Withcraft and/or folklore question

[LettersFromTatyana]

I've been thinking about writing a story that uses a fairy tale I heard as a child (Baba Yaga*) as a jumping off point. I told the story (the folk tale, not the story that's been percolating in my mind, lol) to my kid the other day. My husband sat through most of the details without comment, but stopped me at the point where Baba Yaga climbs on her mortar and pestle and flies away.**

It'd always seemed normal to me that she flies around on a mortar and pestle instead of a broom, but I couldn't explain why it was normal. This has been bothering me, and the more I think of the mortar and pestle, the weirder it becomes. I've since developed an obsession with Baba Yaga's mode of transport, but I can't find explanations beyond a) the pestle is phallic and b) a witch/wise woman/whatever can crush herbs used for food/spells/other dangerous or helpful things in a mortar and pestle.

Neither of these satisfy me for some reason, and it still seems really random.

So, AH contributors who seem to have deep pockets of knowledge in random areas, can someone explain to me the significance of a mortar and pestle, in either this story or in other stories/pictures/etc? Is the mortar and pestle fundamentally different from a broom, reflecting Baba Yaga as a different sort of evil witch/wise old woman than broomstick witches?

At the very least, can someone reply and tell me that yes, it's weird to fly around on a mortar and pestle, so I don't feel like a giant idiot for obsessing over this for days?


*Baba Yaga assumes various roles in Slavic folk stories, but the mortar and pestle seems to always be her mode of transport.
**For the record, she sits on the mortar and uses the pestle to steer. I think the mortar can also be used on water as a boat.

 

[oggbashan]

This article might help you.

Og

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

This article might help you.

Og

Thanks! That is helpful, and I don't know how I missed it.

 

[Guest]

Just a thought

deleted

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

I'm not that familiar with Russian Lore, but the Freudian overtones are pretty clear.

1) the pestle, as you suggest is phallic.

2) the mortar is a vessel/womb.

Thus her mode of transportation is invetro.

Other elements, and again not the sharpest tack on Baba, she can be portrayed as wise, but in other versions, she is a barren hag.

Sooo by extension, a wicked sorceress is able to gain power and go places by inserting a pestle into her mortar--Lady Gaga; Paris Hilton; Leona Helmsley . . . .

lol. The version I heard was heavily bastardized, and since my grandparents wern't Russian (and in fact came from countries that despised Russia and Russians), the entire "Mother Russia" thing was missing in the stories I heard. If anything, upon reflection, I think Baba Yaga was a stand-in for the evilness that is Russia, which might be why the life-cycle or vessel/womb thing seems so weird to me.

I'll have to decide whether I want to stick with the "pure evil" version I heard, or go with a nicer, more authentic version. Either way, I'm digging the quasi-magical realism in my mind right now.

 

[3113]

This article might help you.

Very interesting article, but I wonder why the article didn't say that the turning hut is obviously the Moon--as it not only faces light like the moon, but, of course, Baba goes through the typical triple goddess phases with the moon depending on which way it faces.

She seems to have all the usual qualities of the Hecate/Kali/Cerridwen Crone/Underworld goddess: relating to the moon, magic, bones, and with power over a symbolic womb.

 

[TE999]

Is she related to Baba Wawa?

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Is she related to Baba Wawa?

Dunno. Technically, she's Baba Yaga the Boney Legged, so if Barbara has boney legs, we might have proof of a relationship. A mortar and pestle on the set of The View, a house built on chicken legs, iron teeth, and three doting horsemen would also be good tip-offs.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I know the stories say "mortar and pestle" but the images are always of a milk churn. For what that's worth.

And yes, to Western European minds, the whole of Baba Yaga seems pretty strange without a whole lot of extra thought. A lot of Slavic mythic symbolism is so very different than the rest of Europe's!

I have a DVD of Russian children's animations, and Baba Yaga is present in probably 80% of them...

 

[Verdad]

I wanted to get a better grip on Baba Yaga too, so one of the things I’ve tried was to watch Vasilisa Prekrasnaya, a 1930’s Russian film. It ought be on youtube, but be warned there isn’t much to recommend it unless you sometimes like to watch bad old movies for the sheer fascination of it. Baba Yaga is, interestingly, played by a man.

Ogg’s article was great. I don’t think I know anything I could add to it.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Very interesting article, but I wonder why the article didn't say that the turning hut is obviously the Moon--as it not only faces light like the moon, but, of course, Baba goes through the typical triple goddess phases with the moon depending on which way it faces.

She seems to have all the usual qualities of the Hecate/Kali/Cerridwen Crone/Underworld goddess: relating to the moon, magic, bones, and with power over a symbolic womb.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I assume you're right. I'll look into it.

I know the stories say "mortar and pestle" but the images are always of a milk churn. For what that's worth.

And yes, to Western European minds, the whole of Baba Yaga seems pretty strange without a whole lot of extra thought. A lot of Slavic mythic symbolism is so very different than the rest of Europe's!

See, I think that's what's bothering me. I had to sit through more than one class on Russian symbolism/semiotics/etc . . . and the damn mortar and pestle never came up! How very rude of my former professors.

I wanted to get a better grip on Baba Yaga too, so one of the things I’ve tried was to watch Vasilisa Prekrasnaya, a 1930’s Russian film. It ought be on youtube, but be warned there isn’t much to recommend it unless you sometimes like to watch bad old movies for the sheer fascination of it. Baba Yaga is, interestingly, played by a man.

Ogg’s article was great. I don’t think I know anything I could add to it.

Thanks. Not only is Baba Yaga played by a man, but according to IMDB, the same actor plays both Baba Yaga and the father. Weird.

I also just found this. I see some interlibrary loan in my future, and some Mussogorsky while I read.

 

[Verdad]

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I assume you're right. I'll look into it.

You mean the triple goddess? Virgin/mother/crone. She’s a most pervasive motif/archetype that is found in many guises in many cultures. Sometimes she’s embodied in female deities that come in triads, like Erinyes or Norns, and sometimes in a single deity with three aspects, like Hecate. The association is typically with limens—birth and death, crossroads and doorways, as well as with magic and the Moon. The three aspects symbolize the premenstrual/fertile/postmenstrual stages of a woman’s cycle/life.

It’s clear enough there are elements of this in Baba Yaga, but the specific details of the symbolism still trip one up. The criticism that’s directed at people like Campbell is precisely that they gloss over the differences in order to (over?)emphasize the universality.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Verdad, I meant the "hut as moon" thing that 3113 mentioned. I should have made that clear.

The article Og linked to suggested the hut acted in response to the moon, allowing Yaga to move through phases. 3113 seems to suggest that the hut itself is the moon. That's what I didn't get.

 

[Verdad]

Verdad, I meant the "hut as moon" thing that 3113 mentioned. I should have made that clear.

The article Og linked to suggested the hut acted in response to the moon, allowing Yaga to move through phases. 3113 seems to suggest that the hut itself is the moon. That's what I didn't get.

Oops. I thought it a bit unexpected that you asked! Let 3113 explain, then, what precisely she meant.

 

[3113]

The article Og linked to suggested the hut acted in response to the moon, allowing Yaga to move through phases. 3113 seems to suggest that the hut itself is the moon. That's what I didn't get.

I think the article came to one conclusion and I came to the other. The article assumed that the hut followed the moon. But it seemed to me that, like other elements Baba has symbolizing other things (like her broom and that mortar and pestle), the hut might be emblematic of the moon itself, not something that just follows the moon. As she changes from young to old with the turning of the hut, she essentially is the "goddess" in the moon, just transferred to here on Earth.

This jives with other moon-related elements like the wolf and magic.

I don't know if the distinction really matters, but I felt the article missed a bet when it went for the hut as merely following the moon rather than *being* the moon's Earthly avatar, home for the Moon-goddess' Earthly avatar. If you get what I mean.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Baba Yaga isn't part of any tales I heard growing up so the mortar and pestle is completely new. I always thought that she rode around in that hut on chicken legs, as in Pictures From an Exhibition.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

Oops. I thought it a bit unexpected that you asked! Let 3113 explain, then, what precisely she meant.

No problem, and don't think it so unexpected; I'm amazingly dim-witted on a number of subjects.

I think the article came to one conclusion and I came to the other. The article assumed that the hut followed the moon. But it seemed to me that, like other elements Baba has symbolizing other things (like her broom and that mortar and pestle), the hut might be emblematic of the moon itself, not something that just follows the moon. As she changes from young to old with the turning of the hut, she essentially is the "goddess" in the moon, just transferred to here on Earth.

This jives with other moon-related elements like the wolf and magic.

I don't know if the distinction really matters, but I felt the article missed a bet when it went for the hut as merely following the moon rather than *being* the moon's Earthly avatar, home for the Moon-goddess' Earthly avatar. If you get what I mean.

This requires pondering. Thanks, 3113

Baba Yaga isn't part of any tales I heard growing up so the mortar and pestle is completely new. I always thought that she rode around in that hut on chicken legs, as in Pictures From an Exhibition.

Be thankful she was missing from your childhood. She was the stuff of nightmares.

 

[ishtat]

This Wiki article is better than most.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga

If LFT is generally interested in the origins of the female/fertility/crone/rebirth figure, I would recommend most of the writings of the Lithuanian/American, Marija Gimbutas (especially The Living Goddesses), and with regard to the connection of these mythologies to literature, Robert Graves' The White Goddess is still the best (though flawed) starting point.

 

[TE999]

Dunno. Technically, she's Baba Yaga the Boney Legged, so if Barbara has boney legs, we might have proof of a relationship. A mortar and pestle on the set of The View, a house built on chicken legs, iron teeth, and three doting horsemen would also be good tip-offs.

Well, she does have the three doting horsepersons (Whoopi, Joy and Sherri), her teeth might be capped and her legs aren't bad for an old broad. I think Arm and Hammer's one of their sponsors...that's in the same ballpark as a mortar and pestle...I have no idea where Baba lives...probably in condo in Manhattan.

Close, but no cigar.

 

[LettersFromTatyana]

If LFT is generally interested in the origins of the female/fertility/crone/rebirth figure, I would recommend most of the writings of the Lithuanian/American, Marija Gimbutas (especially The Living Goddesses), and with regard to the connection of these mythologies to literature, Robert Graves' The White Goddess is still the best (though flawed) starting point.

Thanks. I'll add those to my ILL request for some vacation reading.

I looked at the wiki page earlier this week, but it was unhelpful with my primary question about the mortar and pestle.

Well, she does have the three doting horsepersons (Whoopi, Joy and Sherri), her teeth might be capped and her legs aren't bad for an old broad. I think Arm and Hammer's one of their sponsors...that's in the same ballpark as a mortar and pestle...I have no idea where Baba lives...probably in condo in Manhattan.

Close, but no cigar.

Damn.


All this talk of pestles has me repeating lines from that terrible old Danny Kaye - Glynis Johns - Angela Lansbury movie, The Court Jester.

 

[Weird Harold]

I looked at the wiki page earlier this week, but it was unhelpful with my primary question about the mortar and pestle.

Baba Yaga's mortar and pestle is purely a slavic phenomenon; other cultures feature a "magic cauldron" in Baba Yaga's mythological niche. (or a gingerbread house in place of a log-cabin on chicken-legs.) Cauldrons aren't normally featured as magical vehicles, but that usage isn't completely unheard of.

Personally, I was fond of the few tales of Baba Yaga I was exposed to as a child -- mostly filtered through russian occupation influence on Finnish folklore and largely bowlderized -- and pictured her mortar as the slavic equivalent of the mad hatter's teacups at Disneyland.

ETA: perhaps some research into slavic cuisine and culture to determine why mortars and pestles are so significant might help?