“Folktales change form, forever lasting in the cultures they find home in.” — Kaci Zhang

 

“Baba Yaga! Come out you old hag!”

I stare out the icy glass from the rounded window with my marigold-toned cover. The walls aglow from the horde of candles.

Another non-creature comes looking for gold, glory, or whatever they desire. How discourteous. Baba is much too nice of a spirit to give them what they desire, and all they face is a few measly trials.

The tattered man with bog mud smeared across his body dashes and leaps for the entrance of the hut. The feathery golden leg of the hut elongates, vivid charms draped around the foundation of the house trinkle, and the hut groans to move.

I never get tired of hearing that sound. It’s nostalgic. My face twists with scorn at the audacity of him to come here and scream at my Baba with a sword. Moreover, my two siblings come when I am not here to look after Baba, so it’ll never be that easy, Baba would never either.

The tension springs, the hut glides up, and every floor, window, and entrance shuffles like a deck of cards at the whims of the hut. The rooms stable from the inside, but sweeps around at whirling winds on the out.

“Vnuk”

I twist toward Baba’s gravelly call to the other side of the room. The ancient copper pots and pans line the wall. Dangling from the ceiling, all matters of dried herbs from bloodflower to rosemary followed the room’s configuration. A portion I retrieved from the marshlands. Her timber workbench settled in the center with various items scattered about.

“The people will always come and if they cannot get past Domovyk, then we should not worry about them. Come eat your food before you wither away. You cannot help me like that.”

The small crone covered in flowery textile chops away at the herbs on the bench.

I feel bad about worrying Baba, although she could be nicer about it.

“I’m coming Baba, but don’t you think” I drag my limbs out from my draping covers and progress to my seat ” That those … humans at the door deserve your time? They would tear you apart if they could! Without any thought about you. Any creature would fight back!”

The chopping stops.

Baba peers up and whisks off her apron. Her bones creak like the house and sits on the gnarled stool aside from me.

“Vnuk, you are my strong girl,” Baba’s knobbed, spotted fingers weave my twiggy auburn hair behind my ear. Her gaze soft. “I know you care for me, but every creature demands to live, that is the law of nature. I grant only all they need, truly if they do not know it themselves. Even, I cannot shield you all the time.”

I do not care about other creatures. I don’t like the way she’s talking to me. I am not a child. I can barely stand it. Doesn’t she see I love her? That other people do not care for her? I must be the one to do it. I don’t understand the humans that come to harass and hurt Baba. I learned everything from her, but nothing will come if I fight her now, I contemplate . Baba is fierce not only to humans and hounds me for hours. Rolling my eyes, grudgingly whispering.

“Ok, Baba…”

I will figure out what they want from her. The man is still outside.

“I will leave it alone for now” My arm reaches for my soup flaccidly “Eat too, Baba. I think your fingers are getting thinner.”

———————————

Thwack Thwack The man is still bouncing around with his weapon outside. I’m lying under my quilted blanket pressing on me like sets of stones. The dim light of the wall candle dances in my eyes. Shifting out of the cover and slinking over to the window. The feline spirit in my soul unfurls to absorb the midnight.

The height of the house is one of the many trials of the contestants trying to enter Baba Yaga’s Hut, and now, it is a trial for me to escape. I have done it before, yet it feels strange this time. Different from sneaking out to follow snakes and collect pickerel weed. No magic because she’ll know.

Moonlight beams a band of light revealing only my eyes.

The hut reverberates with every deafening thud of the chicken legs, gliding across the swamp. Hopping out the window, I grip the windowsill. My feet feels for the knots of the hanging charms. Feeling a lump, I drop. My pupils massive as the full moon on equinox. On my descent, I snatch the rope full of colorful trinkets digging into my hands. Lowering myself to the end of the rope, I plop into the engulfing mud.

Foggy mist blankets the bog in thick layers. My head swivels around until I spot the man heading for the edge of the forest. My shoes squelching with mud towards him. He’ll never notice I’m here if I follow at the distance. The shape of his apparition disappears. My body thrashes harder against the muck.

Where is he?

Is he gone?

My eyes darting across the scene faster than dragonflies. I can’t find him! God, I am so stupid. The golden lights of the hut paces away rapidly in the distance. There’s no way I can return home with the mud sucking me in. Five minutes in, and I’ve already lost him! I knew I should have used an incantation! I feel the fear crashing down in waves. Rushing into the forest, the brambles charge at me tugging at my flesh and bones. Tears streak my pallor complexion. I don’t think there is any end to this.

Until the tendrils lose their grip and I collapse into a densely wooded area.

I grasp at the leaves and lumber myself upwards. I feel nothing but the night and stillness of the forest. Reorientating myself, faint ululating rhythms reach… and jingling and laughter reach my ears. The ethereal pulls me to the rare melody. My body lurches forward shedding the syrupy brown sludge. The music becomes more intense, drums enter it pounding.

 Bom bu Bom! Bom bu bom!

Nearing a fire light blazing as I turn behind a forest giant, crouching from out behind, shadows and twirling wild women dancing appear. Long flowing hair intertwined with vines, ashen limbs, and untamed gazes. Their bodies jolting around their only light as if they captured the wildness of the flame and contained within themselves. My being desired all that they had, to be wild, to be beautiful.

My eyes lock with a wild woman still amongst the flow of chaos. Her viridescent gaze holds mine as she’s waiting, telling me something. Inviting me to be among them, that I need not worry. But I cannot do that, I have a purpose of where I need to be. I must leave now before I cannot. I drag myself across the ground to escape from the women, even though they already know I am here. Convincing myself, that anyone else would do the same.

The wild woman never breaks her stare into the abyss, the wind blowing her vined golden hair onto honeyed skin.

The forest becomes still again like the women exist in another realm entirely. The silence and mist deepen into my bones. Pressing my body off the ground, they can no longer see me and I them. Among the twilight hours, I spot a lightly traveled coarse trail in my quick glances of the dense undergrowth.

“Not many willing to come to the bog” I mutter to myself.

I walked for miles on the jagged trail of stones and waving moss, almost questioning if the trail was a dried riverbed. My fingertips brush over the reaching arms of ferns. It reminds of the herbs I pick for magic, and the time I spent with Baba perching over the cauldron to bring our own wishes alight. I miss home.

The lullabies of the forest and descending leaves sink my pace to a zombie’s gait and my drooping eyes looking similar. The reaching conifers and vegetation become sparser as I sweep past.  My body jolts forward. The surface of organized stones taunt my surprise beneath me. The magic of the forest wears off and I come upon something I have never seen in the twilight hours between night and dawn.

I hide behind the last tree by the edge, my elongated fingers grip the side of the tree as my disheveled face peaks out. Silver torches line the road illuminating the bleak street like individual mechanical fireflies. The depths of my pupils reflect the glow in wonderment. How peculiar. I skitter into town by the sides of the decorated manmade structures.  The humans trickle out into the street in blue and white petticoats and gray hats. Silver is the metal of choice for every townsperson. The townspeople sneering glances and tilted noses, shaming me for everything they wish they could be. Free. Yet, I still feel the need to blend in, my answers are at stake.  I shuffle forward, peering into the alleyways, the leftovers of the people litter it. Piles of unnamed garbage and golems of people coated in various shades of umber recoil from the clean streets and increasingly piercing lights. Even stranger. Why do they leave? When they’ve built what seems like a home for them, as unnatural as it is. My mind floods with questions and uneasiness.

My matted auburn hair weaved around twigs and vermillion sheep’s wool yarn. My gait moves whichever I wish like how the river bends. My hunched-over posture is the opposite of their unnaturally straight backs. My attire dyed colors unfamiliar and sewn in patchworks whatever way I please.

I don’t look like them.

I feel something strange, like I do not belong. The feeling buzzes in the center of my beating heart. The artificial fabrication of the town seems like such a distraction. My legs blur into bland gray footpath. Like a specimen from a distant land, the townsfolk stare at me in all manners of the sort. Their eyebrows squinting down with sharp glares pounding into my skull. What does this look mean? They don’t look like they’d ever travel to the marsh. The thoughts dash through my head, my chest constricting. I wobble among the patterns in which they walk, somehow prompting more distaste.

I’ve got to do something quick. It’ll be all over before I know it and I’ll find out nothing. Raising my left hand, my tresses begin to float, and my lips move to a long-forgotten incantation. My body becomes covered in ribbon-like streams of camouflage until I look like the rest of the townspeople. A wailing shriek pierces my ears.

My eyes widen.

The townsfolk frightened.

A gaunt woman pushes over a child attempting to escape my sight. Others push into the mucky alleyway they would not normally dare enter. A couple of boxy men make their advance toward me.

The strange feeling explodes.

I dash back the way I came in a frenzy, not minding the way I am supposed to be holding myself. The men do not chase into the underbrush. My agility is unmatched by any human but… the branches seem to sigh to make way for me before heaving down. Relief swells inside me. My rapid feet feel the crisp yellow leaves beneath me as my pace lags to a padding. I do not think they can see me, and quite frankly,  they are very slow. My prim proper façade appears alien to the forest as my magic unravels as my awareness grows. The costume melts away in streams turning to fog on the ground caressing the stones and moss. I’ve always loved illusion magic. I could be anything I wanted.

My thoughts are stuck in a maze. I left the bog to understand, but I feel more lost than ever. Traversing through the forest aimlessly, my body finds an old Shepherd’s path. Rays of light slicing the forest warming the way. My solemn affect drowns out the thrums of nature.

It must be a while, but I do not know, but a short and wiry old man is pacing along beside me. His stature is shorter than most and his grin wide.

“Who are you?” I state, nervously trying to figure out the stranger. My legs tensing, ready to fire.

He watches me through the corner of his eyes. The gnarled staff clunking to support his posture. It can’t be good at his age.

“Hey, who – “

“There were once two hunters lost in a forest.” His voice tinged with age and wine. “The older hunter says, I’ve heard if you shoot in the air someone will come to your rescue, so they fire a few times in the air and wait. They try again every couple of hours, and after a while, they start to get worried. The older hunter says I hope we get help soon and the younger one responds I know I am almost out of arrows!”.

The old man cackles in laughter at his joke.

“You know, you are one weird old man.” I say apprehensively.

“No, I am a shepherd, to answer your question.” His wide nose turning toward me. “ -And you seemed quite lost.”

The leaves crunch tensely beneath each step. My chance to understand is here and he is only a small man, he cannot hurt me if I reveal myself. I’ll have to go in slowly and-.

“You are a witch, are you not?” he queried.

My speech becomes knots in my throat, worried that I will, once again, be left with no answers.

“Well, I –“ The words slowly rising.

“I have no qualms about them.“ The withered face cranes toward me

“Why are you walking with me?” A twig fell out of my hair as I turned to look at the ground “ If you know what I am, then why aren’t you running away? Like everyone else in the town nearby.” My voice trailing off in a whisper.

The old man’s face crinkled in annoyance, “Oh, everyone in that town are creatures that forgot they were creatures. Erecting tall buildings and garb and worshiping them like effigies. They are no different than you or I.“ He looks up at the branches extending to hold each other as the gusts blew. “Say, why did you go in the town? you don’t look particularly ready to be townsfolk.”

“Well,” The words pausing to see if I could let them out, to see if I could tell a stranger.” Humans from that town come to bother my Baba, but I never know why. I came to find out, but I found myself resisting the temptation to run wild. The lure of the forest calls me. Now, I am not too sure what to do or how to understand.”

“Did townsfolk wearing threads of blue or brown come to bother your Baba?”

“A brown, covered in bog mud.” I say as I picture the man swinging his sword from earlier.

“You see, not everyone is the same in the town or in the world. Those wearing brown in that town cannot get help through normal means, they require great fortune or connections for help …  A young shepherd passes through here with a bowl haircut. The poor thing’s parents died due to a tuberculosis outbreak. He tried everything he could, alas he was just a child.”

The old man’s face crinkles as if he is grasping the memories from a long forgotten place. “-Well, he is probably older now. It is a last resort, and they probably won’t stop. what a pity”

My heart drops. All this time, they were doing what I would have done for Baba, but it is not enough to relieve me. “Still, I don’t want Baba to suffer through their endless persistence. It’s not fair “As we pad along, the ferns arch away from us.

“Has she been kidnapped by them with no way out?

“Well- uh no.” I stutter

“Did she ask you to do this?”

“No.” My fingers fiddle with the seams of my patchwork.

“- and your Baba still helps the creatures although they must face the bog before doing so.”

“Yes” My words could barely reach my mouth. They did not want to come.

“Then your Baba is ok. Although, I would wonder what my place is in all of this If I was you.” he adopted a tender expression.

The path becomes hushed at his last words. It seems to stretch for miles.

My gaze moves from the leaf litter to the sky where the light warmly shines upon my face in fractal patterns. My reddish eyes flickering shades of garnet. I didn’t even care what Baba wanted, and I slipped away in the night. She must be worried. I left because deep inside of my soul, I wanted to. The dancing wild women flash in my mind. Baba taught me things are never what they seem. My spine shivers, and my gaze fixes upwards and-

The face of the old man is growing into my vision.

The wrinkles of his body turned to gnarled pine. His short body and limbs elongated as tall as the great tree. Towering over me, his grassy willow bark hair reaching his waist. He moves slowly lumbering past me to disappear into the evergreens.

“Ah, you are a green man.”

 

Index of Terms

Heads up: I mainly focus on Balkan folklore. Eastern Europe is a big place.

Dziewanna : A Slavic goddess of the wild, the hunt, and nature. A symbol of freedom for women as her story tells of a rebellious goddess refusing to marry or adhere to rules.

Domovyk : A Slavic house spirit that protects the family that it belongs to. The Domovyk is an ancestor of the family that it protects, so it is very closely related to the family and only protects them.

Baba Yaga: A Slavic spirit that is witch and lives in her magic hut that constantly moves with chicken legs. She was demonized by the advent of Christianity. However, before the spread of Christianity, she was known to be an ambivalent spirit giving hard lessons exchange for the sought-out reward. Very much an old-world grandma archetype. She is known to work with textiles.

Green man: The Green man is the English name, but his Slavic name is the Lisovyk or Leshy. He is known to be an ambivalent spirit that protects the forest, and his attitude depends how you treat the forest. He can take any form or shape with his clothes inside out. He can help you if you share jokes or gifts by protecting you on the trails or imparting magical knowledge. If you disrespect him, he may keep you trapped in the forest by causing you to walk in loops or worse. shepherds are known to offer him gifts.

Vnuk: means grandchild in Slovenian.