Description

A Russian and Slavic witch, ogress, and further in the mists of time and lore a crone death goddess. She is often depicted as a devourer of the dead, an ugly old crone who eats any innocent soul who gets lost in the dark woods. Sometimes she is not one but three sisters who collude to capture, cook and eat unwary travellers in the dead of winter, including young children. She is the cautionary tale to be wary and respectful of the cold, the dark, and the wild.

Although very little is known of this archetypal death crone she is said to live in a house on giant chicken legs in the deep forest, often surrounded by a fence of skulls. She flies in a mortar, using a pestle to guide her and a broom to swirl up the air to hide her comings and goings. This summoning of a tempest with her passing and her dwelling in the wildest parts of the land, links her to nature and the elements, in this aspect she is very primal.

In other takes on her, she is seen as more of a guardian of the dead in winter. Often in the Northern Forests of Europe the winters would get so cold the land would freeze and any one who died at this time of year could not be buried so the bodies were preserved in small huts on stilts in woodland clearings, protecting the frozen bodies of predation from wild animals. Then the legend of a cannibalistic death Crone guarding the dead was a very effective deterrent to possible human predation. I very much like this link of magick and mundane.

Yet another idea posed by a bard and witch friend of mine Jade Moon, who has been telling her stories of Baba Yaga for a couple of years now, is that the hut of the Baba Yaga as a space of transformation and of initiation. A place where rights of passage were experienced. Going through the doorway into the dark (a symbolic death) and reemerging from the ritual space into the light, transformed (reborn). This really resonated with me, especially after the dream vision I had with Baba Yaga.

My experience with Baba Yaga came at a pivotal moment in my life, a time when I have completed my transition into a Menopausal woman. For over 35 years, the bulk of my life, I have been in a state of fertile female. My life intricately entwined with the rhythm of my fertility cycle. Every month a reminder of my ability to bring forth life. Now I am entering a new phase of life and being, it is time to let go of the Mother and embrace the Crone.

At the time of writing this it is just past the last full moon after Samhain 2024 and it has been over a year since my last cycle. I am now past the point of being able to create life inside me, all the eggs are gone and my womb is small and quiet in my body. With the help of Baba Yaga, it’s time to face the new me, a woman who is closer to death than birth and who’s body is not the active tempest of hormones and perimenopausal rages it has been before. I grieve for the end of the young and adventurous me, and now embrace the quiet. Once I let go of the dreams of a woman in her prime, I am free to step forth into the next me, dedicated to the telling of our stories and singing the songs of our lives. I am finally, ready to accept and see the me of today.

My dream with Baba Yaga began with me entering an old growth alpine forest, and from the gentle moonlight I plunged into the bone cold, dark of the trees. Crashing through the undergrowth, bramble and bracken catching and pulling at my legs, feeling my way until I came to a clearing in the tall trees, where a pool of moonlight flooded the forest floor and in the centre was a huge Pine tree, the tallest in the forest. I reached its roots and fell to the mossy floor. I was there for a while laying on a bed soft wet moss looking up at the night sky, then slowly I began to sink into the moss, and became aware of a fine fibrous white webbing growing over my body. It also started to pull me into the earth, the panic began to rise, my vision blurred and I started to gasp for air. Feeling helpless I looked back up the tree and found instead two chicken legs on either side of me and a rustic wooden cabin propped on top of them. The doorway was directly above me and was a gaping black, ominous void. Then suddenly from the doorway came a fountain of blood, gushing down and covering me all over! I bolted upright, detaching myself from the mycelium layer and the wind picked up, swirling and howling through the treetops, the temperature dropped and I could see puffs of my own breath in front of me. Then from the darkest depths of the forest came the bellowing voice of Baba Yaga….the words “I see you!” crashed into me and vibrated through my whole body. As I jolted awake the last thing I saw was my hands holding a white fungi which had many drops of blood on its surface. A gift of farewell to my old self from the Death Crone Baba Yaga. I can see myself clearly now and am at peace.

The fungi I was given in my dream is called The Bleeding Tooth Fungus found in old growth pine forests of Northern Europe and America. It is not toxic, but tastes so bitter as to be inedible, despite one of its other names (Strawberries and Cream, because of its resemblance to a fruit danish). However, the mushroom is highly valued by scientists who have found that extracts from the Bleeding Tooth Fungus contain the chemical compound atromentin, which can be used as an anti-coagulant to keep blood clots from forming and which also has anti-bacterial properties and may be an option for treating the most common strain of bacterial pneumonia. Researchers are also looking at another chemical found in the Bleeding Tooth Fungus, which may someday be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

Unfortunately through the destruction of habitat and pollution this fungi is dying out and can only be found in a few spots where the forests still have naturally bio diverse and healthy ecosystems. Hopefully we can reverse this trend of dying wilderness and continue to discover new natural life forms which can help us find cures and treatments for the more debilitating diseases of humanity.