There are many legends about monsters such as Al-Nadaha and Al-Tantal, who are said to be from the jinn, and there are also legends about ordinary people turned into monsters by black magic, such as the legend of the Wendigo monster, who was an ordinary person and turned into a cannibal beast because of black magic, but our legend today is about the witch of the forest .

Imagine with me, dear reader, that you are walking in the forest alone at night, and there is only a faint light from the moon that helps you see the road, and suddenly you hear the sound of a loud, wicked, frightening laugh, like the laugh of the evil witch we used to watch in cartoons and looks everywhere to locate the sound, but the closer you get to it You can't see anything because of the trees around the place.

Then in the middle of the forest you see a long fence made of human bones and decorated with human skulls, and behind this wall you see the hut of the witch, the heroine of our legend today, whose name is Baba Jaya, and here you are standing in front of a hut that many entered, but very little came out, and this little changed its character completely, sometimes He loses the ability to speak and may completely refrain from talking about the horrors he saw inside this hut, and some of them were warning people and forbidding them to enter the forest and approach this hut, while others were trying to convince themselves that what they saw was not true.

Like many legends, Baba Yoga was used to frighten children. The truth is, many legends of monsters such as (Our Mother the Ghouls, the Father of a Skinned Man, the Bogeyman, etc...) were intended to make children behave properly, and this also applies to the legend (Baba Yaga) common in Russia And Europe, Baba Yaga, in the eyes of some, is the grandmother of Satan, the mother of the earth, the bone, the cannibal, and sometimes the good witch who gives help to the needy if they really deserve it.

Pope Yaga appears in the ancient Slavic stories and was in control of most of their legends and embodies the characteristics of the witch in most folk stories. She used this myth to intimidate and entice at the same time. If you are a bad boy, Baba Yaga will come to kidnap and devour you, but if you are a good boy and win in its challenges and puzzles, your dreams and wishes will come true.

The first mention of the word Baba Yaga was in the Russian grammar book in 1755 by Mikhail Lomonosov, and he explained the word Baba Yaga meaning mother, grandmother or old lady, and the closest translation is the evil old woman or the old witch, in fact Baba Yaga has many different versions of Some of them are a wicked old woman who devours travelers through the forest, and sometimes they are three sister witches, all named Baba Yaga.

And in a third tale, Baba Yaga appears as a kind witch of the swamp who helps those who need it, but on condition that he really deserves this help. In this story, the kind Baba Yaga tests who needs her help and presents puzzles and tasks, and if he succeeds in solving the puzzle and performing the task, he will equalize it in a magical way that can change his life.

We cannot speak of a fixed model of Baba Yaga, nor can we classify her as always evil old or always good old, because if the people who need her help fail the tests, they will turn into a delicious meal for her. As for her shape, it varies according to the variety of tales, but the characteristics The physicality common to all tales tells of an ugly old lady with a long, pointy nose and thin, skeletal legs.

Although this description may suggest to you that she is a weak woman, her teeth are so sharp that the victim’s bones are broken, and some describe her teeth as being of metal, and her thin legs are the reason for calling her the shin bone in Baba Yaga poem written by the Russian poet Nikolai Nekersov in 1840. This poet told of cooking 12 evil women together in order to make only one woman possess the same evil as Satan himself.

As a result of this act, the swamp witch Baba Yaga, who used to get out of Hell into the material world to perform evil deeds before returning to Hell again to receive her reward, Nekersov described her as having huge ears and giant horns protruding from her forehead, and instead of her eyes there are holes with skin that looks Snake skin and fangs hanging from her mouth to her chest, as it is clear that the poet sees Baba Yaga as a demon and not an old woman.

In contrast to what we know about witches that they wear long pointed hats and fly with magic brooms, Baba Yaga flies with a huge pestle (masher or pestle) and that the hand of the Hun uses it as a rudder to guide the Hun, and despite the strangeness of the description, you will find this method is very practical for a witch who kidnaps children And you grind their bones in the Huns, you will find that they decorate the Huns with human bones or at least the remains of the bones.

She also has a broom with which she scans the traces of her walk in the forest or anything that indicates her presence so that no one can reach her. Indeed, after her appearance at night and her disappearance at sunrise, some people go out and search for her, and the only way to find her is to find her hut located in the depths of the forest. It rests on giant chicken feet, and these feet help it transport the hut from one place to another.

Even if some people find her hut, no one is able to enter unless he says one sentence, and this sentence is like a magic word, which is (turn your back to the forest and face me), and it is said that this sentence is also responsible for stopping the forest hut while moving in the forest, and the fact that the feet of Chickens are an allegory and a projection of Baba Yaga's resourcefulness and that she can make use of the smallest things like chicken legs. Others think that chicken legs are nothing more than just tree trunks. This belief is due to the belief that the indigenous people of Siberia used to store food in small huts propped up on Wooden stilts raised from the ground to keep out intrusive animals.

In most of the stories about Baba Yaga, only a specific type of people are safe from its evil and magic, and they are pure-hearted. Only these people are immune to Baba Yaga, or at least they have a chance to survive and benefit from her good side. One of the most famous embodiments of Baba Yaga is in the Russian story (Vassilisa the Beautiful) which deals with the story of Vasilisa who lives under the oppression of her stepmother and daughters, where after the death of her mother her father married another woman and the cruel stepmother and daughters took advantage of the father's absence due to his working conditions as a merchant and mistreated Vasilisa.

They exploited her in the most horrific way. Vasilisa lived a difficult life amidst constant oppression and oppression. After she crossed her path with the witch of the swamp, she was tested with a set of missions. With Vasilisa's success in implementing them, Baba Yaga helped her in lifting the oppression and oppression of her stepmother and daughters. the prince.

This story proves the good side of Baba Yaga and that she is fully prepared to help those in need if they really deserve her help, but this does not negate that in the same story, Baba Yaga threatened Vasilisa that if she failed in the tasks assigned to her, she would be doomed to death, meaning that the dark side The scary one was there, too.