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.

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, →OCLC, page 266, column 1

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, →ISBN, 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, →ISBN, 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, →ISBN, page 80