. 'When I return, I will ask you some questions. But be warned, not every question should be asked.' While she was gone, I asked my doll for advice. 'Only ask about what you saw outside the hut, not inside,' it counseled. When Baba Yaga returned, I asked about the horsemen. 'Those are my faithful servants,' she cackled. 'The white one is my Bright Day, the red one is my Red Sun, and the black one is my Dark Midnight.' When she allowed me one question in return, I remembered my doll's warning. 'You are wise for your years,' she grumbled. 'How did you complete my tasks?' I answered truthfully, 'I was helped by my mother's blessing.' At the mention of a blessing, she shrieked, for she could not stand anything so good and pure. 'Get out of my house, blessed girl! I'll have no blessings here! You have earned your fire.'

The old witch stomped to her ghastly fence and took one of the skulls from its post, its eyes burning with an unholy flame. She mounted it on a stick and thrust it into my hands. 'Here is your light,' she said, her iron teeth glinting. 'Take it to your stepmother. This is what she sent you for.' I thanked her and ran from that terrible place, the skull lighting my way through the oppressive darkness of the forest. I did not dare look back. When I finally arrived home, my stepmother and stepsisters were shocked to see me alive, but their surprise quickly turned to greed when they saw the fiery skull. But as they approached it, the skull's fiery eyes fixed on them, and the flames leaped out, pursuing them relentlessly. The fire burned them until nothing was left but a pile of ash, a swift and terrible justice for their wickedness. Baba Yaga, you see, is not simply a monster. She is a force of nature, a test of the soul. She helps those who are brave, clever, and pure of heart, and she is the end for those who are cruel and dishonest. The story of Baba Yaga has been told for centuries around hearthfires in Slavic lands, a reminder that the world holds both darkness and wisdom. She teaches us to face our fears, to trust our intuition, and to know that courage and kindness have a power that even the darkest magic must respect. Today, she still stomps through our stories, our art, and our imaginations, a wild and powerful symbol of the untamed spirit that lives in the deep woods and within ourselves, forever challenging us to be wise and brave.