September 6, 2024 • 44 mins
In this episode of Truth Be Told Paranormal, Tony Sweet welcomes author and language expert Kris Spisak to discuss her latest book, "Becoming Baba Yaga", where she delves into the legends of the Baba Yaga. Kris explores how the legendary figure known as the Baba Yaga has shaped storytelling across cultures and time, revealing the rich symbolism and supernatural mysteries embedded in her tales. Together, they uncover the deeper meaning behind the Baba Yaga’s terrifying and transformative role in myth and how these stories continue to captivate and inspire modern paranormal and literary enthusiasts. Along the way, Kris also shares insights into the magical connections between language and folklore, showing how words themselves hold power and mystery. Don’t miss this captivating conversation that bridges the realms of history, language, and the paranormal!
Tune in on the Club Paranormal YouTube channel to hear this eye-opening discussion. Whether you’re a history buff or a fan of the unexplained, this episode promises to challenge everything you thought you knew.
#TruthBeToldParanormal #BabaYaga #babayagalive #KrisSpisak #ParanormalPodcast #folklore #folktales #slavicfolklore #Mystery #Paranormal #TonySweet #PodcastInterview #UnexplainedPhenomena #ParanormalCommunity #witches #forestwitch #supernatural
Subscribe and listen now on @TheClubParanormal your favorite podcast platform to join us in this compelling journey into the darkness.
Please Like, Subscribe and Share today's show, Please visit www.ClubParanormal.com for more information about upcoming shows.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/truth-be-told-paranormal--3589860/support.
Tune in on the Club Paranormal YouTube channel to hear this eye-opening discussion. Whether you’re a history buff or a fan of the unexplained, this episode promises to challenge everything you thought you knew.
#TruthBeToldParanormal #BabaYaga #babayagalive #KrisSpisak #ParanormalPodcast #folklore #folktales #slavicfolklore #Mystery #Paranormal #TonySweet #PodcastInterview #UnexplainedPhenomena #ParanormalCommunity #witches #forestwitch #supernatural
Subscribe and listen now on @TheClubParanormal your favorite podcast platform to join us in this compelling journey into the darkness.
Please Like, Subscribe and Share today's show, Please visit www.ClubParanormal.com for more information about upcoming shows.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/truth-be-told-paranormal--3589860/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Being told just because we're not ready for it.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Fo stations of frequency, vibrational.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It was a homicide detective with lapv UFOs, increase visitations, mysteries,
the magic, and downright mind blowing. Today, we've got to
treat that equals part folklore, feminism and a dash of witchcraft.
(00:28):
Our guest is none other than the incredible Chris Spicek,
an author who takes us on a wild ride through
the world of Baba Yaga in her latest book, Becoming
Baba Yaga Trickster, Feminism, and Witch of the Woods. Now,
if you think you know Baba Yaga as just some
old witch living in a chicken legged house, think again.
(00:49):
Chris peels back the layers of this infamous Slavic figure,
revealing her as a feminist icon, a trickster, and a
force to be reckoned with in the woods and beyond.
She's not your typical fairy tale villain. Oh No, She's
a symbol of female power, survival and wisdom. So get
ready for eye opening conversation as we unravel the stories
(01:10):
and symbolism of Bobbi Yaga. I'm tony sweet with truth
be Told. Please welcome to the Truth be Told. Studios
for the first time. Author Chris spy Sik there.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
She is, Oh, nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Nice to meet you. And I want to apologize because
I did get your name wrong. So tell everybody how
to say your name.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It's Chris bie Zak, so spie Zac is my last name.
But it's okay because as we're speaking about Bobbi Yaga,
there are so many ways you can pronounce Bobby Yaga right. Oh. Yes,
a creature of across all of Eastern Europe. She has
big things. Sometimes she's Bobba Yaga, sometimes she is Bobbi Yuga.
There are many ways to pronounce her name. So we'll
(01:55):
just use that as our segue. You did that on purpose?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I did. I did. I knew it. I'm a psychic
and didn't even know it so well. First of all,
like I said, always, thank you for being on for
the first time, and I'm sure it's not going to
be the last. And one thing I noticed that it
said grammar expert turned Bobby Yaga enthusiast. And before we
(02:19):
get into really Bobby Yaga, how did you go from
a grammar expert to Bobby Yaga. I'm kind of curious
because it's like a UFO. People that get into the
UFO world, it's usually they've had an experience. So I'm
curious about your journey to this.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Absolutely, And the funny thing is it actually all completely
ties together. I'm a first generation American where I grew
up and my mom learned English as for a second language.
So growing up, I heard so many conversations about, well,
what's the origin of that word? And I wondered why
it is an English that we do this versus this.
(02:59):
So the subject matter of just language was a conversation
that we had all of the time. And on the
same note, I grew up in a household with a
lot of Ukrainian traditions in Ukrainian artistry and Ukrainian dance
and Ukrainian symbolism about so many aspects of our lives.
So this is where the folk tales came in. Everything
(03:20):
about my professional world and I have five books out now,
every single piece that I've done, from my work in
grammar and empowering communications, to my work in helping edit fiction,
to my work and helping tell family stories, to my
fiction to this but every single one of these books
really is rooted in the idea that well, written words
(03:43):
and well told stories have the ability to change the world.
I mean, what is more powerful than one human connecting
with one other human? However you do it, it's not
about yelling at each other about how to use a semicolon. Besides,
it's a winky face or right, right, we could enjoy
ourselves with these conversations about language, empowerment and just connecting.
(04:06):
So that's where I got started with grammar, just because
I was fascinated by the English language. So that's where
my first publication was. But everything about words and storytelling
has always fascinated me, and Bobby Yaga really came out
of the idea or like my experiences with Bob Yaga.
I've known her since I was a child. But it's
interesting that some world stories stick. Yeah, they just treat
(04:30):
the hearts of multi generations and they stick around for
a reason. So that was my curiosity. Why has this
old Slavic folklore character who may have been born from
goddesses of the past, why does she stick around? And
why is she kind of the it girl of the
moment right now?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, like you said, language is very important, and it's
like you know the Machu Picchio and you know Egypt,
the hieroglyphs and all these different symbolisms and language. I mean,
definitely you don't want somebody that was the d student
putting those languages on the stones, because you'd he would
never be able to decipher it very well. But but
(05:10):
I agree with you. You know, it's it's funny how things stick.
And why do you think? Well, first, can you explain
what Bobby Yaga is? And because we've we've we've seen
some fairy tales, you know, and cartoons and in some
movies about the old witch in the you know, Chicken
Legged House. But and why should we care? Why should
(05:34):
why do you think that she's stuck around so well
into the twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Now, see, this is where Bobba Yaga and I have
a very deep connection. And you might think I'm about
to go into a spiritual place. I'm actually going to
a very professional place with this one. The first known
publication that mentions Babba Yaga as an entity in print
was in se seventeen fifty five, and it was a
(06:01):
book called the Russian Grammar. So it's really Bobby y
Ag and I have the exact same publication history that
we both started in grammar. But the funny thing is
is this was a textbook about language, but it was
also about lots of things about the world. And there
was a table of gods and goddesses of different world
belief systems. So you have the Roman god Jupiter next
(06:24):
to the Slavic god Perun, and you can have this
table that equates all these different people of love and
war and thunder and all of these things. Yet in
this table, in her first known publication in seventeen fifty five,
Bobby Yaga is noted one as a deity and two
a deity that has nobody who corresponds to her the
(06:45):
world over. So she has a long history because the
first time you see her in this textbook as a deity,
this isn't the first time the world met her. Clearly
the world has known of her for a long time
if this is the first time she's in print, So
that's kind of one piece of the history of who
she is. Why is she sticking around though she has
(07:06):
thousands of years When you actually start tracing through the
breadcrumbs of archaeology and the historical record and oral traditions
and all of these little clues that you can put
together to source where she came from. She's like this
giant game of telephone and belief systems and cultural norms
that are pushing off of each other, and warring factions
(07:28):
and so many things. But in this moment in history,
I think why people are so fascinated by this Eastern
European Witch of the Woods, who is sometimes a horror
story and sometimes a savior story. I think so many
people are fascinated by her. And she's appearing in John Wick,
and she's appearing in literature, she's appearing in DreamWorks animation,
(07:53):
she's appearing in hell Boy comics. She's appearing all over
the place right now, because I think we're living in
a moment in the world that we can all admit
sometimes things feel a little bit scary, And she's this
figure that embodies kind of the dichotomy of absolute horror
that surrounds us, but at the same time relentless hope.
(08:15):
And if you have this persistent character who is unafraid
to be a part of the shadow, is to be
unafraid to confront you know what, There's darkness in the world,
and we can admit that and face that, but at
the same time that's not the end of the story,
the story goes on, and I think a character like
that has some staying power.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, And I'm curious because it's like Christmas and Santa
Claus if you really go back to the history of it,
and I've done shows about it, you know, during the holidays,
and I always find that's fascinating to where these myths
if you have kids, send them out of the room.
But even Christmas is a combination of religion and many
(08:59):
objects of peganism. So with Babiaga, is this more of
an idea that you feel that came to where it
pulled from a paganism in different religions or different ideas
back in the day that became what this witch was
(09:20):
or do you feel that this was, you know, like
one of these prophetish type of figures that made an
impact in some small village or community that just stuck.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think that thousands upon thousands of years ago, there
was a civilization called Tripulia, and this was a civilization
that existed in the exact same time as ancient Egypt,
and the pottery of Tripolia was more advanced and their
kilns were more advanced than anything produced in ancient Egypt.
(09:54):
At the time of the pyramids. Wow, this is an
ancient civilization that has been largely unknown and not appearing
in most history and archaeology and ancient world books and
textbooks because they didn't leave monuments, they didn't leave massive
statues and structures. They had a society that burned their
(10:18):
locations to the ground, and frequently they moved on to
a new location. But at the same time they had
so much advanced science and advanced pottery techniques and advanced
city centers that had almost nearly ten thousand people living together.
So they were very advanced. But people don't know of
the advanced societies of Eastern Europe when we're talking about
(10:39):
the great ancient civilizations. Yet in the archaeological remains of
these civilizations, not only are we seeing this complex pottery
beyond what most of the world thought was able to
be done by humans at this time, a lot of
this pottery seems to be a spiritualism for the divine
(11:00):
and specifically the divine female. There is a connection between
the divine female and often kind of bird type figures
and in those remnants, and this is we're talking about
seven thousand years ago to that history of the divine
female that far back, and then you trace the record
(11:20):
through the texts of people, where you sometimes have like
your fake historians like Herodotus telling the story of what happened,
but they're getting it from a telephone game from somebody
who was there, who had somebody who is there, and
you're like getting this telephone game of what's happening. So
then you have stories about the Amazons and you don't
actually realize that so many pieces of the Amazon mythos
(11:41):
if we want to say that is actually historically accurate,
and that there were female warriors of the planes around
the Black Sea and present day Ukraine. In the past decade,
how many female skeletons have been found in burial sites
where the women have been decorated with jewelry and all
sorts of things, but their legs have been bowed and
(12:03):
they've been buried with arrows and all sorts of things.
And you're realizing these warrior women, these fierce women that
were revered, this is not just myth. There are so
many little bread crumbs from history that when you start
digging into them, you find this whole other story. And
I think so many of these bread crumbs from the
goddess worship seven thousand years ago in eastern what is
(12:25):
now eastern Europe, from the fierce Amazon warriors, from the
civilization that moved from one place to another, and all
of a sudden, you're seeing Bobby Yaga, as the story
books tell her, start coming into being, that she was
this fierce woman who could have wisdom, who you could
go to for advice about how she in some of
(12:47):
the old stories, and we're talking a thousand year old
stories talking about how she was this goddess that you
would bring sacrifices to just to kind of appease the
earth Mother, and she was called the Moist Earth Earth
Mother goddess here and people would leave fruit or bread
or something out there into the woods where they thought
she might be. And she was known to have an
(13:09):
incredibly long nose. So you think of that in modern
day Halloween and you're thinking of a witch of some
kind with like this Halloween type thing. But no, she
according to the thousand year old tales of this witch
in the woods who was also a goddess who would
help you, she had this incredibly long nose so she
could smell what was left for her was this apple
(13:30):
rotting or was it fresh? Is this bread old, stale
and moldy, or do you actually give something new? Her
nose was how she understood how respectful you were being.
And now we have the old what wart covered noses
on halloweens, depictions of witches. There's like the stories behind
(13:50):
the stories behind the stories that make into who she
is today and of course today in the past three
hundred years, as she's been recorded in literature. She is
an old woman who lives deep in the woods. You
already said this. She lives in a hut deep in
the woods. Her hut's my favorite part of her. That's
actually that's probably not true. I have lots of favorite
parts about her, But her hut stands on chicken legs.
(14:12):
So just imagine that for a second. If your house
or apartment, or wherever it is you lived had the
ability when someone was approaching you and you just didn't
want to see them that day, could just live gifty
scare around whoever was coming, couldn't see the front door,
or if they were really bugging you and you just
really wanted to have some alone time, the whole house
could just stand up and walk itself away on its
(14:34):
little chicken legs. It's absurd but beautiful because we can
all relate to that, can't we?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Oh for sure? And you know, I find what you're
saying is fascinating because I'm curious that the time that
you know, she was kind of this feminist symbol of
power and independence. When do you feel and I'm assuming
this was the men that or even or either jealous women.
(15:04):
I hate say it that way that made her into
this spooky witch that with the scary look, you know,
with the big nose, with the warts and all this stuff.
What does your research tell about that? When did whend
did this kind of the switch happened? And was it
(15:24):
the men? It's almost like the witches of Salem. All
these people didn't really they weren't witches of all, and
it's mostly people that were just wanted to get even
and blame these people. So can you talk about that?
Where when did they become that spooky witch in the woods?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I think with so many different cultural revolutions, no matter
where you find yourself in the world, no matter what
moments in history that you find yourself in, when two
cultures clash, there is a major kind of other. Well
we can say where people kind of start telling stories
about the other side and how demonic they may be,
(16:08):
and that's just the nature of humanity and how people
tell stories. For bobbiy Aaga specifically, we can point to
the moment that Christianity entered Eastern Europe and you had
what was once an old belief system where who was
it in the year nine hundred eighty, so I'm not
saying nineteen eighty and year nine hundred eighty. You had
(16:31):
a prince named Vladimir who lived in Kiev, and he
put up a statue to this divine female goddess named Mokesh,
and Mokesh is thought to be kind of one of
the many different lines of Bobbi Yoga's potential ancestry. We
don't know she's a giant telephone game, but they're just
all these breadcrumbs were picking up in secrets that were
(16:53):
uncovering the like traits who she could have been and
where she came from. But specifically, Prince Vladimir in eighteen
excuse me, in nine eighty put up this statue to Mokesh.
Within eight years, Prince Vladimir had converted to Christianity and
tore down the same statue that he put down, so
(17:14):
he tore it down in the year nine eighty eight,
so that statue was up for eight years. And suddenly
you have belief systems that were long held were suddenly demonized.
Suddenly you hear about all of these like Divine Earth
Mother type entities and belief systems are suddenly pushed to
(17:36):
the side. And there are different stories from different cultures
who are twisted. This is much later on. This is
I believe in the turn this about seven excuse me,
seventeen hundred, much later on, when folklore is actually being
written and the stories are starting to be gathered from
oral traditions. There was a story called Bobba Yaga, the
(17:57):
Bony Legged and it told of her origin. Story about
how the nastiest women from not the nastiest women, the
nastiest people from around the world were collected and the
devil threw them all into a pot. And in this story,
the twelve nastiest people from around the world were all women,
and they were all tossed into a pot and boiled,
and the devil breathed in the steam spit it out,
(18:18):
and there stood the most evil person or the most
the personification of evil itself, and it was Baba Yaga.
The fact that this story appeared around seventeen hundred tells
you so many different things. This is not actually her
origin story. This is the origin story told by the
people of this moment. And the fact that the Devil
(18:40):
is a character in this story. The Devil's not a
character in Babba Yaga's world. Like we can talk about
other folklore wizards like Koshi the Deathless and that's a
whole different story, but the Devil's not a Babba Yaga
world character. So you're seeing clues to her history just
in the stories that have been preserved. Her legends give
(19:01):
us so much to think about about the cultures that
have been and the cultures that are still shaping the
world around us. And I think that's why I had
so much fun fun writing this book and researching intensively
on this folklore figure who can teach us so much
about humanity and being our best selves while uncovering cultural revolutions.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You know, I interviewing again, like I said, almost a
thousand people doing what I do, and I love it
and I find it fascinating. I always said, I'm kind
of a man on the street just being able to
talk to people like you and learning from you guys
(19:45):
that because I don't do the research. You guys do
the research. But I know one time when I did
a thing on Knight's Templar, and they were there to
protect the pope, and so the Pope end up getting
jealous of the Nights Templar because they were becoming more popular,
so popular that he ended up sending people to kill
(20:09):
them and they had to go in hiding, so they had,
you know, got a bad rap. And so when I
feel when religion sometimes gets involved is when things when
you know, these folklores or things that are there to
empower people or and you know, to do good, and
they feel like they've lost a grip of the power
(20:33):
that they hold. The religious side, they start you know,
making these laws and rules against these folklores and and
other thoughts the spiritual. Yeah, so what you're saying kind
of reminds me of that where you know, uh, you know,
(20:53):
a woman that was empowering women because you know, for
thousands of years, even though we've had you know, Cleopatra
and Queens of England and stuff, majority of the time
it's men that are in control. So I find that
fascinating that it's probably it sounds like that's what's happened
(21:15):
where religion got involved. But what I've noticed in the
last probably fifteen years, I'm noticing, I mean probably even longer,
but I've really noticed that women are getting the chance
to show their strength and their power to society. Do
you feel that Bobby Yoga could be kind of a
(21:41):
resurgence Maybe that's why you were seeing it more and
more of her ability to empower women. What do you
think about that?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I think there's some significant truth to that. Bobby Aga
has been a character in the written record for a
couple hundred years, oral tradition for such a long time,
but I'd say in about the past twenty years, she
has started to appear in sometimes roles where people don't know.
Maybe there are a lot of people listening watching today
who have never heard of Baba Yaga, and that's absolutely fine,
(22:15):
and you know it, Sometimes if you're not paying attention
to this stuff, she can go straight under the radar
and she is just one other storybooks. But when you
start realizing who Baba Yaga is and what her past is,
you'll start noticing her. And she's been popping up time
and time again. And she is not this classic Disney
personification of evil witch. I mean, maybe there are pieces
(22:39):
of her that did completely inspire early animation of snow Whites,
evil Queen. She's in her throne form. There's so many
pieces like the wordy long nose and all of this
old woman stuff. But at the same time, there is
a movement to recognize that as women age, often they
(23:00):
are either seen as invisible or horrific, and Baba Yaga,
as a character for centuries, for millennia, perhaps has leaned
into that say, okay, whatever you're going to judge, and
I don't care about your judgment. I am who I am,
and I'm going to be fierce about it. And in
her stories she is classically this force to be reckoned with,
(23:23):
and she's also this force of wisdom and this partnership,
partner in transformation. Again and again and again again. She's
been mixed and molded in so many different ways. In
the Stalin era of Russia, she was used as kind
of the morality tale be a good citizen, be a
good child for your country, or else Bobba Yaga will
eat you. And there's definitely that piece of her, But
(23:44):
there are other pieces that kind of return again and
again and again, as Baba Yaga is the story of
this strong woman who is this change agent, and she's
a change agent and a transformational almost life coach for people.
In a way. The she always asks for four things.
And it's funny because so many for fairy tales, whether
(24:05):
it is a prince named Ivan, because just like in
English narratives where it's always somebody named Jack, in Slavic folklore,
it's always a prince named Ivan if it's a male character,
or it's a girl named Vasa Lisa, which is the
most common Slavic female name in a lot of folklore.
When they come to her, they might be dead at
(24:26):
the end of the confrontation, yet that never actually happens
in the tale. It's always a threat in the fear,
but it never actually happens. It's one thing you have
to kind of recognize. But if people exhibit four traits,
they are transformed and empowered in some way through the
course of the story. And this is where I think
modern audiences are starting to really latch onto her for
a couple different reasons, and this is one of them.
(24:49):
It's always the same for a traits. If you approached
the storybook of Baba Yaga with respect, if you approached
her with a noble kind heart, kept approached her with
some intelligence, some problem solving abilities, some cleverness, and if
you approached her with a hard work ethic. Then if
(25:10):
you showed her those four things, she could make your
dreams come true. Maybe in dark and nonsensical ways, because
she is a folklore witch, but at the same time,
it's always those four traits. And there's a question she
frequently asks in a lot of her tales. Are you
here to do deeds or are you here to run
from them?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I think on that question, are you here to do
deeds or are you here to run from them? Forget
folklore from centuries ago. What if every single one of
us woke up every single morning and asked us that question,
asked ourselves that question, are we here to do deeds?
Are we here to run from them? That is transformative
in the modern world.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Love it. And so if you're just tuning in, we're
talking to Chris Spisick, Speed Zach Zac. I'll get it.
I'll get it before the end of the shopblem.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, go right.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
But we're talking about her book and The Becoming Babbi Yoga.
And if you have a question, please in the chat
room and our YouTube channel, please ask a question. We
already have a question. I'm gonna ask that here in
just a second, but I do want to ask kind
of like a bigfoot. Sorry to compare the two, but
(26:25):
you know, we have the Yetti, we have Bigfoot, we
have Sasquatch. Is there other names that she goes by,
or other names that other countries call her that we
might recognize.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I think Bobba Yaga is the most common of her
names because she has a pretty big geographic footprint. She
is like Bobby Aga, Bobby Yaga, Baba Roga. There's probably
twenty different derivatives that are somewhere in the Baba world.
As a translational moment, and actually this is a great
moment to say this, so as if you missed it earlier.
(27:02):
I'm Ukrainian of heritage and I have always pronounced it
Baba yaga, and you it off. The name often goes
back to the word baba and people say, okay. So
some people translate the word baba as grandmother. Some people
translated as like evil hag witch, and it just cracks
me up every single time. I have known many grandmothers
(27:22):
whose grandchildren just call them bob or call her baba,
and this is just grandmother to me. It's kind of
like the English word granny, that it can be granny
who is loving and endearing, but it i'd be like
old granny, where you can take it in that way.
So Baba did not mean an old crone witch. Baba
just means grandmother. And I think that's kind of a
funny thing. And that's true in Ukrainian that's true, and
(27:44):
Polish that's true. In Russian it's just a word that
moves around the area a bunch. And another note before
we get to that question that I always do like
to say, is so many people want to say, well,
isn't Baba Yaga a Russian witch? You're not Russian? Why
are you even talking about this? And it cracks me
up because if you look at the history of the
publishing world, see, there's so much history involved in this conversation.
(28:07):
In the history of the publishing world, London publishers and
translators of Russian had really good connections in Saint Petersburg
and Moscow. So when they were gathering folk tales in
the era where folk tales were really starting to boom
in Europe, their translations were coming from Russia. So is
Bobby Yaga a Russian witch? Yes? Is she only a
(28:29):
Russian witch? No, she's a Ukrainian witch. She's a Polish
which she's a Slovakian which just all of Eastern Europe
has a Bobba yaga taiale or two up their sleeve.
And maybe she might be a baba something slightly different,
but usually it's a yoga.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I love it. I love it well. We have in
the chat room it says, is there a particular version
of Bobby yoga that you resonate with that you resonate
with the most.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I love that question that we were just talking about,
that question of are you here to do deeds or
are you here to run from them? Because, as I said,
that's just a question you can ask yourself in any moment,
and you can really focus on both sides of that
coin of when you're waking up and starting your day
and living your life, you can have many choices that
(29:22):
shape the world around you, that shape your personal being
and how people perceive you. Do you want to run
or do you want to do actions speak so loud
and sometimes even focusing on what is it I'm running
away from, and you ask yourself just that side of
the question, you'll realize there's things in your life you
might be avoiding, and sometimes there are big things, sometimes
(29:43):
they are little things. But by asking yourself that question
that Babba Yaga asks protagonists of old it's a different
way to examine your own life. There's a Baba Yaga
story that is called Vasa Lisa the Beautiful. It's if
one familiar with Bobba Yaga folklore, it's probably the story
(30:03):
that most people know. This is kind of the Cinderella
tale of the Slavic world where you have this is
going to sound very familiar with vas Alisa. Her father died,
she lives with her stepmother and her stepsisters. This is
that tale. She is sent off into the woods though,
because one of her stepsisters blows out the last candle
(30:23):
in their house and so Bobby or excuse me, Vasilissa
is sent as the person of the household who dos
doing all of the tours. She is sent out into
the woods because the only one who can bring fire
back for them is the old witch in the woods.
Who is terrifying? Who is Bobba Yaga. So she goes
to Bobba Yaga and there's This is such the simplistic
(30:45):
version of the tale because I'm not going to give
you all of the intricacies. Read my book for those, right.
But as she's going into the woods, she meets Bobba
Yaga and Bobby Yaga meets her, and again, what are
the four traits Bobbyaga always looks for. She's looking for
someone to be respectful, she's looking for someone to be
kind hearted, she's looking for someone to be smart and
thoughtful and a good problem solver, and she's looking for
(31:07):
someone to be hard worker. And so Baba Yaga puts
her through trials and tests that Vasalisa is willing to. Okay,
I got this, I am scared, I'm terrified. I'm not
sure I can do this, but I'm gonna try. And
through the course of all of these trials she is
put through, she gets her light. Now this is a
dark Slavic tail where she gets her light in side
(31:31):
of a skull that she brings back to her house.
And as she brings it back to her house and
finally she sees her stepmother and stepsisters outside trying to
see by the light of the moon because they have
no light in their house. The skull lights up and
like zaps them and they just turn to ash. Because
this is a dark Slavic tale, and that's what happens.
It's absurd and fascinating. But the transformation of this whole
(31:57):
thing through meeting Babba y'ah vasa, Lisa realizes what she
is capable of, and in a very twisted way, Bobbyaga
got rid of her problems. It's she's a dark witch
of the woods that you don't know what to do
with her, but she's a change agent and someone who
is empowering for an individual. I'm not saying one should emulate,
(32:19):
right Bobba Yaga. She might emulate you if you want
to play with language here. But she's just a fascinating person.
She can be good, she can be evil. She's just
Baba Yaga. She is so multifaceted and full of endless explorations,
and that's what my book's all about.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
So how how do with that many years, since you know,
even three hundred years of being in any type of
book or mention, in any type of article, you know,
there was a lot of years in between that she
(32:58):
existed or at least for showed up in history. How
did we find out that who she was? Meaning like,
I always tell people, you know my great grandfather, I
because I'm a family a family tree, buff, I know
(33:19):
my history. Most people don't even know their great their
great grandfathers, who they were, the great grandmothers, who they were,
where they come from, anything about their lives. We only
go by what was in the Bible or maybe you
got to talk to your grandparents or something like that.
But if you didn't, I mean, there's a lot of
(33:39):
years in between she existed. How do we know one
hundred percent what she was about? If for so many
years we were diverted to she was an evil woman
or she was a spooky woman in the woods, how
do we know where are these scriptures or where are
(34:00):
these tablets or anything? How do we know where where
that came from? That she was the feminist empowerment coach.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It's interesting because when you think of political cartoons today,
you're thinking of something in print or something in the
modern media that you would see online. But in the
sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, they were kind of the
strangest political cartoons of their day. There were these wood
block prints. They used linseed oil from trees pressed into
(34:36):
into like a layer of beneath the bark. But before
you get too deep into a trunk, there were these
prints that was used with burned limbseed oil for ink.
And sometimes they were scenes from the Bible that when
one hang up from their in their home if they
could not afford more expensive icons. Sometimes they were familiar
storybook characters. We have all of this pictorial evidence of
(34:58):
Baba Yaga and and frequently she is in the place,
and you can see from the symbolism and the story
of being told. When you look against the ancient history
of famous leaders of the Slova, of this kind of
Eastern European region of today, you actually realize that you're
putting together. Wait, this one has a crocodile. Well, that's
(35:20):
because this czar was obsessed with this stuffed crocodile that
he was given as a gift. And everybody knew of this,
so you know that pictorially, when you're seeing this man
with this stuffed alligator in the sixteen hundreds, that's clearly
your representation of this one leader. And then you see
a picture of his wife, and she is dressed up
(35:41):
as Baba Yaga writing a top of a bore. And
it's one of these things that you're sitting here putting
together the pictorial evidence of this historical figure, his wife,
who's clearly his historical figure, because in this instance, the
wife in question was dressed in Estonia national garb, and
that that was kind of the historical record in this moment,
(36:02):
there was a Russian leader who had a Estonian wife,
but she had this long nose, she has this horrific thing.
She is chasing him with a club which appears to
be a pestle. And all of these pieces that again breadcrumbs,
they're all there. That the folklore we know has all
of these echoes, And this is kind of where you
(36:25):
get to dive in and explore. Do we know with
definitive truth the moment that the name Baba Yaga entered
the history books. No, was there a grandmother whose name
was Yaga? Who is the origin of the entire thing?
Maybe who knows? Is there someone where in some religion
sometimes there is a name for a god that is
(36:47):
so holy that nobody can actually speak it. So there
is a representation word or a nickname that is used
when you're using reference, because to say the exact word
of the God's name is something that is only for
the highest of the holy, the priests, the priestesses, whoever
is living in that sacred space. So there's some theories
(37:08):
that yaga is kind of a substitute word in case
you couldn't say the name of this actual deity. It's
actually interesting, the Russian word for bear actually came originally
as the translation of I and now I'm going to
get this wrong because I'm on the air. I'm pretty
sure the translation is actually honey eater. Because the original
(37:30):
word for bear was something that was associated with the
holy and it was so sacred that people were not
allowed to say it. So we actually don't have a
record of what the original, old, old ancient Russian word
for bear was because we only have the representation word
because that one was okay to.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Say, that's interesting. Wow, didn't know that. See, we learned
something new every day. Well before we get out of here,
I know a lot of people probably will want to
get your book when we hope you will show it again.
But how can one use Bobby yaga? Men and women
(38:08):
in today in today's society, how what can we do
or how do we represent maybe her theories of empowerment,
How do we use her folklore to benefit us in
today's society.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
There are so many stories that surround us every single day.
Stories are coming at us from every single direction, And
Bobby August stories remind us that the teller can twist
the tales however they like, and stories are one of
the most powerful tools of human imagination but also human influence.
(38:50):
So you can really convince people by the story you tell,
if you're a charismatic teller, if you are really good
at how you're twisting and turning, Bob biaga over, history
has been maligned in many ways and kind of created
as evil in many ways. So every time we are
looking about the world today and we are looking at figures,
(39:11):
who are the stories are being told about them? Are
these terrible, darable things? We can ask ourselves, is that
really the true story or is that just this version
of the telephone game that this teller wants us to believe.
We're surrounded by stories and we need to investigate them
always to find out what is the truth of the matter. Also,
(39:35):
again she speaks to cultural influences and sways, and maybe
in this moment in history, this is the story we're
telling ourselves about who we are as a culture. What
is it that makes up that? And how are we
speaking of other people? It's a fascinating conversation. And how
can we learn from ancient folklore? Stuff sticks around for
(39:58):
a reason, that's the story lived on for ages have
lived on for a reason. So what can we take
away from those personally to grow as individuals. I love
that place where self empowerment meets historical analysis meets an
old witch of the woods.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I love it well, Chris. I have to say thank you.
This was fascinating. I'll have to tell you more about
I have a nonprofit called Earthly Beings Foundation. You can
go to Earthlybeings dot org. But it's all about ancient culture,
and I would love to it's about bringing it into
the modern day because a lot of things gets, you know,
(40:38):
as we know, disappear, and people don't like to keep
folklore going sometimes it scares them or whatever. But I'm
all about bringing a lot of that ancient cultures into
the modern world. And so I'd love to maybe do
some kind of event about the Bobby Yaka and see
if maybe you can get involved. So well, I'll definitely
(40:59):
be in touch. But absolutely where can people find your
book and find you and find out more about what's
going on in your world?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Well, Becoming Bobby Aga is available wherever books are sold.
Whether you are an ebook, paperback or audiobook reader, there
is a version for you. I'm in love with the
illustration on the cover of my book and their illustrations
throughout that are researched as meticulously I think, almost as
the writing. I'm not the illustrator by any means, but
there are beautiful and they evoke illustrations of Bobby Yaga
(41:30):
through the centuries, and they're just incredibly powerful. So I
highly encourage you to check that out. You can find
me at my website, which is Chris Spizak dot com,
k r I S Chris Spizac s p I s
a K, or on Instagram, Facebook, all the places I
am there. And as I said, everything I do really
(41:52):
comes back to the idea of well written words and
well told stories having the ability to change your personal
world and just the greater world at large, whether that
is discussions of language empowerment, or writing your family story
or writing then of novel that you've always wanted to write,
or my own fiction, which yes does play a little
(42:13):
bit with Bobbiaga folklore. My novel, which was my fourth book,
is called The Bobbyaga Mask and it is the story
of a ninety somethingter grandmother who lived through World War
Two in Ukraine and she hadn't been back to Europe
since she left post World War Two, and she's watching
(42:34):
the world around her, and she's terrified because if you
look around the world sometimes, don't you have this moment
when you look at the headlines, when you look sometimes
right outside your door, and you're terrified. And so it's
the story of a grandmother who looks outside and said,
you know what the world read needs right now? What
if I leaned into all of the old Bobbyaga folklore
(42:54):
that I believed in, and if I scare the world
into being a better place. And it's the story of
a wonderfully wild grandmother who disappears in Eastern Europe, and
it's a wild goose chase across modern day Eastern Europe
as her two granddaughters are trying to uncover what happened
to their grandmother when she disappeared. Is she okay, did
something happened to her? She's ninety something years old. But
(43:16):
through the course of that, they are uncovering their own
personal Ukrainian history, family history, and it's going back and
forth between the grandmother's perspective in the present day and
nineteen forty one Ukraine. And that's a whole different conversation.
But anyway, I love folklore. Check it all out and
get in touch. I love connecting with people.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
And that almost sounds like a movie.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yes, if there are any producers listening, I am happy
to speak that.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
No, it does. It sounds like a movie. Well, thank
you so much, Chris, and I really appreciate you and
providing us some amazing books to check out and be
a part of and just kind of dive into it
and just go back to history. I love that so
that I thank you. Well, don't go anywhere, Chris, I'll
(44:04):
see you on the other side of this close. But
thank you everybody for being a part of Truth Be Told.
Every Friday. You can watch on Mondays for Minimum Report
with Robert Hinsley and then of course Bonnie Burker does
Truth be Told Transformation more of the spiritual side of
the Paranormal World, and she's a great, great host, so
(44:26):
I think you're going to enjoy that, and then of
course me every Friday. So until next time, I'm Tony
Sweet with Truth Be Told. Take care of yourself and
each other. This has been another episode of Truth Be Told.
Thank you so much for watching, recorded live at UBANNGHOS
Studios in Burbank, California. Join us on social media Facebook,
(44:46):
Truth be Told, Radio, Instagram, Truth be Told, Paranormal Go
to Truth be Told Worldwide for more information on upcoming
shows
Being told just because we're not ready for it.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Fo stations of frequency, vibrational.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It was a homicide detective with lapv UFOs, increase visitations, mysteries,
the magic, and downright mind blowing. Today, we've got to
treat that equals part folklore, feminism and a dash of witchcraft.
(00:28):
Our guest is none other than the incredible Chris Spicek,
an author who takes us on a wild ride through
the world of Baba Yaga in her latest book, Becoming
Baba Yaga Trickster, Feminism, and Witch of the Woods. Now,
if you think you know Baba Yaga as just some
old witch living in a chicken legged house, think again.
(00:49):
Chris peels back the layers of this infamous Slavic figure,
revealing her as a feminist icon, a trickster, and a
force to be reckoned with in the woods and beyond.
She's not your typical fairy tale villain. Oh No, She's
a symbol of female power, survival and wisdom. So get
ready for eye opening conversation as we unravel the stories
(01:10):
and symbolism of Bobbi Yaga. I'm tony sweet with truth
be Told. Please welcome to the Truth be Told. Studios
for the first time. Author Chris spy Sik there.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
She is, Oh, nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Nice to meet you. And I want to apologize because
I did get your name wrong. So tell everybody how
to say your name.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It's Chris bie Zak, so spie Zac is my last name.
But it's okay because as we're speaking about Bobbi Yaga,
there are so many ways you can pronounce Bobby Yaga right. Oh. Yes,
a creature of across all of Eastern Europe. She has
big things. Sometimes she's Bobba Yaga, sometimes she is Bobbi Yuga.
There are many ways to pronounce her name. So we'll
(01:55):
just use that as our segue. You did that on purpose?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I did. I did. I knew it. I'm a psychic
and didn't even know it so well. First of all,
like I said, always, thank you for being on for
the first time, and I'm sure it's not going to
be the last. And one thing I noticed that it
said grammar expert turned Bobby Yaga enthusiast. And before we
(02:19):
get into really Bobby Yaga, how did you go from
a grammar expert to Bobby Yaga. I'm kind of curious
because it's like a UFO. People that get into the
UFO world, it's usually they've had an experience. So I'm
curious about your journey to this.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Absolutely, And the funny thing is it actually all completely
ties together. I'm a first generation American where I grew
up and my mom learned English as for a second language.
So growing up, I heard so many conversations about, well,
what's the origin of that word? And I wondered why
it is an English that we do this versus this.
(02:59):
So the subject matter of just language was a conversation
that we had all of the time. And on the
same note, I grew up in a household with a
lot of Ukrainian traditions in Ukrainian artistry and Ukrainian dance
and Ukrainian symbolism about so many aspects of our lives.
So this is where the folk tales came in. Everything
(03:20):
about my professional world and I have five books out now,
every single piece that I've done, from my work in
grammar and empowering communications, to my work in helping edit fiction,
to my work and helping tell family stories, to my
fiction to this but every single one of these books
really is rooted in the idea that well, written words
(03:43):
and well told stories have the ability to change the world.
I mean, what is more powerful than one human connecting
with one other human? However you do it, it's not
about yelling at each other about how to use a semicolon. Besides,
it's a winky face or right, right, we could enjoy
ourselves with these conversations about language, empowerment and just connecting.
(04:06):
So that's where I got started with grammar, just because
I was fascinated by the English language. So that's where
my first publication was. But everything about words and storytelling
has always fascinated me, and Bobby Yaga really came out
of the idea or like my experiences with Bob Yaga.
I've known her since I was a child. But it's
interesting that some world stories stick. Yeah, they just treat
(04:30):
the hearts of multi generations and they stick around for
a reason. So that was my curiosity. Why has this
old Slavic folklore character who may have been born from
goddesses of the past, why does she stick around? And
why is she kind of the it girl of the
moment right now?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, like you said, language is very important, and it's
like you know the Machu Picchio and you know Egypt,
the hieroglyphs and all these different symbolisms and language. I mean,
definitely you don't want somebody that was the d student
putting those languages on the stones, because you'd he would
never be able to decipher it very well. But but
(05:10):
I agree with you. You know, it's it's funny how things stick.
And why do you think? Well, first, can you explain
what Bobby Yaga is? And because we've we've we've seen
some fairy tales, you know, and cartoons and in some
movies about the old witch in the you know, Chicken
Legged House. But and why should we care? Why should
(05:34):
why do you think that she's stuck around so well
into the twenty first century.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Now, see, this is where Bobba Yaga and I have
a very deep connection. And you might think I'm about
to go into a spiritual place. I'm actually going to
a very professional place with this one. The first known
publication that mentions Babba Yaga as an entity in print
was in se seventeen fifty five, and it was a
(06:01):
book called the Russian Grammar. So it's really Bobby y
Ag and I have the exact same publication history that
we both started in grammar. But the funny thing is
is this was a textbook about language, but it was
also about lots of things about the world. And there
was a table of gods and goddesses of different world
belief systems. So you have the Roman god Jupiter next
(06:24):
to the Slavic god Perun, and you can have this
table that equates all these different people of love and
war and thunder and all of these things. Yet in
this table, in her first known publication in seventeen fifty five,
Bobby Yaga is noted one as a deity and two
a deity that has nobody who corresponds to her the
(06:45):
world over. So she has a long history because the
first time you see her in this textbook as a deity,
this isn't the first time the world met her. Clearly
the world has known of her for a long time
if this is the first time she's in print, So
that's kind of one piece of the history of who
she is. Why is she sticking around though she has
(07:06):
thousands of years When you actually start tracing through the
breadcrumbs of archaeology and the historical record and oral traditions
and all of these little clues that you can put
together to source where she came from. She's like this
giant game of telephone and belief systems and cultural norms
that are pushing off of each other, and warring factions
(07:28):
and so many things. But in this moment in history,
I think why people are so fascinated by this Eastern
European Witch of the Woods, who is sometimes a horror
story and sometimes a savior story. I think so many
people are fascinated by her. And she's appearing in John Wick,
and she's appearing in literature, she's appearing in DreamWorks animation,
(07:53):
she's appearing in hell Boy comics. She's appearing all over
the place right now, because I think we're living in
a moment in the world that we can all admit
sometimes things feel a little bit scary, And she's this
figure that embodies kind of the dichotomy of absolute horror
that surrounds us, but at the same time relentless hope.
(08:15):
And if you have this persistent character who is unafraid
to be a part of the shadow, is to be
unafraid to confront you know what, There's darkness in the world,
and we can admit that and face that, but at
the same time that's not the end of the story,
the story goes on, and I think a character like
that has some staying power.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, And I'm curious because it's like Christmas and Santa
Claus if you really go back to the history of it,
and I've done shows about it, you know, during the holidays,
and I always find that's fascinating to where these myths
if you have kids, send them out of the room.
But even Christmas is a combination of religion and many
(08:59):
objects of peganism. So with Babiaga, is this more of
an idea that you feel that came to where it
pulled from a paganism in different religions or different ideas
back in the day that became what this witch was
(09:20):
or do you feel that this was, you know, like
one of these prophetish type of figures that made an
impact in some small village or community that just stuck.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think that thousands upon thousands of years ago, there
was a civilization called Tripulia, and this was a civilization
that existed in the exact same time as ancient Egypt,
and the pottery of Tripolia was more advanced and their
kilns were more advanced than anything produced in ancient Egypt.
(09:54):
At the time of the pyramids. Wow, this is an
ancient civilization that has been largely unknown and not appearing
in most history and archaeology and ancient world books and
textbooks because they didn't leave monuments, they didn't leave massive
statues and structures. They had a society that burned their
(10:18):
locations to the ground, and frequently they moved on to
a new location. But at the same time they had
so much advanced science and advanced pottery techniques and advanced
city centers that had almost nearly ten thousand people living together.
So they were very advanced. But people don't know of
the advanced societies of Eastern Europe when we're talking about
(10:39):
the great ancient civilizations. Yet in the archaeological remains of
these civilizations, not only are we seeing this complex pottery
beyond what most of the world thought was able to
be done by humans at this time, a lot of
this pottery seems to be a spiritualism for the divine
(11:00):
and specifically the divine female. There is a connection between
the divine female and often kind of bird type figures
and in those remnants, and this is we're talking about
seven thousand years ago to that history of the divine
female that far back, and then you trace the record
(11:20):
through the texts of people, where you sometimes have like
your fake historians like Herodotus telling the story of what happened,
but they're getting it from a telephone game from somebody
who was there, who had somebody who is there, and
you're like getting this telephone game of what's happening. So
then you have stories about the Amazons and you don't
actually realize that so many pieces of the Amazon mythos
(11:41):
if we want to say that is actually historically accurate,
and that there were female warriors of the planes around
the Black Sea and present day Ukraine. In the past decade,
how many female skeletons have been found in burial sites
where the women have been decorated with jewelry and all
sorts of things, but their legs have been bowed and
(12:03):
they've been buried with arrows and all sorts of things.
And you're realizing these warrior women, these fierce women that
were revered, this is not just myth. There are so
many little bread crumbs from history that when you start
digging into them, you find this whole other story. And
I think so many of these bread crumbs from the
goddess worship seven thousand years ago in eastern what is
(12:25):
now eastern Europe, from the fierce Amazon warriors, from the
civilization that moved from one place to another, and all
of a sudden, you're seeing Bobby Yaga, as the story
books tell her, start coming into being, that she was
this fierce woman who could have wisdom, who you could
go to for advice about how she in some of
(12:47):
the old stories, and we're talking a thousand year old
stories talking about how she was this goddess that you
would bring sacrifices to just to kind of appease the
earth Mother, and she was called the Moist Earth Earth
Mother goddess here and people would leave fruit or bread
or something out there into the woods where they thought
she might be. And she was known to have an
(13:09):
incredibly long nose. So you think of that in modern
day Halloween and you're thinking of a witch of some
kind with like this Halloween type thing. But no, she
according to the thousand year old tales of this witch
in the woods who was also a goddess who would
help you, she had this incredibly long nose so she
could smell what was left for her was this apple
(13:30):
rotting or was it fresh? Is this bread old, stale
and moldy, or do you actually give something new? Her
nose was how she understood how respectful you were being.
And now we have the old what wart covered noses
on halloweens, depictions of witches. There's like the stories behind
(13:50):
the stories behind the stories that make into who she
is today and of course today in the past three
hundred years, as she's been recorded in literature. She is
an old woman who lives deep in the woods. You
already said this. She lives in a hut deep in
the woods. Her hut's my favorite part of her. That's
actually that's probably not true. I have lots of favorite
parts about her, But her hut stands on chicken legs.
(14:12):
So just imagine that for a second. If your house
or apartment, or wherever it is you lived had the
ability when someone was approaching you and you just didn't
want to see them that day, could just live gifty
scare around whoever was coming, couldn't see the front door,
or if they were really bugging you and you just
really wanted to have some alone time, the whole house
could just stand up and walk itself away on its
(14:34):
little chicken legs. It's absurd but beautiful because we can
all relate to that, can't we?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Oh for sure? And you know, I find what you're
saying is fascinating because I'm curious that the time that
you know, she was kind of this feminist symbol of
power and independence. When do you feel and I'm assuming
this was the men that or even or either jealous women.
(15:04):
I hate say it that way that made her into
this spooky witch that with the scary look, you know,
with the big nose, with the warts and all this stuff.
What does your research tell about that? When did whend
did this kind of the switch happened? And was it
(15:24):
the men? It's almost like the witches of Salem. All
these people didn't really they weren't witches of all, and
it's mostly people that were just wanted to get even
and blame these people. So can you talk about that?
Where when did they become that spooky witch in the woods?
Speaker 2 (15:45):
I think with so many different cultural revolutions, no matter
where you find yourself in the world, no matter what
moments in history that you find yourself in, when two
cultures clash, there is a major kind of other. Well
we can say where people kind of start telling stories
about the other side and how demonic they may be,
(16:08):
and that's just the nature of humanity and how people
tell stories. For bobbiy Aaga specifically, we can point to
the moment that Christianity entered Eastern Europe and you had
what was once an old belief system where who was
it in the year nine hundred eighty, so I'm not
saying nineteen eighty and year nine hundred eighty. You had
(16:31):
a prince named Vladimir who lived in Kiev, and he
put up a statue to this divine female goddess named Mokesh,
and Mokesh is thought to be kind of one of
the many different lines of Bobbi Yoga's potential ancestry. We
don't know she's a giant telephone game, but they're just
all these breadcrumbs were picking up in secrets that were
(16:53):
uncovering the like traits who she could have been and
where she came from. But specifically, Prince Vladimir in eighteen
excuse me, in nine eighty put up this statue to Mokesh.
Within eight years, Prince Vladimir had converted to Christianity and
tore down the same statue that he put down, so
(17:14):
he tore it down in the year nine eighty eight,
so that statue was up for eight years. And suddenly
you have belief systems that were long held were suddenly demonized.
Suddenly you hear about all of these like Divine Earth
Mother type entities and belief systems are suddenly pushed to
(17:36):
the side. And there are different stories from different cultures
who are twisted. This is much later on. This is
I believe in the turn this about seven excuse me,
seventeen hundred, much later on, when folklore is actually being
written and the stories are starting to be gathered from
oral traditions. There was a story called Bobba Yaga, the
(17:57):
Bony Legged and it told of her origin. Story about
how the nastiest women from not the nastiest women, the
nastiest people from around the world were collected and the
devil threw them all into a pot. And in this story,
the twelve nastiest people from around the world were all women,
and they were all tossed into a pot and boiled,
and the devil breathed in the steam spit it out,
(18:18):
and there stood the most evil person or the most
the personification of evil itself, and it was Baba Yaga.
The fact that this story appeared around seventeen hundred tells
you so many different things. This is not actually her
origin story. This is the origin story told by the
people of this moment. And the fact that the Devil
(18:40):
is a character in this story. The Devil's not a
character in Babba Yaga's world. Like we can talk about
other folklore wizards like Koshi the Deathless and that's a
whole different story, but the Devil's not a Babba Yaga
world character. So you're seeing clues to her history just
in the stories that have been preserved. Her legends give
(19:01):
us so much to think about about the cultures that
have been and the cultures that are still shaping the
world around us. And I think that's why I had
so much fun fun writing this book and researching intensively
on this folklore figure who can teach us so much
about humanity and being our best selves while uncovering cultural revolutions.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You know, I interviewing again, like I said, almost a
thousand people doing what I do, and I love it
and I find it fascinating. I always said, I'm kind
of a man on the street just being able to
talk to people like you and learning from you guys
(19:45):
that because I don't do the research. You guys do
the research. But I know one time when I did
a thing on Knight's Templar, and they were there to
protect the pope, and so the Pope end up getting
jealous of the Nights Templar because they were becoming more popular,
so popular that he ended up sending people to kill
(20:09):
them and they had to go in hiding, so they had,
you know, got a bad rap. And so when I
feel when religion sometimes gets involved is when things when
you know, these folklores or things that are there to
empower people or and you know, to do good, and
they feel like they've lost a grip of the power
(20:33):
that they hold. The religious side, they start you know,
making these laws and rules against these folklores and and
other thoughts the spiritual. Yeah, so what you're saying kind
of reminds me of that where you know, uh, you know,
(20:53):
a woman that was empowering women because you know, for
thousands of years, even though we've had you know, Cleopatra
and Queens of England and stuff, majority of the time
it's men that are in control. So I find that
fascinating that it's probably it sounds like that's what's happened
(21:15):
where religion got involved. But what I've noticed in the
last probably fifteen years, I'm noticing, I mean probably even longer,
but I've really noticed that women are getting the chance
to show their strength and their power to society. Do
you feel that Bobby Yoga could be kind of a
(21:41):
resurgence Maybe that's why you were seeing it more and
more of her ability to empower women. What do you
think about that?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I think there's some significant truth to that. Bobby Aga
has been a character in the written record for a
couple hundred years, oral tradition for such a long time,
but I'd say in about the past twenty years, she
has started to appear in sometimes roles where people don't know.
Maybe there are a lot of people listening watching today
who have never heard of Baba Yaga, and that's absolutely fine,
(22:15):
and you know it, Sometimes if you're not paying attention
to this stuff, she can go straight under the radar
and she is just one other storybooks. But when you
start realizing who Baba Yaga is and what her past is,
you'll start noticing her. And she's been popping up time
and time again. And she is not this classic Disney
personification of evil witch. I mean, maybe there are pieces
(22:39):
of her that did completely inspire early animation of snow Whites,
evil Queen. She's in her throne form. There's so many
pieces like the wordy long nose and all of this
old woman stuff. But at the same time, there is
a movement to recognize that as women age, often they
(23:00):
are either seen as invisible or horrific, and Baba Yaga,
as a character for centuries, for millennia, perhaps has leaned
into that say, okay, whatever you're going to judge, and
I don't care about your judgment. I am who I am,
and I'm going to be fierce about it. And in
her stories she is classically this force to be reckoned with,
(23:23):
and she's also this force of wisdom and this partnership,
partner in transformation. Again and again and again again. She's
been mixed and molded in so many different ways. In
the Stalin era of Russia, she was used as kind
of the morality tale be a good citizen, be a
good child for your country, or else Bobba Yaga will
eat you. And there's definitely that piece of her, But
(23:44):
there are other pieces that kind of return again and
again and again, as Baba Yaga is the story of
this strong woman who is this change agent, and she's
a change agent and a transformational almost life coach for people.
In a way. The she always asks for four things.
And it's funny because so many for fairy tales, whether
(24:05):
it is a prince named Ivan, because just like in
English narratives where it's always somebody named Jack, in Slavic folklore,
it's always a prince named Ivan if it's a male character,
or it's a girl named Vasa Lisa, which is the
most common Slavic female name in a lot of folklore.
When they come to her, they might be dead at
(24:26):
the end of the confrontation, yet that never actually happens
in the tale. It's always a threat in the fear,
but it never actually happens. It's one thing you have
to kind of recognize. But if people exhibit four traits,
they are transformed and empowered in some way through the
course of the story. And this is where I think
modern audiences are starting to really latch onto her for
a couple different reasons, and this is one of them.
(24:49):
It's always the same for a traits. If you approached
the storybook of Baba Yaga with respect, if you approached
her with a noble kind heart, kept approached her with
some intelligence, some problem solving abilities, some cleverness, and if
you approached her with a hard work ethic. Then if
(25:10):
you showed her those four things, she could make your
dreams come true. Maybe in dark and nonsensical ways, because
she is a folklore witch, but at the same time,
it's always those four traits. And there's a question she
frequently asks in a lot of her tales. Are you
here to do deeds or are you here to run
from them?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I think on that question, are you here to do
deeds or are you here to run from them? Forget
folklore from centuries ago. What if every single one of
us woke up every single morning and asked us that question,
asked ourselves that question, are we here to do deeds?
Are we here to run from them? That is transformative
in the modern world.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Love it. And so if you're just tuning in, we're
talking to Chris Spisick, Speed Zach Zac. I'll get it.
I'll get it before the end of the shopblem.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, yeah, go right.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
But we're talking about her book and The Becoming Babbi Yoga.
And if you have a question, please in the chat
room and our YouTube channel, please ask a question. We
already have a question. I'm gonna ask that here in
just a second, but I do want to ask kind
of like a bigfoot. Sorry to compare the two, but
(26:25):
you know, we have the Yetti, we have Bigfoot, we
have Sasquatch. Is there other names that she goes by,
or other names that other countries call her that we
might recognize.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I think Bobba Yaga is the most common of her
names because she has a pretty big geographic footprint. She
is like Bobby Aga, Bobby Yaga, Baba Roga. There's probably
twenty different derivatives that are somewhere in the Baba world.
As a translational moment, and actually this is a great
moment to say this, so as if you missed it earlier.
(27:02):
I'm Ukrainian of heritage and I have always pronounced it
Baba yaga, and you it off. The name often goes
back to the word baba and people say, okay. So
some people translate the word baba as grandmother. Some people
translated as like evil hag witch, and it just cracks
me up every single time. I have known many grandmothers
(27:22):
whose grandchildren just call them bob or call her baba,
and this is just grandmother to me. It's kind of
like the English word granny, that it can be granny
who is loving and endearing, but it i'd be like
old granny, where you can take it in that way.
So Baba did not mean an old crone witch. Baba
just means grandmother. And I think that's kind of a
funny thing. And that's true in Ukrainian that's true, and
(27:44):
Polish that's true. In Russian it's just a word that
moves around the area a bunch. And another note before
we get to that question that I always do like
to say, is so many people want to say, well,
isn't Baba Yaga a Russian witch? You're not Russian? Why
are you even talking about this? And it cracks me
up because if you look at the history of the
publishing world, see, there's so much history involved in this conversation.
(28:07):
In the history of the publishing world, London publishers and
translators of Russian had really good connections in Saint Petersburg
and Moscow. So when they were gathering folk tales in
the era where folk tales were really starting to boom
in Europe, their translations were coming from Russia. So is
Bobby Yaga a Russian witch? Yes? Is she only a
(28:29):
Russian witch? No, she's a Ukrainian witch. She's a Polish
which she's a Slovakian which just all of Eastern Europe
has a Bobba yaga taiale or two up their sleeve.
And maybe she might be a baba something slightly different,
but usually it's a yoga.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I love it. I love it well. We have in
the chat room it says, is there a particular version
of Bobby yoga that you resonate with that you resonate
with the most.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I love that question that we were just talking about,
that question of are you here to do deeds or
are you here to run from them? Because, as I said,
that's just a question you can ask yourself in any moment,
and you can really focus on both sides of that
coin of when you're waking up and starting your day
and living your life, you can have many choices that
(29:22):
shape the world around you, that shape your personal being
and how people perceive you. Do you want to run
or do you want to do actions speak so loud
and sometimes even focusing on what is it I'm running
away from, and you ask yourself just that side of
the question, you'll realize there's things in your life you
might be avoiding, and sometimes there are big things, sometimes
(29:43):
they are little things. But by asking yourself that question
that Babba Yaga asks protagonists of old it's a different
way to examine your own life. There's a Baba Yaga
story that is called Vasa Lisa the Beautiful. It's if
one familiar with Bobba Yaga folklore, it's probably the story
(30:03):
that most people know. This is kind of the Cinderella
tale of the Slavic world where you have this is
going to sound very familiar with vas Alisa. Her father died,
she lives with her stepmother and her stepsisters. This is
that tale. She is sent off into the woods though,
because one of her stepsisters blows out the last candle
(30:23):
in their house and so Bobby or excuse me, Vasilissa
is sent as the person of the household who dos
doing all of the tours. She is sent out into
the woods because the only one who can bring fire
back for them is the old witch in the woods.
Who is terrifying? Who is Bobba Yaga. So she goes
to Bobba Yaga and there's This is such the simplistic
(30:45):
version of the tale because I'm not going to give
you all of the intricacies. Read my book for those, right.
But as she's going into the woods, she meets Bobba
Yaga and Bobby Yaga meets her, and again, what are
the four traits Bobbyaga always looks for. She's looking for
someone to be respectful, she's looking for someone to be
kind hearted, she's looking for someone to be smart and
thoughtful and a good problem solver, and she's looking for
(31:07):
someone to be hard worker. And so Baba Yaga puts
her through trials and tests that Vasalisa is willing to. Okay,
I got this, I am scared, I'm terrified. I'm not
sure I can do this, but I'm gonna try. And
through the course of all of these trials she is
put through, she gets her light. Now this is a
dark Slavic tail where she gets her light in side
(31:31):
of a skull that she brings back to her house.
And as she brings it back to her house and
finally she sees her stepmother and stepsisters outside trying to
see by the light of the moon because they have
no light in their house. The skull lights up and
like zaps them and they just turn to ash. Because
this is a dark Slavic tale, and that's what happens.
It's absurd and fascinating. But the transformation of this whole
(31:57):
thing through meeting Babba y'ah vasa, Lisa realizes what she
is capable of, and in a very twisted way, Bobbyaga
got rid of her problems. It's she's a dark witch
of the woods that you don't know what to do
with her, but she's a change agent and someone who
is empowering for an individual. I'm not saying one should emulate,
(32:19):
right Bobba Yaga. She might emulate you if you want
to play with language here. But she's just a fascinating person.
She can be good, she can be evil. She's just
Baba Yaga. She is so multifaceted and full of endless explorations,
and that's what my book's all about.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
So how how do with that many years, since you know,
even three hundred years of being in any type of
book or mention, in any type of article, you know,
there was a lot of years in between that she
(32:58):
existed or at least for showed up in history. How
did we find out that who she was? Meaning like,
I always tell people, you know my great grandfather, I
because I'm a family a family tree, buff, I know
(33:19):
my history. Most people don't even know their great their
great grandfathers, who they were, the great grandmothers, who they were,
where they come from, anything about their lives. We only
go by what was in the Bible or maybe you
got to talk to your grandparents or something like that.
But if you didn't, I mean, there's a lot of
(33:39):
years in between she existed. How do we know one
hundred percent what she was about? If for so many
years we were diverted to she was an evil woman
or she was a spooky woman in the woods, how
do we know where are these scriptures or where are
(34:00):
these tablets or anything? How do we know where where
that came from? That she was the feminist empowerment coach.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It's interesting because when you think of political cartoons today,
you're thinking of something in print or something in the
modern media that you would see online. But in the
sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds, they were kind of the
strangest political cartoons of their day. There were these wood
block prints. They used linseed oil from trees pressed into
(34:36):
into like a layer of beneath the bark. But before
you get too deep into a trunk, there were these
prints that was used with burned limbseed oil for ink.
And sometimes they were scenes from the Bible that when
one hang up from their in their home if they
could not afford more expensive icons. Sometimes they were familiar
storybook characters. We have all of this pictorial evidence of
(34:58):
Baba Yaga and and frequently she is in the place,
and you can see from the symbolism and the story
of being told. When you look against the ancient history
of famous leaders of the Slova, of this kind of
Eastern European region of today, you actually realize that you're
putting together. Wait, this one has a crocodile. Well, that's
(35:20):
because this czar was obsessed with this stuffed crocodile that
he was given as a gift. And everybody knew of this,
so you know that pictorially, when you're seeing this man
with this stuffed alligator in the sixteen hundreds, that's clearly
your representation of this one leader. And then you see
a picture of his wife, and she is dressed up
(35:41):
as Baba Yaga writing a top of a bore. And
it's one of these things that you're sitting here putting
together the pictorial evidence of this historical figure, his wife,
who's clearly his historical figure, because in this instance, the
wife in question was dressed in Estonia national garb, and
that that was kind of the historical record in this moment,
(36:02):
there was a Russian leader who had a Estonian wife,
but she had this long nose, she has this horrific thing.
She is chasing him with a club which appears to
be a pestle. And all of these pieces that again breadcrumbs,
they're all there. That the folklore we know has all
of these echoes, And this is kind of where you
(36:25):
get to dive in and explore. Do we know with
definitive truth the moment that the name Baba Yaga entered
the history books. No, was there a grandmother whose name
was Yaga? Who is the origin of the entire thing?
Maybe who knows? Is there someone where in some religion
sometimes there is a name for a god that is
(36:47):
so holy that nobody can actually speak it. So there
is a representation word or a nickname that is used
when you're using reference, because to say the exact word
of the God's name is something that is only for
the highest of the holy, the priests, the priestesses, whoever
is living in that sacred space. So there's some theories
(37:08):
that yaga is kind of a substitute word in case
you couldn't say the name of this actual deity. It's
actually interesting, the Russian word for bear actually came originally
as the translation of I and now I'm going to
get this wrong because I'm on the air. I'm pretty
sure the translation is actually honey eater. Because the original
(37:30):
word for bear was something that was associated with the
holy and it was so sacred that people were not
allowed to say it. So we actually don't have a
record of what the original, old, old ancient Russian word
for bear was because we only have the representation word
because that one was okay to.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Say, that's interesting. Wow, didn't know that. See, we learned
something new every day. Well before we get out of here,
I know a lot of people probably will want to
get your book when we hope you will show it again.
But how can one use Bobby yaga? Men and women
(38:08):
in today in today's society, how what can we do
or how do we represent maybe her theories of empowerment,
How do we use her folklore to benefit us in
today's society.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
There are so many stories that surround us every single day.
Stories are coming at us from every single direction, And
Bobby August stories remind us that the teller can twist
the tales however they like, and stories are one of
the most powerful tools of human imagination but also human influence.
(38:50):
So you can really convince people by the story you tell,
if you're a charismatic teller, if you are really good
at how you're twisting and turning, Bob biaga over, history
has been maligned in many ways and kind of created
as evil in many ways. So every time we are
looking about the world today and we are looking at figures,
(39:11):
who are the stories are being told about them? Are
these terrible, darable things? We can ask ourselves, is that
really the true story or is that just this version
of the telephone game that this teller wants us to believe.
We're surrounded by stories and we need to investigate them
always to find out what is the truth of the matter. Also,
(39:35):
again she speaks to cultural influences and sways, and maybe
in this moment in history, this is the story we're
telling ourselves about who we are as a culture. What
is it that makes up that? And how are we
speaking of other people? It's a fascinating conversation. And how
can we learn from ancient folklore? Stuff sticks around for
(39:58):
a reason, that's the story lived on for ages have
lived on for a reason. So what can we take
away from those personally to grow as individuals. I love
that place where self empowerment meets historical analysis meets an
old witch of the woods.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I love it well, Chris. I have to say thank you.
This was fascinating. I'll have to tell you more about
I have a nonprofit called Earthly Beings Foundation. You can
go to Earthlybeings dot org. But it's all about ancient culture,
and I would love to it's about bringing it into
the modern day because a lot of things gets, you know,
(40:38):
as we know, disappear, and people don't like to keep
folklore going sometimes it scares them or whatever. But I'm
all about bringing a lot of that ancient cultures into
the modern world. And so I'd love to maybe do
some kind of event about the Bobby Yaka and see
if maybe you can get involved. So well, I'll definitely
(40:59):
be in touch. But absolutely where can people find your
book and find you and find out more about what's
going on in your world?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Well, Becoming Bobby Aga is available wherever books are sold.
Whether you are an ebook, paperback or audiobook reader, there
is a version for you. I'm in love with the
illustration on the cover of my book and their illustrations
throughout that are researched as meticulously I think, almost as
the writing. I'm not the illustrator by any means, but
there are beautiful and they evoke illustrations of Bobby Yaga
(41:30):
through the centuries, and they're just incredibly powerful. So I
highly encourage you to check that out. You can find
me at my website, which is Chris Spizak dot com,
k r I S Chris Spizac s p I s
a K, or on Instagram, Facebook, all the places I
am there. And as I said, everything I do really
(41:52):
comes back to the idea of well written words and
well told stories having the ability to change your personal
world and just the greater world at large, whether that
is discussions of language empowerment, or writing your family story
or writing then of novel that you've always wanted to write,
or my own fiction, which yes does play a little
(42:13):
bit with Bobbiaga folklore. My novel, which was my fourth book,
is called The Bobbyaga Mask and it is the story
of a ninety somethingter grandmother who lived through World War
Two in Ukraine and she hadn't been back to Europe
since she left post World War Two, and she's watching
(42:34):
the world around her, and she's terrified because if you
look around the world sometimes, don't you have this moment
when you look at the headlines, when you look sometimes
right outside your door, and you're terrified. And so it's
the story of a grandmother who looks outside and said,
you know what the world read needs right now? What
if I leaned into all of the old Bobbyaga folklore
(42:54):
that I believed in, and if I scare the world
into being a better place. And it's the story of
a wonderfully wild grandmother who disappears in Eastern Europe, and
it's a wild goose chase across modern day Eastern Europe
as her two granddaughters are trying to uncover what happened
to their grandmother when she disappeared. Is she okay, did
something happened to her? She's ninety something years old. But
(43:16):
through the course of that, they are uncovering their own
personal Ukrainian history, family history, and it's going back and
forth between the grandmother's perspective in the present day and
nineteen forty one Ukraine. And that's a whole different conversation.
But anyway, I love folklore. Check it all out and
get in touch. I love connecting with people.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
And that almost sounds like a movie.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yes, if there are any producers listening, I am happy
to speak that.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
No, it does. It sounds like a movie. Well, thank
you so much, Chris, and I really appreciate you and
providing us some amazing books to check out and be
a part of and just kind of dive into it
and just go back to history. I love that so
that I thank you. Well, don't go anywhere, Chris, I'll
(44:04):
see you on the other side of this close. But
thank you everybody for being a part of Truth Be Told.
Every Friday. You can watch on Mondays for Minimum Report
with Robert Hinsley and then of course Bonnie Burker does
Truth be Told Transformation more of the spiritual side of
the Paranormal World, and she's a great, great host, so
(44:26):
I think you're going to enjoy that, and then of
course me every Friday. So until next time, I'm Tony
Sweet with Truth Be Told. Take care of yourself and
each other. This has been another episode of Truth Be Told.
Thank you so much for watching, recorded live at UBANNGHOS
Studios in Burbank, California. Join us on social media Facebook,
(44:46):
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