baba yaga

Baba Yaga - creature from slavic mythology.

She lives in the middle of a very deep forest, in a place which is often difficult to find.. in wooden hut on two chicken legs and surrounded by fence made of human bones and topped with human skulls with eyes.

In many slavic folk tales she is described as a wicked witch, a carrier of black magic and evil, and
seeking out her aid is usually portrayed as a dangerous act because if a visitor enters her hut, Baba Yaga asks them whether they came of their own free will, or whether they were sent.. if they answer wrong, she eats them.

But interpretation of her as an evil figure is wrong, because in slavic mythology there is never dualistic clash of good and evil, it is always the opposition of natural principles; earth/heaven (Veles/Perun), spring and birth/winter and death (Jarilo/Morana) etc... and in this case death/rebirth. Baba Yaga is the arch-crone, the goddess of wisdom and death, the bone mother. Wild and untamable, she is a nature spirit bringing wisdom and death of ego, and through death, rebirth.

source: [link] + [link]