Halloween season often brings to mind witches from around the world. One such figure is Baba Yaga, a character from Eastern Europe. While this name is often associated with a figure in the John Wick film series, the original Baba Yaga is centuries old and refers to a notorious witch in Slavic folklore.
While witches are often stereotypically associated with traveling on broomsticks through the night sky, that is not the case with Baba Yaga. Instead of traveling in the conventional fashion, she is often depicted moving around in an unusual vehicle: a mortar (defined by Merriam-Webster as “a sturdy vessel in which material is pounded or rubbed with a pestle”). Here is a deeper look at her—and why she is often seen traveling differently from many other witches.
The origins of Baba Yaga
The legend of Baba Yaga goes back hundreds of years. The first mention of her in a book appears in Mikhail V. Lomonosov's 1755 text Russian Grammar, where she is one of several Slavic fictional characters discussed, although some argue her place in mythology goes back much further than written records.
In folklore from this part of Europe, Baba Yaga is often depicted as a fearsome witch who eats children and lives in a house that stands on chicken legs. (She is also sometimes portrayed as a kindly old woman who aids the heroes of the stories.)
In tales that frame her as a villain, Baba Yaga is sometimes said to use a mortar and pestle to grind up both her human and animal victims. She then uses these tools to travel around the forest where she lives, using the mortar as a vehicle and the pestle as an oar. The sheer horror of the idea of a character eating children is possibly part of what led Baba Yaga to become so closely associated with the objects she used for this purpose.
Baba Yaga and her mortar in culture
Baba Yaga was not always depicted traveling by mortar in folktales, but the association between the two was cemented by artists in the 19th and 20th centuries. These included Ivan Bilibin, who depicted Baba Yaga traveling in this fashion in his illustrations for a 1900 version of the fairy tale “Vasilisa the Beautiful.”
Ultimately, while a mortar might initially seem like a surprising choice of vehicle for a witch, this vessel has actually helped to ensure Baba Yaga’s unusual status in folklore thanks to its particularly memorable nature, and the enduring power of the many works that have depicted her riding in it over the years.