Baba-Iaga

Proper noun

1. Alternative spelling of Baba Yaga.
   • He seeks her amid immense difficulties to be rewarded at length with this enigma: He finds her in the keeping of a sorcerer; a so-called Baba-Iaga tells him this; the sorcerer is Kostschey the Immortal, whom it is most difficult to find. - 1891, Thomas Tapper, “Music in America”, in The Music Life and How to Succeed in It, Philadelphia, Pa.: Theodore Presser, page 55
   • To popular literature belong the fanciful novels called skazki, which resemble somewhat the stories of the Fates. Their protagonists are strange beings created by the ardent popular fancy, Baba-Iaga, serpents with six or twelve heads, stags, horses, etc. - 1912, A[urelio] Palmieri, “Russia”, in Charles G[eorge] Herbermann, Edward A[loysius] Pace, Condé B[enoist] Pallen, Thomas J[oseph] Shahan, John J[oseph] Wynne, editors, The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church, volume XIII (Revelation–Simon Stock), New York, N.Y.: Robert Appleton Company, page 266, column 1
   • It is interesting that some fairy-tale personages, such as the Baba-Iaga, are mentioned in the chronicle—evidence of the popularity of fairy tales in the Kievan period. - 1948, George Vernadsky, “Folklore”, in Kievan Russia (A History of Russia; 2), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, chapter IX (Russian Civilization in the Kievan Period), page 251
   • Having been declared unfit for this journey by a policlinical Baba-Iaga, the Kataev persona turns to a Good Fairy, a doctor in white, who, after performing a thorough physical examination, of which the reader witnesses only the proctologic preparations, offers her blessings for Kataev to travel. - 1999, Richard C[handler] Borden, “The Solipsist as Memoirist”, in The Art of Writing Badly: Valentin Kataev’s Mauvism and the Rebirth of Russian Modernism (Studies in Russian Literature and Theory), Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, page 121
   • Like Baba-Iaga herself, her residence, a hut standing on chicken legs избу́шка на ку́рьих но́жках, is a staple of Russian folktales and can be used in non-folkloric contexts to refer to any hovel. - 2002, Robert Rothstein, Halina Weiss, “Children’s Literature”, in Eloise M. Boyle, Genevra Gerhart, editors, The Russian Context: The Culture behind the Language, Bloomington, Ind.: Slavica, part 2 (Contexts in Language), page 275
   • The club may, as we would expect from their seasonal linking, be used by God 3 as well as God 1: Dagda in Ireland, winter old man Gohone for the Iroquois, the aged Russian goddess Baba-Iaga all carried one. - 2009, Amy L. Marsland, William D. Marsland, “Symbols”, in The Origin of Culture, Palo Alto, Calif.: Academica Press, page 80