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Author
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Comment
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dorisi
Registered User
(9/9/02 4:05:20 pm)
ezSupporter
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baba yaga
I'm giving a talk next month which will include some reference to Baba Yaga, the Russian witch who lives in a hut which stands on chicken legs. I'm interested in what the significance of the chicken legs is, i.e. why chickens as opposed to any other bird or animal? Apart from being curious, I'm also deeply envious - instead of having to get out of bed on a cold and frosty morning, you could just get your house to walk to work. It could also lead to a string of 'Why did the house cross the road...' jokes.
Warm wishes from Downunder,
Doris
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Midori
Unregistered User
(9/9/02 5:07:54 pm)
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chicken legs
Hah! I so agreee with you about the house with chicken legs. I have a great illustration of it in a children's book and for year my daughter wanted one--this variant also had a lovely refrain of Baba
Yaga exclaiming come sort of endearment to the chickens legs to set the house down when she wished to leave--my kids would call out in the vain hopes that our house would sprout such long, scrawny and delightful appendages...alas it has remained fixed and squat.
As to why chicken legs...I think it can be interpreted in a number of ways...and I'm not married to any of these ideas...they are just sort of popping up. Baba Yaga is that curious mix of domestic and
witch--mother and cannibal hag, helper to the hero (or heroine) in the guise of a ferocious grandmother with iron teeth. I think the chicken legs sort of reinforce this lovely ambiguity--the domestic with the dangerous, the tame with the wild and the oddity in a cannibal's household to use chicken legs for transport but human beings as the occasional dinner.In some versions Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar and pestle--another one of those domestic implements of a woman's life long
labor turned to a new purpose. And her choice of weapon (beyond those great teeth and long nails)..
the oven.
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Helen
Registered User
(9/9/02 5:43:23 pm)
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Popular opinion has it ...
This is one of those things that I plan to look into if I ever manage to find funding for a research trip to the Motherland ... till then, I depend on the expert opinions of Ivanits, Haney, and Warner (oh, my). The former two don't say much on this topic, unfortunately; Warner notes that
"[The] odd reference to the foundations of the house has never been satisfactorily explained. Propp suggested that the izbushka [hut] was a domestic descendent of the zoomorphic initiation huts in which neophytes were symbolically swallowed by the 'monster' in order to be 'regurgitated' later as adults. Others saw a reference to the chickens traditionally sacrificed in the foundations of a new building. Alternatively, this may be a visual image of a primitive building method, whereby a hut would be raised at its four corners on a pile of flat stones or even on untrimmed tree trunks, with their roots still intact, as a protection against damp. This ... [may have] ... created the impression that the hut had legs and feet." (Warner, Elizabeth. _Russian Myths_, University of Texas Press, 2002, pp. 75)
My own favorite etiology has to come from Orson Scott Card's _Enchantment_, where Baba Yaga visits the future, temporarily "borrows" a 747, and comes away from the encounter thinking that there just might be something to this whole mobile dwelling thing ...
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Nalo
Registered User
(9/9/02 6:31:21 pm)
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Re: chicken legs
I'm with Midori; the chicken legs have always made so much *sense* to me, because Baba Yaga's magic is women's magic, which meant domestic magic. Chickens are arguably the world's most domestic food, and in some places, you don't eat the chicken legs, because they take a lot of prep and you don't get much meat for the work. So chicken legs get cut off and discarded. Disembodied chicken legs can be a common sight if you live in a place where you actually kill your own food animals. To me, chicken legs and riding in a mortar pestle felt like the Eastern European equivalent of the (also domestic) broomsticks and eggs that feature in so many of the (Brit? Celtic? Anglo/Franco/Germanic? What *does* one say to distinguish them) folk tales that are common currency in the west.
But it's just a feeling of mine, with nothing to back it up.
It amuses me to think that chicken legs and mortar pestles also feels very African, which is probably just a coincidence. Though isn't that where chickens (Guinea hens) originated? Oh, some days I'd give my eyeteeth for a copy of the Cambridge World Encyclopedia of Food!
-nalo
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Midori
Unregistered User
(9/9/02 7:06:26 pm)
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cluck
Nalo,
well it's not the Cambridge but I do happen to have a "History of Food" (from Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat). Chickens have been around a good long time--they reached the Western world in Greece about 5th century...a descendant from the russet-colored "magapode or mound bird of Malaysia. It was first domesticated in the valley of the Indus and went to Persia when commercial contracts began. It reached Greece by way of Lydia, the country of King Croesus, famed for his wealth." The Romans invented capons after sumptuary laws forbade the overfeeding of grain to fatten hens...
God sometimes I just love encyclopedias...what follows is a twenty page description of everything you ever thought you wanted to know about fowl...(yes, the Guinee Hen came originally from Egypt and kept being forgotten and then reintroduced into Western diet--the Portuguese were big on it--thought it was good for invalids.)
But seriously, speaking of chickens, (it's so hard to do irony in email) they do show up in a lot of interesting places. I read a Persian story where the hero's task is to correctly carve the chicken at a dinner...he does so, the back to the mother, who carries her family, the wings to the daughter who flies away in marriage, the legs to the son who runs to do his father's bidding, and the head to the father who is the head of the household.
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dorisi
Registered User
(9/9/02 7:09:58 pm)
ezSupporter
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Re: chicken legs
Thanks Midori and Helen. I too love the mix of domesticity and danger that Baba Yaga carries with her. The chickens had also reminded me of voodoo practices? I love the pestle- power travelling vehicle (I guess when you want to speed up, you just have to pestle faster). It reminds me of a wonderful trio of children's books by Beverly Nicholls - The Tree That Sat Down, The Stream That Stood Still and The Magic Mountain. They feature a gloriously wicked witch, Miss Smith, who is actually 300 years old but very good with make-up, so that people think she's a lissome young thing in her twenties (Revlon obviously haven't cottoned on to her yet - who needs Cindy when they could have Miss Smith). She's in love with a skeleton (she keeps him in a closet), and, being a modern witch, rides around on a Hoover. The books are actually a biting satire on the culture of consumerism. This, of course, you only realise when you re-read them as an adult.
Is OSC's Enchantment, a short story? I haven't come across it. It sounds wonderful.
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Helen
Registered User
(9/9/02 7:29:41 pm)
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Enchantment ...
It's a novel, actually, based on the premise of a young scholar who goes to Russia to prove Propp's theory of an ur-tale getting a lot more than he was bargaining for ... OSC uses Sleeping Beauty, Bear, Baba Yaga, and the ubiquitous Ivan of Russian folktales to great effect, also managing to present a wonderfully accurate picture of both immigration and academia. I highly recommend it - it only came out a few years ago, and ought to still be in print.
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Janeyolen
Unregistered User
(9/9/02 10:43:17 pm)
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chicken legs
I know everyone is getting tired of my saying "I wrote about that.. ." but in the spring I have a picture book called THE FLYING WITCH that is a Baba Yaga story (original) in which a little girl falls off the turnip truck (!) and is found by Baba Yaga as she flies about in her mortal and pestle.
I, too, adore the chicken-legged hut. How it turns and squats. How it hatches out the witch every morning.
However, I want to slightly correct something Midori said about chicken legs. When my husband and I were working in a kibbutz in Israel (back in the mid 60s) chicken legs were always floating in the chicken soup. So not every impoverished culture discards them.
Jane
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dorisi
Registered User
(9/10/02 1:41:35 am)
ezSupporter
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Re: chicken legs
Another Baba Yaga question: As well as strolling around, her hut also spins - I had the feeling that the spinning had something to do with the seasons and/or light? Does anyone know?
Midori, I loved your ‘choice of weapon' phrase. I keep thinking of duelling Baba Yagas - ‘ovens at dawn'. And in their tournaments, the Baba Yagas would have oven-shoving contests.
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Helen
Registered User
(9/10/02 5:46:08 am)
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Ahem ...
You know, that's an image that I always liked ... the plural archetypes fighting it out, or simply enjoying one anothers company (Baba Yaga, the witch from "Hansel and Gretel," and the ogress from "The Sun, the Moon, and Talia" sitting around somewhaere, squabbling about the best form of transportation, sharing recipes ...).
BTW, Jane: I seriously doubt that any of us could feel anything other than overjoyed at the mention of your work. Personally, I'm thrilled, and somewhat awestruck, by how much material you've addressed... Has anyone written a Jane Yolen reader?
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(9/10/02 6:02:02 am)
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Turning and revolving
Propp had something to say about Baba Yaga's hut in his piece on transformations of the fairy tale... the translation from the Russian made his argument, or suggestion, more obscure than I think it really is, but I believe what he wrote was that the original (most common? basic?) form was "turning," i.e., the hut turns so the entrance is always facing the visitor, but this was sometimes "transformed" into "revolving." In Russian, "to turn" as a transitive verb (e.g., she turned the doorknob) is vrashchat' or vyertyet'; intransitive ("to revolve," something turns by itself) is the reflexive form vrashchat'sya OR again, I think, vyertyet'. I'm not at all up on my Russian usage, so there are likely subtleties here that I've missed or forgotten, but you can see that the linguistic differences are small compared to English and a slight change in wording or suffixation could alter the imagery in this way. Which does not address the "interest," to cop a term from Boas, of the image of the *revolving* as opposed to the merely insistent hut.
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swood
Unregistered User
(9/10/02 6:09:36 am)
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Chickens - Cambridge World History of Food
Ha! I work for Cambridge University Press and this is one of the few times my job has ever afforded an advantage.
The chicken, according to the Cambridge World History of Food, "is generally considered to have evolved from the jungle fowl (G. fallus), which ranges throughout the area between eastern India and Java..." earliest evidenc of domestication is found at Neolithic sites in China, (6000 - 4000 BC), but because there are no wild ancestors to the domestic chicken in China (the climate is wrong) scholars believe domestication occurred in Southeast Asia (Thailand). Scholars have also argued that all contemporary chickens share genetic traits with wild fowl in Thailand, supporting the idea that chickens originated from one source, rather than being domesticated simultaneously world wide.
The entry (which is quite long) notes that chickens, while associated with egg production in European context, have very different associations elsewhere, as they were often bred for fighting and decorative purposes. In Japan chickens were not used for food until the 19C!
Chickens did not reach Africa until the third to first millenium BC and are believed to be introduced via the Nile Valley or through early Greco-Roman east trade routes.
There is a second, long, entry about the egg, but I'm uncertain how useful it would be in this forum. Please let me know if you have any other questions.
My vote is for the domestic orgins of witchcraft, in addition to the folkloric value of animal sacrifice. Chickens remain quite important to ritual magic, but I know very little about this so I will let someone else who has more familiarity with the subject explore it.
Sarah
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Midori
Unregistered User
(9/10/02 6:12:10 am)
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turning
I always imagined it as an intimidating moment--as though the house like an extension of Baba Yaga, senses the approach of someone and turns to offer the front door--both as an invitation and perhaps to intimidate just a little--no one could ever sneak on the woman--there is no back door escape.
Revolving merrily doesn't have for me quite the same impact as a house suddenly turning to confront one with windowy eyes and a mouth like door. (why am I instantly reminded of a Betty Boop cartoon??)
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Majicou
Registered User
(9/10/02 7:43:58 am)
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Re: baba yaga
I can't help but imagine a Baba Yaga the ride. Chicken legs a story tall with a rotating hut on top. Take that enchanted castle and tea cups!
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Nalo
Registered User
(9/11/02 3:15:58 pm)
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Re: chicken legs
Jane, I'm the one who talked about cutting off chicken legs. But we didn't cut them off either, in the Caribbean. They make great soup, once you've peeled off the yellow skin that's more like thick cellophane than skin, and cut off the the first knuckle of every toe so that you don't get claws in your meal. Here in Toronto, though, it's not the kind of thing you'll find in your average Western restaurant. I was delighted to discover that I could get chicken feet in Dim Sum restaurants. The first time I ordered it, the waiter warned me gravely. I had to reassure him that I knew exactly what they were and was looking forward to them.
Sorry, off topic.
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Ailanna
Registered User
(9/16/02 11:50:21 am)
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More about chicken claws
My dad loves them; he orders them whenever we go get Dim Sum. Interestingly enough, the Chinese term for them is, translated literally, phoenix claws. I suppose it sounds more elegant...
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(9/16/02 12:28:12 pm)
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Re: chicken legs
When I was a kid, my grandmother would always stew the feet when she decided to cull one of her hens. Didn't waste _anything_ if at all possible, but she grew up in the '30s.
Off topic, yes. I'm done now.
Edited by: Richard Parks at: 9/17/02 7:03:43 am
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Midori
Unregistered User
(9/16/02 5:03:15 pm)
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chicken legs
no, no Richard, I'd say you are on target...Grandmothers, chicken legs drifting around by themselves...sounds like just this side of Baba Yaga.
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dorisi
Registered User
(9/16/02 7:49:46 pm)
ezSupporter
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Re: Baba yaga, chicken legs, chicken soup
All this talk of chicken was giving me lovely visions of Baba Yaga in the kitchen cooking up soup (I know she was very big on feeding her visitors, before they fed her). But then I began to wonder, if Baba Yaga cooked chicken soup, would the house get offended?
On a more serious note, I think mushrooms were a staple at chez Baba Yaga. Reminiscent of shamanic rites.
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pinkolaestes
Registered User
(9/22/02 9:59:27 am)
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piernes de pollo
There is a long Baba Yaga story of Vasalisa (wasillisa) in Women Who Run With the Wolves, along with an exegesis and psychoanalytical commentary about the Yaga symbolizing The Great Mother of all Nature who, amongst other things, keeps the sun and the night in a trunk in her hovel.
More importantly, from my ramshackle restaurant "Baba Yaga's Kitchen," which for those of you who have not yet been to our place, looks like a gigantic nest atop an enormous pair of yellow scaly legs, (yes, it is a revolving restaurant of the oldest kind, affording an ariel 360 degree view of the entire forest --although sometimes it spins a little fast for some customers' tastes and the plates sometimes fly out the window, so we have tethered them (both the plates and the customers) to the tables with nice handmade ropes made of tree roots--which can also be purchased in our gift shop Baba's Boutique) )...Well, here is a breaking-news bulliten, not only does La Señora Yaga (known to the children as Baba), use the legs of the chicken in her sopa, but also uses the "nez", what we call 'the Pope's nose" which is that little part of the plucked chicken that, well you know...
incidentally, don't know if I should mention this, but the usual wooden spoons found in cook kitchens across the world, here they are made out of just plain old femurs and tibias and ulnas. We sort of have the idea that though there can be too many cooks in the kitche, there can never be enough bones for the broth
the willing cook-slave cpe, made me write this
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Helen
Registered User
(9/22/02 10:18:59 am)
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Dinner?
Please, tell me that you take reservations ... I can't wait to see the valet in the flying pestle ...
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