Turn your back to the forest and your front towards me, hut hut.

Baba Yaga lived in a hut in woods along the Slavic-Russian border. Her hut wasn’t a normal hut, it stood on two legs resembling a chicken’s and was held in by a fence. This didn’t keep the hut still, it just kept it turning in circles instead of running away. You see, Baba Yaga was a witch. At night she would fly in her mortar, steered by her pestle to gather herbs for her potions. Those who came to her for potions but were unable to meet her demands were cooked on her stove that took up an entire wall in her hut. She used their skulls to decorate her fence posts. When nights and winters were cold, Baba Yaga would stretch herself across the top of the stove to keep warm.

One day, a little girl was sent by her mother to market to buy a turnip for dinner. The little girl skipped along the path to market until she came to a fork in the woods. It was so foggy she couldn’t tell which way to go. She picked the path to the right and continued on. Some time had passed and she realized she should have gotten to the market but was still deep in the woods. She began crying when along came Baba Yaga….