I have always wondered why Baba Yaga is depicted in European fables riding a mortar and pestle. According to Daniela Prohom Olson, it was the Babas (grandmothers/old women) who gathered the wild herbs, tended the bee hives, ground the grain, and baked at the ovens. They showed up at births, sick beds and deaths. They were herbalists and dispensers of traditional medicine.
How did Babas shift in our perception from healers to evil witches? Olson suggests that the 12th century Church began to outlaw pagan customs, and when they did so cookies and cakes took on a sinister cast.
~ Lois Anderson
