Befana/Babushka

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I've posted. Things have been a little crazy for me this week (I've been hunting down Australian Folklore for work), but more of that later.

I finally had a chance to sit down a read a couple variations on the Befana story and I found some Russian variations where the witch is referred to as "Babushka" (Russian for grandmother). Also, the Russian variants don't emphasis the character as a witch; she's a peasant woman only. The versions I was able to read were The Story of Befana by Ilse Plume, Babushka by Charles Mikolaycak, and Baboushka: A Christmas Folktale from Russia by Arthur Scholey. I also have Tomie De Paolo's The Legend of Old Befana on hold at the library, so when that comes in, I may edit this post to include information from it.

Befana

The folktale of both Befana and Babushka are similar: A woman, who lives alone, meets the three wise men on their way to visit the Baby Jesus. The woman's home is fanatically clean and in some versions the three wise men stay the night with her. They tell her of Jesus and offer to take her with them to meet him, but she feels she cannot leave her house for whatever reason. (i.e. chores, cleaning, no gift to give, etc.) After they leave she regrets her decision and sets out to find the baby Jesus herself. She may or may not take repaired toys with her that were left over from a child that had died. She travels far and wide and cannot find him, but leave presents or candy for children along her way. The Italian version claims that she also sweeps up the houses that she visits and that children who see her will only get a whack from her broom. Bad children are given coal and onions instead of presents, candy, or apples, oranges, and nuts.

Another version of the story that I found online is much darker. In it, Befana had a child who died; because of this death, she went mad and set out to kidnap the Baby Jesus as her own. When she found him, he blessed her, cured her madness, and made her the mother of all the children of the world. Therefore she leaves presents for them on the Epiphany.

It's a cute story; I can't wait to see what else I pick up from it.

Baba Yaga

This past weekend I took home three versions of Baba Yaga's story: Vasilissa the Beautiful by Elizabeth Winthrop, The Flying Witch by Jane Yolen, and Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave by Marianna Mayer.


I loved reading these stories because I've always been enchanted by the idea of Baba Yaga; I think the fascination comes from not knowing how Baba Yaga will be portrayed in the story. In some tales, she's a good character, in others she's a neutral observer, and in others she's the antagonist. I can't think of many folktale characters that have that kind of depth and range. Anansi is one and the wolf from the three little pigs/little red riding hood has been rewritten as a sympathetic character in modern adaptations. But are there many more? This is something I'm going to have to think about for a while.


So in honor of Baba Yaga (and my new-found skills at modifying clip art in Microsoft word), I created my own clip-art Baba Yaga. Hopefully I can use her on my proposed "Did you know" signs for the Folktales section at the library.

Baba Yaga

I wanted to reflect her flexible role in various stories, so although she looks a little surly, she wouldn't be immediately frightening. I was able to create her from a clip art version of Befana, the Italian epiphany witch. Befana is similar to St. Nicholas; she brings candy to good children and coal to the bad ones. The interesting part about her legend is that if you see Befana, all you'll get from her is a whack from her broom, regardless if you're good or bad. Isn't that a great way to keep kids in bed!

Here's the image of Befana I used to create Baba Yaga:

As you can see, the have the same body type, but Baba Yaga is paler, a little meaner looking, and has fly-away hair and a babushka. I also changed the color scheme of her dress; every image I've ever seen of Baba Yaga has here wearing red in some way and most feature purple too.

While modifying the Befana image, I was able to do a little research on her. It's an interesting story and one that I'll be blogging about later!