Baba-iaga

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.