Old hags and witches have long been portrayed as scary and ominous figures in folklore. Characters such as Hansel and Gretel’s witch, Shakespeare’s three witches in Macbeth, and Rapunzel’s stepmother have all left their imprint on the works of fiction in which they have appeared.
Sure, more and more narratives are exploring what it means to be a witch. They have been granted enormous, destructive superpowers and are made to be attractive. The horror elicited by witches who appear to be a thousand years old and are always absorbed in classic witchy activities such as stirring their cauldron and being malevolent, however, is quite different. Baba Yaga is one such witch who lives up to the stereotypes.
Baba Yaga is a fictitious character from the Hellboy comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. She is a fascinating and unusual supervillain. The series is heavily influenced by mythology, particularly Russian folklore. Mike Mignola, the series’ writer, and artist created the character of Baba Yaga after being inspired by the Russian folklore character of the same name.
Baba Yaga is a strong witch who lived in a chicken leg home and counted the fingers of deceased men, according to legend. Baba Yaga is a witch in Mignola’s comics who is out for vengeance on Hellboy.
We are going to speak about Baba Yaga’s role in the comics and how powerful she is in this video.
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Baba Yaga In Russian Folklore
In Slavic mythology or Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is a witch and an ogress who is known to be the ancient goddess of death as well as regeneration. Kind of similar to Hades from Greek mythology. The roots of her story stem from the pre-Indo-European matrilinear pantheon.
According to Russian folklore, Baba Yaga lived deep in the woods, in darkness, and far, far away from humanity. The trope of the old hag is dominant in her tale as she is believed to be wise and prophetic but also, an evil and dangerous woman who eats humans, especially children.
Baba Yaga is tall. Her legs are bony and she is pestle-headed. She has a long, witchlike nose with terribly disheveled hair. She can switch her appearance from time to time, appearing as a young woman or as two sisters. Mainly, her theriomorphic image shows her as a snake or a bird but she can morph into other creatures such as a toad, frog, turtle, mouse, vixen, goat, mare, bee, or any inanimate object.
In the legendary folklore, she is never seen walking. Baba Yaga is either flying in a fiery mortal or she is lying down in her hut. The fence surrounding her hut is made with human bones. Human skulls with their eyes intact are placed atop the fences while the gate is fastened with human arms and legs. The lock is essentially a mouth with sharp teeth. Bird’s legs support the hut and it can turn around like a spindle. Interestingly, the hut is Baba Yaga herself.
In East Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga happens to have a male counterpart called Koshchei Bessmertnyi or Koshchei the Immortal. He is often presented as Baba Yaga’s son or nephew.
Baba Yaga’s Conflict With Hellboy In the Comics
A long history surrounds the legendary witch. Back in 1895, when Russia was still under the Romanov’s rule, Baba Yaga had contacted the monk Grigori Rasputin. She told the then young Rasputin that he had been chosen by the fates to be the agent of change and the father of the new millennium.
To safeguard Rasputin’s spirit at all times, Baba Yaga placed half of it with the roots of the world tree, which you may also know as the Yggdrasil (you can recognize this name from Norse Mythology and Marvel’s Thor storyline). This act created a very strong bond between Bab Yaga and Rasputin. He would often refer to her as his ‘grandmother’.
Koschei the Deathless
Koschei is the archetypal male antagonist from Russian folklore. He had a terrible fear of losing his soul and Baba Yaga took advantage of that. She would tell him that he can still redeem himself despite choosing a path of darkness and blood. With this, she sent him to slay the last dragons and their hatchlings to spare mankind. However, executing this quest resulted in Koschei murdering his adoptive father.
The Baba Yaga
The witch encountered Hellboy for the first time in March 1964. After a string of children disappeared, Hellboy took it upon himself to investigate the matter. During this, he came across Baba Yaga, as it was her doing. She kidnapped them to satiate her cannibalistic hunger. When Hellboy found her, he ambushed her in a sudden attack which resulted in Baba Yaga losing her left eye.
Baba Yaga used the graveyard’s tombstones to attack Hellboy but ultimately, lost to him. Unable to bear the result of being defeated, she cursed the village of Bereznik for not having spring that year. Also, every child who would be born in that village would be blind in one eye.
But with her power diminished after her defeat due to the left eye being taken out, Baba Yaga disappeared. Without it, she could not return to the normal world and found refuge in a pocket dimension. This dimension was an alternate reality of Russia in which Baba Yaga took control. However, she could occasionally return to the real world.
Wake the Devil
In this storyline, Rasputin fails to ensure the survival of Ilsa Haupstein in the upcoming apocalypse. So, Baba Yaga’s servant Koku presents an iron maiden to Rasputin. Meanwhile, Hellboy is cast into the darkness by Hecate, the Goddess of Crossroads and the Enemy of the Sun. Baba Yaga observes Hellboy’s struggles and thinks that he is likely to succumb to his misery and destroy the world. However, she is in utter disbelief when he does not go down the path of darkness.
Baba Yaga soon meets with Rasputin at Yggdrasil. She wants him to stay with her in her alternate dimension. But unfortunately for her, he did not wish to do so. She tried to convince him and ended up failing. Before Hecate could dispatch Rasputin, Baba Yaga collected whatever remained of this soul.
Darkness Calls
After Hecate gets disposed of, Baba Yaga refuses to be the Queen. She approaches the witches and asks them to give her Hellboy as she wanted her revenge but could not do it outside her realm. Baba Yaga then sent her greatest servant Koschei to bring her Hellboy’s head or eye. However, as Koschei’s actions are hindered, Baba Yaga infuses thousands of souls into her champion. She also uses a fragment of her soul to take over Koschei’s body.
But, Koschei is defeated which drains Baba Yaga of most of her power. She tries to use Rasputin’s soul but Koku casts it into Hell. In her last attempt, she tries to get Koschei to throw his dagger into Hellboy’s back but once again, it is a failure.
The Storm and The Fury
Baba Yaga offers to aid Hellboy as he reaches the Nimue’s tower, provided he gives her his eye as a payment. Since he had taken out her original left eye, Baba Yaga could not get over her need for revenge. However, Hellboy obliges, albeit reluctantly. In the aftermath of Hellboy’s death after his fight with the Queen of Blood, Edward Grey sends Baba Yaga to find Hellboy in the Abyss.
Baba Yaga In The 2019 Hellboy Movie
Baba Yaga appeared in the 2019 superhero film Hellboy. The movie was directed by Neil Marshal. It is a reboot of the previous Hellboy series and also the third film in the live-action franchise. The story is based on the comic books The Storm and the Fury, The Wild Hunt, and Darkness Calls.
Baba Yaga serves as a supporting antagonist in the movie and is voiced by Emma Tate. Contortionist Troy James plays the role.
When she is seen for the first time in the movie, she is talking to Gruagach. She wants to know about the coffins where King Arthur hid the severed body parts of Nimue the Queen of Blood, which he had cut himself using his legendary sword called the Excalibur.
Baba Yaga offers Gruagach a deal, if he frees Nimue, she would help him get revenge on Hellboy. She makes this scheme so that she herself can get revenge on him for taking out her eye and getting her trapped in a different dimension.
Grugach does Baba Yaga’s bidding and frees Nimue. Once she is whole again, she attempts to seduce Hellboy to get him on her side and make him the king as she wants to free the supernatural beings.
Meanwhile, Hellboy gets into an argument with his adoptive father while in the A.I.D.P. headquarters of London. As he leaves, he uses a lift to go up. But, the lift goes down and does not stop, which confuses Hellboy. Once the lift stops, he finds himself transported to the dimension he had sent Baba Yaga after he defeated her for trying to revive Stalin.
Baba Yaga welcomes Hellboy to her chicken leg of a house. She appears from her mortal while twisting her body and falls to the ground as if she was a rag doll. She stands up and invites him to the dinner table. To his horror, Hellboy finds dead children in the backroom and discovers that Baba Yaga has found herself children to satiate her cannibalistic hunger. The mess does not end there as he realizes that those children were what she had served him. Naturally, Hellboy refuses to eat the atrocious meal and demands to know why Baba had summoned him to her realm.
Baba Yaga presents a deal to Hellboy. She would tell him where Nimue was but in return, he would have to give her one of his eyes as a replacement for the one he had taken out. Hellboy reluctantly accepts the proposition and Baba confirms the deal in the worst way possible, by grossly kissing him. Finally, she lets Hellboy know that Nimue intends to go to Pendle Hill and restore herself to full power.
Baba Yaga takes out her sickle to take his eye but Hellboy tells her that she will only get it once he is done. This works on his favor as they had never determined a time for the fulfillment of the deal. Baba Yaga gets enraged and attacks Hellboy with a pair of sickles. The two of them fight but it ends soon as Hellboy subdues her. However, before he can emerge victoriously, Baba Yaga tilts the house which throws him out. She then curses out at Hellboy and claims that she will get his eye someday or else he will use the eye to witness the death of his loved ones.
Hellboy returns back to his dimension to go on his mission to find Nimue. Baba Yaga’s character isn’t expanded after this.
The way Baba Yaga has been portrayed in this movie clearly shows how the primary influence on her appearance has been the Russian folklore over the comics. She is made to be extremely old, thin, frail-looking and of course, ugly. According to the folk tales, Baba Yaga also had iron teeth, a bone leg, and stone breasts. The movie does not gross over the last two but she does have a pair of wooden legs. Her form is extremely deformed and her grin is hideous.
Of course, her left eye is missing, which is the source of her plight and her rage against Hellboy. What’s strange is even though she needs a stick to walk and looks frail, she can fight perfectly. At one point, Hellboy mentioned how her tongue had hair on it.
What Makes Baba Yaga The Most Powerful Witch?
Being a heavyweight antagonist and a recurring one at that in the Hellboy comic series would require Baba Yaga to be quite powerful. And she does not disappoint. She is easily one of the most powerful users of magic in this universe. People all across the Russian lands know of her. She is feared by the people, especially by those who live in the wilderness and Baba Yaga often roams in the wild.
She used to be more powerful before Hellboy foiled her plans of reviving Stalin. Back then, she would often be seen in graveyards where she would count the fingers of the corpses. She would then suck in their souls and breathe them into other empty skulls to create lanterns. She would hang these ghastly lanterns from the branches of the Yggdrasil or the world tree. Her chicken-legged house would also sport them as its unique interior decor. She is believed to have thousands of them.
Baba Yaga seems to have mastered spiritual magic. She excels at any magic where she has to manipulate souls and her lanterns are one of the best examples of this.
She controls a giant army of the dead or the undead, whatever you may like to call it. Her pocket dimension is like a bootleg version of Russia, which she dominates with the help of this army. Of course, there is little to no resistance here except some from Leshii, who only does it out of delight for getting in Baba Yaga’s way.
Her best servant and champion Koschei is also under her control. Baba Yaga owns his soul and keeps it in an egg which is again kept inside a duck which is kept in a rabbit which is once again, inside a goat. Inception but make it as weird as possible.
This power of hers stems from the ghostly lanterns. She uses the lanterns to amplify the powers of other beings as well. On top of that, Baba Yaga can remove parts of any soul and then manipulate them to be placed elsewhere. This grants the soul owner a longer life, which is the case with Rasputin.
She is efficient with other forms of magic as well. She can travel across vast distances inside a huge, wooden mortar, which is her version of a witch’s broom. Her prosthetic wooden legs and lower torso are probably powered by magic, which explains why she can fight well despite having those legs. She can also see across great distances, even outside the boundaries of her fake Russia and into the real world. She can even communicate with witches living in the real world.
Within this dimension of hers, Baba Yaga is obviously the strongest. With the help of her army, she is practically at the top and there’s no one there who can rival her abilities. The others to exist there are several other deities and figures from Slavic folklore. However, she treats them like crap and is super oppressive. She is ruthless and will kill anyone who stands in her way.
However, after her lamps and a portion of her owl soul was drained, she weakened permanently. She almost loses her ability to talk as she trembles while in a weakened state. Despite all of that, her faux Russia keeps existing which means that it will probably exist with or without her. She might not be the dependent factor in its existence after all and is just someone who managed to conquer this alternate dimension. She would need the souls of others to gain back her power but she can no longer go back to the normal world.
One confusing element about her power is how it is stated that Baba Yaga cannot return to the normal world without her left eye. But she manages to do that in Wake the Devil as she is seen standing alongside Edward Grey and Dagda. She talks about how she can make quick trips outside faux Russia so she can probably do it for brief periods but cannot sustain life in the normal world. After her lanterns got drained, she probably lost this ability as well.
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