Episode Details

She lives in a hut on hen's legs, deep in the forest, with her head at the front of the hut and one leg in each corner — and in this episode she is met four times over. First, the orphan girl sent to serve Baba Yaga, who feeds the little mice their porridge and is rewarded with fine clothes, while her cruel stepsister will not share so much as a crumb — and comes home as bones in a box, announced by the little dog on the porch. Then the girl sent to her "auntie" for a needle and thread, who ties the birch with a ribbon, oils the gates, feeds the dogs and the cat, and outruns the mortar and pestle behind a river made from a towel and a forest made from a comb. And then the Zhikhar — the littlest brother, who three times cannot keep silent when Yaga-Baba counts the spoons, and who, when he is carried off for good, turns the oven-peel trick on all three of the witch's daughters, and on the witch herself; and in the second telling, where he is Chufil-Filyushka, he flies home on wings of borrowed feathers. This episode reads both of Afanasyev's tellings of «Баба-яга» (№№ 102 and 103) whole, and then both tellings of «Баба-яга и жихарь» (№№ 106 and 107) whole.

The tales «Баба-яга» (№№ 102–103) and «Баба-яга и жихарь» (№№ 106–107) — from the collection of Alexander Afanasyev, in new English translations made for this show, read aloud over a gentle instrumental bed.

Afanasyev.

Intermission: "The Friend's Cello" — instrumental.

KacheliTV — Russian classics, read aloud.