Literature / Baba Yaga

Baba-Yaga (Баба Яга; in Russian and also translated Baba Jaga; stress on the first a in Baba, but on the second a in Yaga) is a witch-like character in Slavic folklore. She flies around using a giant mortar and pestle, kidnaps (and presumably eats) small children, and lives in a forest hut, which stands on chicken legs. In modern days, she is often depicted not as a villainous, but simply a sociopathic or even gentle and friendly person. And in almost any tale she is very knowledgeable. The Russian word baba is an impolite term for "woman" with no direct translation in English (less polite than "woman" but not as bad as "bitch." The old-fashioned term "broad" may give the best idea). Mostly baba is simply translated as "woman" with the impoliteness left to context; meanwhile Yaga is a form of a certain name, it is thought to be a corruption of Slavic root for "hag", making "Baba Yaga" mean something like "old hag", or perhaps "hag hag". Baba Yaga is depicted as an old, knowledgeable, and geeky character with mystical servants.

She is a common antagonist in Slavic folklore, known for kidnapping and eating children (and serving as a cautionary tale for small children against wandering off or talking to strangers). Some tales alternatively revolve around characters seeking her out for her wisdom or having her offer guidance to lost souls, though they are notably less in number; even when sought for guidance she is generally portrayed as having to be approached carefully, usually at great risk. She features in Vasilissa the Beautiful and The Death of Koschei the Deathless.

The character of Baba Yaga has made dozens of appearances in popular culture and modern works including Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Orson Scott Card's novel Enchantment, Otfried Preußler's fantasy novel The Adventures of Strong Vanya, the Fables, Hellboy, and Friar comic series, innumerable Russian cartoons and tales like The Frog Princess, Runescape, Quest for Glory, Pathfinder, Blacktail ^note  where you are the Baba Yaga , Bartok the Magnificent, Supernatural^note In a Monster of the Week episode, "Drag Me Away (From You)"., and (as "Barbara Jagger") Alan Wake. She even provides the Red Baron moniker of one John Wick. Baba Yaga is also a brand of beer from the Massachusetts-based brewery.

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Associated tropes:

• All Witches Have Cats: She has one, at least in some stories, but she has other animals as well.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: In the story of Vasilissa the Beautiful, she has three servants that resemble riders, one that embodies the daybreak, one that is the embodiment of the sun, and a third that embodies night.
• Berserk Button: Baba Yaga often mentions that she eats the overly curious. In some tales, this is explicable by the fact that she ages a year whenever someone asks her a question.
• Big Bad: A common one in Slavic folklore, due to her love of child flesh.
• Big Eater: in Vasilissa the Beautiful, she eats enough for ten.
• Bizarrchitecture: Baba Yaga's chicken-legged home. It even apparently moves.
  • Truth in Television: The Sami◊ evidently used this style of architecture, called nili, and usually used for storehouses and barns, to prevent animals from reaching foodstuffs stored inside and stealing them. The legs are usually made from pine stumps and either tarred or smoked to prevent them from rotting.
  • Alternatively, the odd look of her house is connected to the Slavic tradition of putting some wooden houses on stumps with chopped off roots to prevent the wood from rotting.
  • Another alternative version is that her house is sort of a watchtower between the human world and the world of spirits. This is why the hero or heroine will sometimes say "Hut, hut, turn your back to the forest and your facade to me". Because the forest is a straight way to the underworld. And guess in the middle of what Baba-Yaga lives?
  • One more version suggests that her house is actually a "domovina" — a special type of building that was put on a high stump with roots where ancient Slavic people used to bury their dead. Also domovinas had no doors and no windows so that a) the dead couldn't return to the world of living b) so that the living didn't disturb the dead for no good reason c) so that no element was tainted. This makes Baba-Yaga a priestess who leads the rite of cremation.
• Black Magic: She is served by disembodied shadowy hands and her house is lighted by skulls with glowing eyes. How else do you describe her sorcery?
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: If you take the stories of her as helpful and malicious as the same character, then it would seem she's not precisely evil, but instead operates on a completely different moral standard that places no particular value on human life (She Eats Babies as casually as you or I eat lamb), but certainly respects other virtues
• Cool Old Lady: In the stories where she is a helpful character rather than the villain.
  • This is often explained by there being multiple Baba Yagas. Some stories even have the hero seek advice from a Baba Yaga, though this may just be Lampshade Hanging on how frequently she's used as a plot device.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Baba Yaga sometimes displays a propensity to eat the overly curious. Notably, it's not a good idea to ask her about the spectral disembodied hands serving her in her hut.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Some stories play her up as a good person in spite of her reputation and appearance.
  • In some stories the key to her being non-malicious is politeness.
• Eats Babies: Most of the time.
• Elemental Embodiment: While not an embodiment per se, according to That Other Wiki Baba Yaga represents the element of fire. Though it's not explicitely made clear in most tales, her ambiguous nature (sometimes helpful, sometimes destructive) hints towards this, so does the fact that her hut is based on the funerary huts where ancient Slavs cremated their dead. Not to mention those Flaming Skulls.
• Evil Aunt: In some stories, Baba Yaga has a beautiful, younger (but still evil) sister who seduces and marries widowed fathers in order to send her new stepchildren off to their new "aunt". Don't worry, they will usually escape with the help of their dead mother or something...
• Evil Old Folks: At least in the stories where she is, indeed, evil.
• Familiar: Usually has several, either animals, or her invisible servants, or both.
• Fair Folk: Whether she is a particularly powerful and ancient human witch or something else entirely can vary from story to story and from setting to setting, if it is explained at all, but like most fae, she can be hostile or helpful depending on her whims, and is never to be trifled with.
• Flaming Skulls: in "Vasilissa the Beautiful", Baba Yaga's fence is adorned with skulls with glowing eyes. The title character's evil stepmother sends her to the Baba's hut to get some fire, but Baba is not about to grant favors easily. When Vasilissa completes the hag's impossible tasks (her late mother's magic helping), Baba lets her go (more like kicks her out when she learns Vasilissa is blessed) and gifts her with one of the skulls to serve as fire. When Vasilissa brings the skull home, its scorching gaze burns her evil steprelatives to ashes.
• Flying Broomstick: Sometimes, but she's usually depicted flying with the mortar and pestle.
  • Originally, she wasn't flying either. The tales state clearly that the mortar is walking, the pestle is used as a whip, and the broom is used to smooth over the tracks she leaves.
• Fountain of Youth: On occasion, she's shown looking for or using magical blue roses that restore her beauty by being made into tea. Since in some versions she ages with every question, she has a good reason.
• Good is Not Nice: Even in tales where she is a helpful figure, it is usually not a good idea to disrespect her or to ask her more questions than strictly necessary.
• "Hansel and Gretel": Localised varieties of this fable sometimes make her be the witch the two meet.
• Holy Burns Evil: Just tell her you are protected by a blessing and she will leave you alone.
  • While technically not holy, it is often explained that she can only eat the flesh of naughty children, and she is somehow forbidden to touch good children. Good children who end up in her clutches are forced to be her slaves and often made to perform an Impossible Task, so if they fail she has the excuse they were being "naughty." This never works.
• Iconic Item: She flies around in a giant mortar and pestle. Some later tales (and toys) depict her flying with the usual for witches — a broomstick.
  • It is common to see Baba riding in the mortar (on the ground), whipping the mortar with the pestle to make it go faster, and using the broom to cover up her tracks.
  • The hut on bird legs is also quite iconic.
  • Less common are her iron teeth.
• Leitmotif: "The Hut on Fowl's Legs" by Modest Mussorgsky from Pictures at an Exhibition, which is a musical tribute to a picture of Baba Yaga's abode. That Other Wiki notes that it is supposed to invoke the hag herself riding on her mortar.
• Lost in Translation: Some have posited that Baba Yaga's house was originally not on chicken legs at all ("курьи ножки"), but on smoked legs ("курные"), referring to the practice of the wooden struts that supported huts being saturated with smoke to make them resistant to rot, particularly "houses of the dead" where they stored their ancestors' ashes, and that over time the word got corrupted to "курьи." Thus it was just a normal house. More likely it's both, and the word was always a deliberate pun.
• Moving Buildings: In Eastern European folklore and legend, the witch Baba Yaga has a house that can walk around on giant chicken legs. This house has shown up in a number of adaptations.
• Never Mess with Granny: She is an old powerful witch after all. Though in some stories, she suffers from Adaptational Wimp.
• Noble Demon: In Vasilissa the Beautiful, one of the most iconic tales featuring her, she wants to eat the titular protagonist, but once Vasilissa completes her impossible tasks with the help of her mother's blessing, Baba not only grudgingly lets her go, but even grants her a boon in the form of a flaming skull that incinerates her evil stepfamily.
• Off with His Head!: In The Death of Koschei the Deathless, she pretends to be willing to help Prince Ivan out while looking for one excuse to cut his head off and get it mounted on a pole.
• Psychopomp: The resemblance of her house to a traditional Slavic funerary hut has led some scholars to speculate that Baba Yaga is a symbolic gatekeeper between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. Especially in stories where she is helpful, her hut often stands on the border of the enchanted forest, and it is after communing with her that the protagonist steps out of the mundane and into the unknown, the realm of magic and spirits. Even in tales where she does not have this transitional property, Baba is often strongly associated with death - consider her Flaming Skulls and disembodied spectral servants in Vasilissa the Beautiful.
• Public Domain Character Has shown up in Dungeons & Dragons, Quest for Glory, Fables, Shadow Star (which, being Japanese, makes her a beautiful teenage girl and her chicken house a Mon) and now Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated.
  • SCP-352 is an alternative take on the character. Being an SCP object, it's quite unnerving in a different way.
  • One story, The Chaos, had her hut and the phoenix fall in love.
  • The French-Canadian youth fantasy novels Amos Daragon, being a textbook example of Fantasy Kitchen Sink, featured an evil old witch named Baya Gaya, very strongly based on the Slavic mythological character (the notes at the end of the novel outright say so). The witch is hired by the god Loki (yes, that Loki) to kill the heroes and she disguises herself as a beautiful young mermaid to do so. It's that kind of book.
• Sacred Hospitality: Sometimes, when the hero arrives, and she questions him, he complains that she has not given him food and drink first. She approves of this courage and will provide them.
  • In another story, Baba Yaga finds the Tsar himself at the edge of death in her woods, badly wounded after a battle. Unimpressed by his lineage, she prepares to eat him. The Tsar angrily tells her that he got those wounds defending all the people of Russia, including her, from foreigners. Thus she owes him her gratitude and hospitality. Baba agrees and heals his wounds... then tells him never to return.
• Sapient House: Her hut is able to move on its own with its chicken legs.
• Solitary Sorceress: One of the probable Trope Codifiers, though the bird legs on her house are an unusual twist.
• Ugly Slavic Women: Baba Yaga, the Wicked Witch from Slavic mythology, is an example from the culture itself, though it must be said that she isn't always depicted as a bad character.
• Weaksauce Weakness: In the story of "Vasilissa the Beautiful", she is repulsed by the Blessings of Vasilissa's mother, which not coincidentally, help Vasilissa complete the Impossible Tasks Baba Yaga demands.
• Wicked Witch: A fine example of this trope whenever presented as a villainess.
• Wizards Live Longer: No one knows how old she is, but in some stories she's been around for a very long while.
  • In some stories, however, it is said she ages one year every time she is asked a question. Goes a long way to explain why she lives far away from civilization and is not always too excited to help out.
  • In many stories she is effectively a goddess. For one thing, Day, Sun and Night ride out of the doors of her hut, and are apparently her manservants.

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Depictions in media:

Anime and Manga

• The English dub of Inuyasha episode 31 has this exchange between Inuyasha, Kagome, and the mother of Jinenji:
  Inuyasha: Wait. So if you're saying the father was the demon, then the human parent was you?
  Jinenji's mother: What did you think I was?!
  Kagome: (thinking) I thought you were Baba Yaga!
• Her chicken-legged house in Narutaru
• Yubaba in Spirited Away is very likely inspired by tales about Baba Yaga, especially Vasilissa the Beautiful.

Comic Books

• Baba Yaga appears in the Hellboy comics as an ally of Rasputin the Mad Monk and one of Hellboy's rogues.
• While visiting Fairyland, the hero of Books of Magic wanders off the path and gets captured by Baba Yaga for the stewpot.
• Unsurprisingly, Baba Yaga turns up in Fables as an agent of the Adversary. She spends most of the early issues disguised as Little Red Riding Hood.
• Baba Yaga shows up once in Dylan Dog, accepting a terminally ill man's soul in exchange for killing the men who murdered his family and make him watch... Except the man had already sold his soul to the devil for the same service and made the deal with her because the devil had decided to kill them right before he died so he couldn't enjoy his revenge, leading to a conflict between the two.
• In the Fiends of the Eastern Front prequel story 1812, Baba Yaga is an enemy of the Wallachian/Romanian vampire soldier Constanta, who was turned by a witch coven allied to the Russian witch. Aside from her chicken-leg house, she also has a skeleton army at her beck and call and total control over the elements. Although Constanta does manage to wound her, their fight ends in a draw.
• In the 2019 Xena Warrior Princess mini-series, in issue #4, Xena, Gabrielle and Discord end up in the Russian taiga and are taken in by an old woman in her hut with a large pestle and mortar nearby. The old woman is a goddess and the last of a trio of witch deities, thus losing her powers because people do not believe in them anymore. With Gabrielle's help, who is The Storyteller, the witch woman gains enough power from people's belief in her, and thus the legend of Baba Yaga is born.

Fan Works

• in the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, witches from the Discworld's up to eleven Russia appear to graduate through several informal levels of competence and ability. The starting point is devyuschka - informally, "kid who is a girl" and "pupil". The Devyuschka, when her tutors agree she is ready, or else, these days, has had advanced training in Lancre, is then a ved'ma, Witch. A witch with lots of experience might eventually be accepted as a babiuschka- "old woman". Only a few, however, go to the state lying on the other side of "Babiuschka" - that of Babayaga. The Babayaga can be seen as a Far Überwaldean take on the theme of Granny Weatherwax - rarely found, but exceedingly powerful, however she chooses to use the power. Flight-minded witch Olga Romanoff, a pupil of such a Babayaga, inherits the flying mortar and pestle on her mentor's death. After the death of Natalya the Baba Yaga, her Steading is taken over by a teenage witch, Natalya's approved choice of successor, who is called Vasilisa.
• Alluded to in When the Cold Wind is a Callin'. Apparently, Hilde, the old Norse witch from The Dragon and the Bow, learned magic from Baba Yaga, but Baba did not have the best intentions for her student. Nicholas St. North, however, reassures Hiccup and Merida that they don't need to prepare to confront Baba Yaga, because she's already dead.

Films — Animated

• Baba Yaga is set up to be the villain of Bartok the Magnificent at first, already having a very bad reputation among Russian folk and then kidnapping Prince Ivan, with his adviser Ludmilla sending Bartok out to save Ivan from her. But it turns out she was framed for the kidnapping, and isn't actually evil — she's just grouchy and antisocial, and her bad rep was born out of gossip more than anything else.
• Monster Family: Baba Yaga is Dracula's accomplice, and the one who transforms the human protagonists into monsters based on their Halloween costumes.
• Secret Magic Control Agency: When Hansel and Gretel are transformed into children they seek Baba Yaga out for a cure. Unfortunately for them, Hansel's protests that she eats children turn out to be correct, and she gives them a sleeping potion so she can eat them. They manage to escape using her flying mortar.

Films — Live-Action

• Baba Yaga is a villain in the film Morozko. The US release "Jack Frost" changes her name to the Hunchbacked Fairy.
• Although she herself does not show up, the titular hitman in John Wick, who used to work for the Russian mafia, is nicknamed "Baba Yaga", which the film translates to "the boogeyman."
• As mentioned above, in Ant-Man and the Wasp Kurt thinks that The Ghost (a woman with the powers to phase through solid matter) is Baba Yaga. When she appears out of nowhere and frightens him, he begins reciting a nursery rhyme about Baba Yaga as though it were the holiest of Russian prayers. The actual Baba Yaga is not in the movie however.
  Kurt: (singing softly whilst scared out of his mind) Baba Yaga, come at night, little children, sleepy tight..

Jokes

• She appears in a more sympathetic light in this Russian political joke from the Gorbachev era:
  Baba Yaga and Koschei the Immortal are sitting by the window in the cabin on chicken legs and see Zmey Gorynych flying low, cawing "Perestroika! Uskoreniye!" Baba Yaga: "This old stupid worm! Told him not to eat communists already!"

Literature

• In Jane Yolen and Midori Synder's Except the Queen, Baba Yaga is an important character. Her appearing old among the fairies, who can look young, is reflective of her judgment. She hires one of the main characters to manage the house she rents out as apartments.
• Baba Yaga is mentioned several times in Dark Reflection Trilogy as protecting Russia in the same manner the Flowing Queen protected Venice. It's suggested several times that she may be actually one of the old gods that once walked the Earth.
• Patricia Polacco's children's book Babushka Baba Yaga features the character as a reclusive member of The Fair Folk. Here, she's presented as a kind fairy who has been demonized by humans. She disguises herself as a human grandmother in order to fit in with the nearby village.
• In Uprooted, which takes much inspiration from Polish folklore, Agnieszka finds the journal of Baba Jaga in her master's library. This version was evidently a benevolent, skilled hedgewitch (though maybe absent-minded, as there are numerous spells for finding things) and her more intuitive spells are the first magic Agnieszka finds suitable. By the end, small children who see her coming out of the woods ask if she's Baba Jaga.
• The English children's book Bony Legs is a Baba Yaga tale with surprisingly surreal illustrations.
• Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series features Baba Yaga a few times, most prominently in Fire Touched. She is a fae who calls herself a witch, despite witches being a different thing entirely in their world. She is a bit of a trickster, and her motives are hard to predict, but so far she has been an ally to Mercy, and has the power to bring back the nearly or just recently dead.
• Baba Yaga acts as the quest giver in Summer in Orcus. She's depicted as dangerous and somewhat unpredictable, but it's possible to get on her good side. "I'm not a monster, child. Or I am, but not a completely unfeeling one."
• Baba Yaga naturally plays a major role, as part antagonist and part Trickster Mentor, in Catherynne N Valente's Russian-folklore-based fantasy novel Deathless.
• In The Sisters Grimm, Baba Yaga is a prominent secondary character, being one of the most powerful witches in Ferryport Landing. She isn’t very nice to deal with, but she remains firmly on the heroes' side.
• The Little Witch: The Russian translation by Yuri Iosifovich Korinets and the Ukrainian translation rename the book Little Baba Yaga.
• Their battle happens offscreen, but Wulfrik the Wanderer got his flying teleporting longship by killing a Skaeling witch by the name of Baga Yar, and tossing her in her own cauldron after chopping off her arms at the cost of two hundred Chaos warriors.
• In one spinoff novel of Primeval, Extinction Event a T. rex is nicknamed after Baba Yaga, due to how her legs reminded some Russians of her chicken-legged hut.

Live-Action Television

• In the series Lost Girl, Baba Yaga haunted Kenzi since she was a child. While drunk, Kenzi summons Baba Yaga to curse Dyson for hurting Bo.
• In season 4 of Legends of Tomorrow, Baba Yaga is one of the escaped magical creatures that the Legends have to round up. She is seen a few times being kept at the Time Bureau. It is stated she likes to eat human babies, but she accepts veal as a substitute.
• The Magicians: Baba Yaga is the landlord for Marina's apartment. After Kady appropriates it, Baba Yaga appears to her through a medium, demanding rent.
• The Witcher (2019): The Arc Villain for season 2 is Voleth Meir, an Expy of Baba Yaga down to living in a hut on chicken legs. Voleth Meir appears in in-universe stories as a witch living in the woods who preys on children. Three characters seek her out early in the season for aid and wisdom regarding their problems, but it's eventually revealed she was luring them in so she could feed on their suffering.

Music

• Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition has an orchestral piece named after her.
• Edguy have a song titled The Realms of Baba Yaga from their album Space Police: Defenders of the Crown.

Tabletop Games

• Baba Yaga is a villain in several Old World of Darkness games. Baba Yaga was a shamaness who was turned into a vampire by the Antedeluvian Absimiliard. To free herself from Absimiliard's control, Baba Yaga summoned Wyrm creatures to fight for her, including the seven Zmei. In the 20th century, Baba Yaga is a powerful 4th generation Nosferatu vampire who rules Russia with an iron fist, bloodbinding mages and making life difficult for Russia's werewolves. She's eventually killed by Vasilisa.
• Pathfinder: Baba Yaga is a fairly important part of Golarion's history, although she is originally from Earth — she was a Sarmatian girl, specifically, who one day stumbled into the home of a norn that taught her witchcraft and magic lore. Centuries ago she arrived and conquered the nation of Irrisen, covering it in an Endless Winter. Then she seemed to lose interest in the place, installed one of her many daughters as queen, and departed for parts unknown. She returns every 100 years to replace the daughter with a new one, ostensibly taking the previous queen with her on her journeys.
  • The Reign of Winter Adventure Path reveals that this is not true. Yaga actually drains her offspring's life force to extend her own immortality. The story kicks off when the current daughter gets suspicious and attempts to conquer all of Golarion in order to usurp her mother, forcing the heroes and Baba Yaga into an Enemy Mine scenario, lest the whole world be frozen. The same adventure path also reveals that Grigori Rasputin is her long-abandoned and highly resentful son, who turns out to be the one holding her captive alongside his distant sister... in WWI-era Siberia.
  • Baba Yaga is also important to Golarion because she inadvertently created the misogynistic demon lord known as Kostchtchie, whose primary goal is to eventually exact revenge upon her for turning him into a powerful but hideously deformed mock-giant after he tried to force her to make him immortal.
  • She's explicitly not a god, but only because she doesn't want to be bothered by prayers. Thanks to finding power sources other than Gods Need Prayer Badly she's around the same power level as beings like Cthulhu anyway. However, witches can take her as a patron.
  • Game materials include a Grand Hex named "Witch's Hut" that allows other witches to emulate her iconic chicken-legged cottage.
• Of course, Dungeons & Dragons did it first; not only does she have references cropping up in several places (she also had a role in the creation of the D&D Kostchtchie), she even had a dedicated supplement once (The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, detailing her eponymous house as an adventure locale), and had a hand in several events pertaining to the world of Greyhawk. Her house has also appeared as a powerful relic-class magical item which player-characters can encounter; initially described as a Dragon Magazine adventure and above in the supplement, her hut is written as a TARDIS expy: A tesseract with nearly infinite rooms, some of which contain artifacts (such as a WWII-era tank) that imply she's done a bit of time traveling. Her most enduring legacy in that world would be her daughter Natasha, former pupil and lover of The Archmage Mordenkainen, who invented the classic D&D spell Tasha's hideous laughter and who later on betrayed her mentor, took on the alias Iggwilv, became known under that name as a terribly potent necromancer and demonologist (her book, "The Demonomicon of Iggwilv", is still centuries later the definitive source for info about demon lords), seduced and ensnared mighty demon prince Grazzt, and bore him a son who went on to become demigod, Evil Overlord extraordinaire and general Greyhawk Big Bad Iuz the Evil. Oh, and her death centuries ago was faked, she's surpassed Mordenkainen in spellcasting power, she still entertains a love/hate relationship with Grazzt, and she'll occasionally use her son's Evil Empire to further her own plans. Whew. Her relationship with her mother is generally left unexplored, though.
  • In the Nentir Vale, Baba Yaga is one of the archfey, and much feared by the denizens of the Feywild for her unpredictability.
• In Warmachine, one of the Khadoran warcasters is Zevanna Agha, the Old Witch of Khador. She's an Expy of Baba Yaga, and instead of a house on chicken legs she has a customized light warjack with chicken legs. As the story advances her second and third models have scaled her 'jack up, and now it is a house on legs. This version is in an odd, vaguely defined position where she probably isn't technically a goddess but is at a similar power level. She also alludes to both the "helpful" and "evil" aspects of Baba Yaga - although she is mentioned to have preyed on humans at some point and her methods are merciless and draconian, her end goal always seems to be to stop some much greater evil.

Video Games

• Baba Yaga is a recurring antagonist in the Quest for Glory series. She is the Big Bad, (or arguably the Greater-Scope Villain) of the first game, and reappears in the fourth as a side character. Both games can end with her killing and possibly eating the hero character, and in both the hero has to essentially bribe her out of eating him by bringing her something better to eat. Getting her to help you is key to successfully completing the fourth game, (fortunately she thinks that trying to summon the Dark One out of its dimension into ours is going too far) but even when she's being helpful she's definitely not the type you want to hang around too long, since regardless of how powerful your hero is she can have him helpless and at her mercy in an instant.
• There exists a very powerful (Mega) Digimon named Babamon that looks like an old woman and attacks with a broom, which may be partially inspired by the witch, though "baba" is also a rude way of saying "old lady" in Japanese.
• Baba Yaga appears in Dreamfall Chapters as The Hecate Sisters.
• Rise of the Tomb Raider: In a side mission Lara can confront Baba Yaga, complete with chicken leg house. In reality, her apparent possession of magical powers is aided by her use of hallucinogenic spores and old engineering. She's actually Nadia's missing grandmother who escaped from the Gulag and used the Baba Yaga legend to fight the Soviets.
• Although she doesn't appear directly, The Sims 2 Apartment Life expansion pack features a hidden lot in the Belladonna Cove neighborhood as an Easter Egg that is a recreation of the chicken legged home, complete with little chicken footsteps in the dirt behind it. Since the expansion pack also conveniently adds magic and witches and warlocks, it's possible to replicate Baba Yaga as an evil witch Sim and move her in the house.
• Alluded to in Alan Wake. The current avatar of the Dark Presence is Barbara Jagger, who drowned in Cauldron Lake thirty years ago. She tricks the Wakes into staying in Bird Leg Cabin, which sits on an island that resembles a giant bird's footprint. The plot is put into motion when she kidnaps Alice and Alan sets off to save her.
• Baba Yaga is a common enemy in certain areas of La-Mulana 2. They travel on a big mortar.
• Baba Yaga-chan is one of Cthulhu's teammates in Cthulhu Saves Christmas, the prequel to Cthulhu Saves the World. She attacks with pestles and at one point gives her hut the chicken legs from the myth. She seems to do so because of her obsession with chickens, in fact she always has one of them (named Cluck-Cluck) as a Head Pet. It's all part of the Affectionate Parody of JRPG and anime tropes, as typical for Zeboyd Games.
• Scribblenauts: Baba Yaga is one of the many mythical creatures you can create in Super Scribblenauts, Scribblenauts Remix and Scribblenauts Unlimited. In Unlimited, she plays the role of the witch from Hansel & Gretel during the Hansel and Gretel's Day Out mission in the Storybook Keep stage.
• Baba Yaga is one of your opponents in the second Rock of Ages game. Her opening cutscene depicts her about to kill a child, but a very stupid man keeps ringing her doorbell, so she has her chicken-legged hut stomp on him.
• Baba Yaga is a supporting character who Gabriel Belmont meets in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Her house doesn't appear to be mobile, but she otherwise fits the original myths pretty well- ugly old witch who eats people, but otherwise helpful when it comes to it. She offers to give him helpful advice for him to progress on his journey if he gives her a rare blue rose that will restore her youth and beauty. In order to obtain it, Baba shrinks Gabriel and fits him into a music box where the rose is hidden. Gabriel successfully obtains the rose, but we never get to see Baba's youth restored, because Zobek kills her after Gabriel leaves her house.
• Baba Yaga is a playable character in the MOBA Smite. She is a mage class character who specializes in Confusion Fu with her chicken-legged hut acting as an Assist Character.
• The old witch Gaab'Baay sends the main character of Ancient Domains of Mystery on several quests before giving them the Medal of Chaos. Say, can you guess what "Gaab'Baay" is a Significant Anagram of?
• Cooking Companions has subtle but noticeable nods to Baba Yaga. The game takes place in Tantras Mountains (which forms a natural border between Slovakia and Poland), the game features cannibalism with the four hikers, and the player character has asked the hikers "Did you come of your own free will, or were you sent?" thousands of times, just like how Baba Yaga would ask her unfortunate victims. Whether or not the player character is Baba Yaga or somehow alluding to her is unknown.
• One of the Huntress' alternate skins in Dead by Daylight turns her into the Baba Yaga, including giving her a new voice actress who sings the character's lullaby in a different key. Given the lack of children in the setting, she's presented as much more murderous than usual.

Webcomics

• In the space arc of Arthur, King of Time and Space, Baba Yaga is an Avalonian - the same race of time-travelling sorcerers as Merlin and Nimue. She put highly impractical walkers on her time-machine because she lost a bet.
• In Wilde Life, the protagonist's landlady is named "Barbara Yaga" and claims that she could be "a real witch" if he's late with the rent. That said, this might turn out to be more of a Shout-Out, since several other characters have names from literature.
• She doesn't appear in person in Girl Genius, but one of the wagons which make up Master Payne's Circus of Adventure is a mechanical replica of her house and is named after her.
• Hemlock: Baba Yaga is the oldest and most powerful witch, and also Lumi's mother-in-law.
• In PS238, the trickster god Veles sends Julie and some other superheroes into a Pocket Dimension based on Slavic Mythology, with Baba Yaga helping her near the end.
• In Sluggy Freelance there's Lady Kostianaya Noga, a cunning witch with thick Slavic accent, trapped in the Timeless Space and currently a sub-admiral of a pirate fleet.

Western Animation

• Baba Yaga is Quetzalcoatl's dragon in Legend Quest. Here, she looks more like a warrior than a typical crone. She's part of an old race of witches that once ruled the earth, and seeks to take it back from humans.
• In the very last episode of Legend of the Three Caballeros, the now defeated main villains head for "an old friend" that "owes them a favor". Cue Baba Yaga's chicken-legged house...
• In The Owl House episode "Hooty's Moving Hassle", the titular house (the dwelling place of an elderly witch) sprouts legs, making it resemble Baba Yaga's hut.
• Baba Yaga is the Monster of the Week in a season 2 episode of both Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!.
• Like the Film example above, Kurt once again brings up his fear of the Baba Yaga in episode five of What If…? (2021). While the actual Baba Yaga doesn't show up, he's somewhat correct about a man-eating witch being in the area, as the survivor group has to deal with a zombified Scarlet Witch.

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