The Awakening of the Taiga
Long before the sun dares to peek over the Ural Mountains, the forest holds its breath. Here, deep in the heart of the Siberian Taiga, the silence is not empty. It is waiting.
In a small clearing ringed by ancient pines, a house stands where no house should be. Sitting not upon a foundation of stone, but upon two massive, scaled chicken legs, the hut stirs as the first light of dawn touches the treetops. Shifting its weight, it groans like splitting timber. One giant claw, the size of a plowshare, scratches the frozen earth to find purchase in the permafrost.
This is the domain of Baba Yaga, the Arch-Crone, the Grandmother of Witches. Today, like every day for a thousand years, she has significant work to do.
The Departure
The door of the hut opens not with a latch, but with a yawn. Baba Yaga steps onto the porch, a figure carved from the nightmares of the ancient world. Impossibly tall and thin, her limbs behave more like gnarled roots than flesh and bone. Her nose is a hooked beak that nearly touches her chin, and iron teeth clash with a sound like grinding stones. She sniffs the air, tasting the coming snow on the wind.
Traveling by foot is not for her; to touch the ground is to be bound by it. Instead, she approaches her vessel. A mortar carved from the root of the World Tree, large enough to hold a woman, it hums with latent power.
She climbs inside. In her right hand, she grips a pestle the size of a tree trunk. In her left, she holds a broom of silver birch. With a thud that shakes pine needles from the trees, she strikes the earth. The mortar rises. Defying gravity, it hurtles into the grey sky. She rows through the air, the pestle churning the clouds like thick cream, while the broom sweeps away her tracks to erase her passage from the memory of the wind.
The Riders of the Sky
From her vantage point high above the canopy, she observes the mechanics of the cosmos. Not merely a witch, she is a keeper of cycles.
On the horizon, a rider appears, galloping across the treetops on a horse as white as milk. This is the White Horseman, the embodiment of Morning. Armor gleaming with the pale gold of the dawn, he passes. Baba Yaga nods. He is punctual, as always.
Later, the Red Horseman (the Sun) will appear at his zenith, burning with the heat of noon. Finally, as shadows lengthen, the Black Horseman (the Night) will arrive, returning to her stables when the world sleeps. She is the cog around which their clock turns, checking their pace to ensure Day does not linger too long and Night does not arrive too soon.
The Guardian of the Border
Her patrol takes her to the edge of the woods, the liminal space where the wild ends and the world of Men begins. Here, she is a terrifying sentinel.
Below, a woodcutter raises his axe against a sacred oak. Greedy, he takes more than he needs. Having already felled three saplings, he now targets the grandfather tree.
Baba Yaga sees this transgression. She dips her pestle and dives with the shriek of a hawk. The wind of her passage becomes a physical force, knocking the man flat and sending his hat tumbling into the brambles. His axe shatters against a stone.
She does not kill him. She simply reminds him. Fleeing, he leaves his tools behind. The forest is safe. The balance is maintained.
The Harvest of Secrets
By mid-afternoon, the mortar descends into a hidden glade, a place untrodden by human feet where the air shimmers with magic. Climbing out, Baba Yaga moves with stiff but purposeful motions.
She is here for razriv-trava, the lock-breaking grass. A rare herb that blooms only for eyes as old as hers, it can open any door and shatter any chain. Finding a patch near a bubbling spring, she harvests it carefully using a knife of obsidian.
Magic is a transaction. One must give to take. In return for the earth's bounty, she pours a libation of warm milk onto the roots.
Watching from the treeline, a brown bear offers a low rumble of recognition. She acknowledges him with a sharp cackle. In this world, she is not a monster. She is a neighbor. They share the same woods and the same winter.
The Test of Character
The sun begins to set. Returning to her hut as the light fails, Baba Yaga finds a visitor waiting.
A young woman stands trembling before the fence of human bones. Skulls atop the pickets glow with an inner fire, their eyes fixing on the intruder. The girl is Vasilisa. Clutching her thin shawl, she was sent into the freezing night by a stepmother who hopes she will never return. Her errand is simple and deadly: she must ask the Witch for fire.
This is the true purpose of Baba Yaga. She is the Examiner.
The girl does not run. Bowing low, she calls out, "Grandmother. I seek shelter. My family's fire has gone out."
Landing the mortar with a bone-shaking impact, Baba Yaga climbs out. Joints cracking like dry twigs, she leans close. Iron teeth glint in the twilight. "You have courage," she croaks. "But do you have wit? I do not shelter the lazy or the foolish."
Dragging two heavy sacks from the hut onto the porch, she rasps, "One is filled with poppy seeds. The other is filled with dirt. Separate them before the moon rises. If you succeed, you shall have your fire. If you fail, the fence gets a new skull."
It is a task impossible for mortal hands, but the test is not about hands. It is about spirit. Baba Yaga retreats inside the warm hut, leaving the girl alone in the growing dark.
From the window, she watches. The girl does not despair. Singing a soft song to the earth, she attracts a mouse, then another. They listen. Offering them crumbs from her pocket, the girl watches as the mice swarm the bags. Tiny paws work faster than any human, separating the seeds from the dirt in minutes.
Baba Yaga smiles. A terrifying expression, but genuine. The girl understands the language of the wild.
The Night Watch
As darkness falls, the Black Horseman gallops into the yard, bringing the night in his wake. Skull-lanterns on the fence flare to life, casting long, dancing shadows across the clearing.
Inside the warm belly of the hut, Baba Yaga sits by the stove. The girl has succeeded. Holding her hands out to the clay oven, she warms them.
Rising, Baba Yaga walks to the window and points a bony finger at the fence. "Choose," she commands.
Going outside, the girl lifts one of the skulls from a picket. Its eyes burn with a cold, white flame that will never go out. When she returns home, this fire will do more than light the stove. It will burn away the cruelty of her stepfamily, reducing them to ash. But for now, it simply lights her path.
Baba Yaga watches her guest depart. The witch is the villain in the stories of the fearful, but to the brave, she is the catalyst. Burning away the weakness of youth, she leaves only the steel of adulthood.
Settling down to sleep, the hut tucks its head under its eaves. Chicken legs fold beneath the floorboards. The forest is quiet. The Guardian is home. And tomorrow, the mortar will rise again.
