The Baba Yaga Book

BABA YAGA - famous iron-toothed witch of Russian folk tale. She lives in a house which walks about on chicken's legs and she flies in a mortar and pestle through the sky. Her garden fence is made of children's bones, and those who approach her hut in the woods must do so with all their wits and truths about them.

You may remember me painting this version of her a couple of years ago, and that I mentioned it was for a book all about Baba Yaga and her various conjurings in word and image. I am pleased to announce that the book - Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales - has finally been published by Mississippi University Press.

The whole thing is a lavish hardback creation with a plethora of images of Baba Yaga ranging from old lubok prints, Ivan Bilibin illustrations, old laquerwork paintings to more modern renderings familiar and new, and amongst them is my painting! There are some wonderful tales collected together here in honour of this most formidable of witches, and fascinating words of introduction by the translator of the tales Sibelan Forrester and folklorist Jack Zipes.

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A beautifully illustrated collection of fairy tales about the most iconic and active of Russian magical characters

Baba Yaga is an ambiguous and fascinating figure. She appears in traditional Russian folktales as a monstrous and hungry cannibal or as a canny inquisitor of the adolescent hero or heroine of the tale. In new translations by Sibelan Forrester, Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales is a selection of tales that draws from the famous collection of Aleksandr Afanas'ev, but also includes some tales from the lesser-known nineteenth-century collection of Ivan Khudiakov. This new collection includes beloved classics such as "Vasilisa the Beautiful" and "The Frog Princess," as well as a version of the tale that is the basis for the ballet The Firebird.

The foreword and introduction place these tales in their traditional context with reference to Baba Yaga's continuing presence in today's culture--the witch appears iconically on tennis shoes, tee shirts, even tattoos. The stories are enriched with many wonderful illustrations of Baba Yaga, some old (traditional "lubok" woodcuts), some classical (the marvelous images from Victor Vasnetsov and Ivan Bilibin), and some quite recent or solicited specifically for this collection.

Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, is a professor of Russian at Swarthmore College and coeditor of Engendering Slavic Literatures. Helena Goscilo is a professor of Russian culture and visual culture, and is Department Chair of Slavic and East European languages and cultures at Ohio State College of Humanities, and coeditor of Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Fairy Tales. Martin Skoro, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a graphic designer and illustrator at MartinRoss Design.

256 pages (approx.), 8 1/2 x 11 inches, 45 color illustrations, introduction, foreword, bibliography

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A wonderful book for lovers of Russian folktales, art and all those brave bearers of skull-lanterns through dark forests... 

And if you would like a print of my painting(s) of Baba Yaga... just step this way.

A Forest of Pencils

IN SLAVIC MYHTOLOGY there is a shape-shifting spirit of the forest called the Leshy (Леший). He protects the wild animals and birds and the woods, and can change his size from as tall as the tallest tree to smaller than a blade of grass. He is sometimes described as shadowless, with blue skin, glowing eyes, a long beard of vegetation, and he wears his shoes on the wrong feet. Leshys are known to be friendly but mischievous tricksters, leading people astray in the woods, hiding woodcutters' axes, and tickling people to death. Peasant folk would often make pacts with them in order to keep their cattle safe, or attempt to disentangle themselves from a Leshy's tricks by turning their clothes inside out and swapping their own shoes to the opposite feet.

This pair of pencil drawings I made recently depicts a forest lurking with Leshys of varying sizes. One even has his feet on back to front. These were all done with a 0.5mm HB propelling pencil and were drawn at slightly smaller than A4 size.

They were made for a wonderful new publication - Tiny Pencil - a journal dedicated solely to the art of the pencil. I was honoured to be asked to be part of this project, curated by artists Katriona Chapman and Amber Hsu, who have put together a  really beautifully produced collection of amazing artwork, printed on lovely paper. And this is just the first issue - all based around the theme of forests. Here below are a few of the pages. You can buy a copy here, and read an interview I did with the folks at Tiny Pencil here. You can find out more about all the artists whose work is featured in this issue of Tiny Pencil here. If you'd like to buy prints of my drawings you can find them propped in the branches of my emporium here.

Into the Woods We Go... 

Rima Staines - In The Leshy Forest - Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - front cover art by Nick Sheehy, back cover art by Krisyna Baczynski

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Stuart Whitton

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Rachel M Bray

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Yoko Tanaka

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Vanessa Foley

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Alexandra Higlett

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Lisa Evans

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Raymond Lemstra

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Caitlin Hackett

Tiny Pencil Issue 1 - Forests - artwork by Sigrid Rødli

Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism : n. art of throwing one's voice so that it seems to come from some source other than the speaker. 1797, formed as a descriptive noun to ventriloquist, with substitution of the suffix -ism. The word has generally replaced the older ventriloquy. —ventriloquist n. an expert in ventriloquism. 1656, in Blount's Glossographia; formed from English ventriloquy + -ist. —ventriloquy n. ventriloquism. 1584, formed from Late Latin ventriloquus ventriloquist + English -y. Late Latin ventriloquus (Latin venter, genitive ventris, belly + loqui, speak) was patterned on Greek engastrimythos, literally, speaking in the belly.

~ from the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology

AND SUCH WAS THE TREASURE OF INSPIRATION I found in my beloved Etymological Dictionary, when I searched for Ventriloquism, upon learning that I was to paint the front cover for Catherynne M. Valente's wonderful forthcoming collection of short stories. Catherynne's world and mine intersect in some melancholic snow-bound medieval Slavic outpost, where freaks and outcasts, oddities and dreams wander the streets with sorcery in their pockets and an eye on another horizon. Truly her writing is exquisitely painted, and I was honoured indeed when she asked me to create the cover for this marvellous book.

She told me that it had the flavour of her other work - baroque and colorful and more than a little sad. It's full of duelling geographers, she said, dream-eating tapirs, winemakers in space, selkies, aeronauts, Venus and Mars, secret video games, a host of fairy tales, rusalka medical students...it's six years of my work, in one book. I kind of think of the whole thing like the witch's candy house in Hansel and Gretel.

Well! How could I not be inspired and delighted by all that?! And so in I delved...

I took the idea of belly-speaking from the original meaning of ventriloquism, and decided that the front of the book should show a kind of marionette figure (operating her own strings) whose body was the gingerbread house itself. From the belly of this character, from the stove of the gingerbread house/body, rises a smoke of characters from the world of these stories: Narwhals, bears, parrot-men, pickpocket pamphleteers, monks, dream-tapirs, witches, monopods, rusalki, selkies, blemmyae .... and a mystery of others.

In the sky above hang many strange planets, even a fob watch, and down below on a railway line from some eastern onion-domed city, travels a train whose track becomes a ladder to the moon. Underneath this, for the keen-eyed, is written in Cyrillic a Russian lullaby which goes like this:

Баю-баюшки-баю,

Не ложися на краю.

Придёт серенький волчок,

Он ухватит за бочок

И утащит во лесок

Под ракитовый кусток.

which means something like this:

Baby, baby, rock-a-bye

On the edge you mustn't lie

Or the little grey wolf will come

And will nip you on the tum,

Tug you off into the wood

Underneath the willow-root.

and sounds something like this:

This track is Yuri's Lullaby from Ludovico Einaudi's soundtrack to Doctor Zhivago, but you might have also heard the lullaby in the masterly 1979 animation by Yuri Norstein Skaza Skazok (Tale of Tales) ...

Russian animation delights and astounds me endlessly. I collect favourites on my youtube channel here for afternoons with rain on the windowpane and cup of tea in hand, and I sit and marvel at the patience and soul that goes into these masterpieces.

Anyhow, although I learnt Russian at school, and can just about order a cup of coffee and read road signs to Vladivostok, I seem to have made one tiny mistake in the lettering... exchanging a к for a ж! This was spotted by an eagle eyed reader of Catherynne's blog and is going to bother me forever now, as it was whisked to print before I could correct it! But perhaps it'll remain a little oddity, in excellent company amongst oddities of the highest order who inhabit the wonder-filled world of Ms. Valente.

I was chuffed indeed to read her kind praise of my work too, and to hear that she feels my painting describes her world so closely.

The painting took me absolutely weeks and weeks... I got more and more involved in it and happily lost in the world of gingerbread marionettes, medieval monstrosities, sugar-spun ships, sea-dwellers, forests in the snow... Here amongst my burblings are pictures of it in its birthing, pencil and then watercolour, and the title lettering too.

You absolutely must order a copy. It is available for pre-order now, ready for its December publication. Ventriloquism is being published here in the UK by PS Publishing, based in Yorkshire, with an introduction written by Lev Grossman, who writes of the book:

"When this book arrives it will destroy you. It is going to change things. As its herald I will be spared. But you? There is no safe harbor for you."

This is the final work - do click to enlarge

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AND as a last post script, I'd like to say a basketful of thanks to all of you who read my recent post and wrote such kind, encouraging and thoughtful comments and emails. I am uplifted and cheered and more than a little astounded! Thank you!

Our late autumn days are rolling along happily, the Slavic aroma has drifted into other things, as it is wont to in this house: there's accordion and clarinet duetting, Baba Yaga drawing, and daily hound stomps out into the frost where the hills are crackling blue and Winter watches us all from over the hill, and throws her voice into this November, like the artful ventriloquist she is.

Snegurochka

SNEGUROCHKA, the Russian Snow Maiden is the daughter of Father Frost and Mother Spring. The legend tells that she became more beautiful with each day she grew, and her parents realised that she was becoming a young woman who they could not keep secluded from the world for ever.

Snegurochka is allowed to explore the world and comes to meet new people and young men who fall in love with her. However, as long as she remains in the forest, its spirit protects her from Yarilo, the sun god, and her suitors cannot find her. Eventually, Mother Spring gives her a Love Wreath made from flowers, knowing with both sadness and delight that it would warm up her cold heart. Snegurochka is then able to fall in love and spends one happy evening with her sweetheart, singing and dancing. But she knows that with the first rays of the sun god in the morning she will melt away and be gone.

Illustration: drypoint etching

Father Frost

FATHER FROST or Dedt Moroz is a Siberian ice spirit who hides in fir trees deep in the forest and as he snaps his fingers, he splits and shatters the trees.

Legend tells a similar story to that of Mother Holle, involving a Husband and his second wife, each with a daughter from their first marriages. The wife’s daughter was spoiled and mean, whereas the husband’s daughter was very gentle and kind. The wife only loved her daughter and made the other girl work very hard. The poor girl cleaned and cooked for her stepmother, and was often beaten as the wife’s hatred for her grew.

One day, in the middle of a terrible winter, the wife decided that the girl should be taken deep into the woods and left there to die. The husband of course did not want to agree to this, but himself also afraid of the woman, he reluctantly took his daughter into the forest where he left her. The girl sat helpless and alone under a tree. Soon she heard the breaking and snapping of twigs and branches, and then a voice spoke. “Are you warm my child?” It asked. The girl recognized the ominous voice as that of Father Frost and replied, “Yes Father Frost, I'm quite warm.” Father Frost repeated his question several times, each time coming closer to the girl. The girl always answered that she was warm, and then thanked him. Feeling pity for the poor creature, Father Frost wrapped her in a beautiful coat, showered her with gifts, and kept her warm throughout the night.

Returning the next day to retrieve his daughter's body, the husband was happily surprised to find her not only alive, but dressed warmly and covered with riches. Upon their return home, the jealous wife then insisted that her own daughter be left in the forest overnight, hoping that she too would return wealthy.

Again the husband travelled deep into the woods, this time leaving his step daughter there. As the night grew long she too heard the voice of Father Frost. “Are you warm my child?” he asked. The girl was annoyed with his question and replied, “Of course not, now leave me alone!” Father Frost was enraged with her reply and sent the coldest frost that there had ever been.

When the husband went into the woods the next day, he returned not with the girl showered in riches, but with her cold frozen body instead. Upon his return home he took his daughter and left his evil wife. The husband and his daughter lived happily ever after.

Illustration: drypoint etching