Yaga Vievna

Baba Yaga (Baba Yaga, Yaga, Yaga Vievna) is a dark sorceress from ancient Slavic mythology, the daughter of Viy, the wife of Veles. Many fairy tales, written at a time when our ancestors had already lost the original meaning of the mythological images of antiquity, show Baba Yaga in the guise of an old terrible woman who lives in the Hut-on-Chicken Legs on the very border of the Dark Forest. Meanwhile, the essence of this legendary character appears to be a much more curious tangle of diverse and sometimes contradictory information.

Yaga, being the daughter of Viy, the ruler of the Middle Kingdom of Navi, had unlimited access to the uppermost kingdom, in which for the time being there was no master. Thanks to this opportunity, Yaga, which, by the way, was not inferior in beauty to either Lada or Devan, acquired a unique gift during her eternal wandering through the underworld - she began to understand the languages of almost all the offspring of Navi. Yaga was also considered a powerful warrior, capable of alone withstanding many enemies. Yaga never interfered in the affairs of the gods and did not participate in any war between Yasuns and Dasuns. She believed that all these are trifles, not worthy of the attention of a divine creation (which she, no doubt, was, like all the gods of the Lunar pantheon). This is probably why Yaga and Veles got along so quickly and began to live like husband and wife. This happened when Veles, who betrayed Perun, was expelled from Prav and wandering aimlessly around the world wandered into the Upper Kingdom of Navi. There he met Yaga, with whom he first met in a duel, and then sincerely fell in love (although some legends claim that it is not at all sincere, but, as they say, by calculation).
Yagi's father Viy could not marry his daughter for a long time, since she vowed that she would marry only the one who could defeat her in a fair fight. Strictly speaking, the fight with Yaga a priori could not be honest, since the underground warrior was much better at dark magic than sword, and therefore she did not hesitate to unleash all the power of her knowledge on self-confident opponents. And only the great Veles was able to defeat Yaga.
Over time, the image of the goddess, who actually became the ruler of the Upper Underworld, has undergone significant changes. The upper kingdom of Navi was not yet the world of the dead itself, but it already had nothing to do with the world of the living. That is, in fact, this world was on the very border of Yavi and Navi. It was from here that the image of a sorceress arose, living somewhere between the world of people and the Dark Forest (the world of human antagonists, negative characters). Hence the image of a bone leg (or some other bone parts of the body), which gives Baba Yaga a resemblance to a living corpse, a creature located on the border of the worlds.

At the same time, Yaga is one of the few characters in ancient Slavic mythology, in the detailed description of which iron is used. This metal primordially served as the main weapon against evil spirits along with silver, so the fact that this character has it (iron teeth and, in some legends, iron ... sorry, chest) suggests that Navi Yaga does not belong to the creatures. But it cannot be ranked among living people either. First, she is immortal. Secondly, her knowledge is too great for a mortal, since even Mara came to her a couple of times for help.

Yaga also knows the languages of animals and plants, commands the elements (at least, the air element, because many legends emphasize her ability to levitate, that is, to float freely in the air). Often, Yaga helps the protagonist of the legend (fairy tale), and also supplies him with magical items - artifacts (a fast-footed horse, a sword-self-saw, boots-walkers, a ball showing the way to the goal).
In the later Slavic legends, Yaga is no longer described as an eternally young and mighty dark warrior, but as a dense old woman, who, by her very appearance, inspires terror on anyone. Some legends explain this by the curse of the Irian gods, which befell Yaga when, at her instigation, Veles stole the heavenly cows from the Rule. Since then, according to legends, the eternally young Yaga has grown old and could no longer regain its former beauty, although she constantly tried, feeding on the souls of people that Mara brought her in payment for help.

Thus, the image of Baba Yaga is too ambiguous and diverse to be fashionably interpreted unambiguously. Although it is obvious that the initial image of this mythological character was a Veles-like apotheosis of divine wisdom, capable of realizing the fundamental laws of this world.
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