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In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs (or sometimes a single chicken leg). Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out. She sometimes plays a maternal role, and also has associations with forest wildlife. According to Vladimir Propp's folktale morphology, Baba Yaga commonly appears as either a donor or villain, or may be altogether ambiguous. Andreas Johns identifies Baba Yaga as "one of the most memorable and distinctive figures in Slavic European folklore," and observes that she is "enigmatic" and often exhibits "striking ambiguity." Johns summarizes Baba Yaga as "a many-faceted figure, capable of inspiring researchers to see her as a , totemic matriarchal ancestress, female initiator, phallic mother, or archetypal image". ==Etymology== Variations of the name ''Baba Yaga'' are found in the languages of the Eastern Slavic peoples. The first element, ''baba'', is transparently a babble word, meaning 'woman', or, specifically, 'old woman'. The same word is still used for both grandmother and old woman in general in Serbo-Croatian. In modern Russian, the word бабушка ''babushka'' (meaning 'grandmother') derives from it, as does the word "babcia" (also 'grandmother') in Polish or Ukrainian. ''Baba'' may also have a pejorative connotation in modern Ukrainian and Russian, both for women as well as for "an unmanly, timid, or characterless man". In Polish, the term is considered to be pejorative, meaning 'vicious or ugly woman'.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://sjp.pwn.pl/slownik/2442313/baba_jaga )〕 In Czech both of those meanings apply. Similarly to other kinship terms in Slavic languages, ''baba'' may be employed outside of kinship, potentially as a result of taboo. For example, in variety of Slavic languages and dialects, the word ''baba'' may be applied to various animals, natural phenomena, and objects, such as types of mushrooms or a cake or pear. This function extends to various geographic features. In the Polesia region of Ukraine, the plural ''baby'' may refer to an autumn funeral feast. These associations have led to variety of theories on the figure of Baba Yaga, though the presence of the element ''baba'' may have simply been taken as its primary meaning of 'grandmother' or 'old woman'. The element may appear as a means of glossing the second element, ''iaga'', with a familiar component. Additionally, ''baba'' may have also been applied as a means of distinguishing Baba Yaga from a male counterpart. While a variety of etymologies have been proposed for the second element of the name, ''Yaga'', it remains far more etymologically problematic and no clear consensus among scholars has resulted. For example, in the 19th century, Alexander Afanasyev proposed the derivation of Proto-Slavic *''ǫžь'' ('serpent') and Sanskrit अहि ''ahi'' ('serpent, snake'). This etymology has subsequently been explored by other scholars in the 20th century. Related terms to the second element of the name, ''Yaga'', appear in various Slavic languages; Serbian and Croatian ''jeza'' ('horror, shudder, chill'), Slovenian ''jeza'' ('anger'), Old Czech ''jězě'' ('witch, legendary evil female being'), modern Czech ''jezinka'' ('wicked wood nymph, dryad'), and Polish ''jędza'' ('witch, evil woman, fury'). The term appears in Old Church Slavonic as ''jęza/jędza'' (meaning 'disease, illness'). In other Indo-European languages the element ''iaga'' has been linked to Lithuanian ''engti'' ('to oppress, to skin'), ''ingti'' ('to became lazy, to became bald, to shed skin') and ''ingas'' ('lazy, slow'), Old English ''inca'' ('doubt, worry, pain'), and Old Norse ''ekki'' ('pain, worry'). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Baba Yaga」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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