Skip to main content

Baba Yaga's Horsemen of the Apocalypse

 For NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) my teen started working on a queer YA retelling of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  We did some YouTube research about the Four Horsemen and the Book of Revelations, also getting sucked in to the History Channel's Secrets of the Bible - surprisingly well done.  The sequence of videos skewed our next sets of YouTube recommendations somewhat, and we ended up watching a PBS video about Baba Yaga...and her Horsemen.  Whoa.

In Revelations Chapter 6, the lamb opens seven seals on a special scroll.  When the first seal is opened, a white horse and rider appear.  2nd seal:  Red horse and rider.  3rd seal:  Black horse and rider.  4th seal:  Death with a pale-green horse

In the popular Russian folk tale of Baba Yaga and Vasilisa, on her journey to get fire from Baba Yaga, Vasilisa first encounters Baba Yaga's white horseman, then her red horseman, then her black horseman, and finally, Baba Yaga herself - the folk tale - ified Great Goddess, mistress of birth, life, and, especially, Death.  Baba Yaga's house is surrounded by a fence made of human skulls.  In the story, Vasilisa completes her quest by returning home with a lantern from Baba Yaga made from a human skull.

Sequence of Events in Revelations Chapter 6 vs. the story of Baba Yaga and Vasilisa

How do we know this witch in the woods is a Great Goddess?  We are told that her riders are Dawn, Day, and Night, all controlled by Baba Yaga.  She is Mother Nature, Grandmother Earth.  

Baba Yaga's Horsemen of the Apocalypse, original painting by Echoing Multiverse.  Availabe via Saatchi Art, or as stickers or other merch through RedBubble or Fine Art America.

The first written mention of Baba Yaga is in a 1755 book comparing Slavic deities with their Roman counterparts.  She has no Roman equal...but was considered a deity.  Before being written about, she had a strong oral tradition, being in literally thousands of stories.

In Old Russian, the word Baba was used for midwives, fortune tellers, and sorceresses.  In modern usage, baba is a derogatory term designating a difficult old woman.  In a few indigenous Eastern European languages, Baba is the also the name for the pelican.  One theory on the etymology of Yaga is that it may be related to the Latin word for snake.  Which reminds of the naga, snake women, including Nuwa, a naga and creation Goddess of eastern Asia.  Often the names of deities were too powerful to say aloud, so Baba Yaga's real name may be lost to history.

She certainly sounds like a classic Marija Gimbutas Great Mother Goddess.  Marija Gimbutas was an archaeologist studying Old European cultures.  In The Living Goddess, Marija Gimbutas writes, "In the cycle of life, the feminine force -- the goddess -- not only manifested in birth, fertility, and life sustenance, she also embodied death, decay, and regeneration.  As death wielder, she loomed as a terrifying raptor, a poisonous snake, or the stiff white nude.  For Old European cultures, death did not portend the ultimate end but remained part of nature's cycle.  In Old Europe religious imagery, death was immediately coupled with regeneration. 

"An understanding of the practice of excarnation helps us to clarify the role of the bird of prey in Neolithic religion; it particularly explains its role in the death process.  In this burial practice, people did not bury their dead immediately, but exposed them outdoors on platforms.  There, birds of prey would strip the body of its flesh, leaving only the bones.  The removal of flesh was considered necessary to complete the death process.  When only the bones remained, the individual could be buried and the next segment of the cycle could begin.  Two different raptors predominated in Old European mortuary symbolism, each in a different region:  the vulture dwells only in the Near East and southern Europe, while the owl lives in most of Europe.  Although excarnation was not universally practiced, through Europe and the Near East vulture and/or owl symbols represented the goddess who brought death, yet ruled life and assured birth."

The pelican is an opportunistic carnivore.  It will try to eat people.  Evidence can be quickly found via YouTube.  According to a quick Google search, pelicans will also eat carrion.

Pelicans try to eat a baby

Pelicans try to eat a full grown adult


PBS Video:  The Ancient Origins of Baba Yaga

PBS on Baba Yaga


And, Baba Yaga is in the book of Revelations.  She will have to be defeated for the rapture to occur, I guess.  I'm not entirely interested in being Raptured.  If I was in the 100 (Excellent TV series), I would have said no thanks at the series finale.


Revelations 6 - for reference

Disciples' Literal New Testament

The Lamb Opens The First Six Seals

6 And I saw when the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living-creatures saying like a voice of [a] thunder, “Come[b]”. 2 And I saw, and behold— there was a white horse, and the one sitting on it having a bow. And a crown was given to him. And he went out conquering, and[c] in order that he might conquer.

3 And when He opened the second seal, I heard the second living-creature saying, “Come”. 4 And another horse— a fire-red one— went out. And to the one sitting on it, authority was given to him to take the peace[d] from the earth, and[e] that they will slay one another. And a great sword was given to him.

5 And when He opened the third seal, I heard the third living-creature saying, “Come”. And I saw, and behold— there was a black horse, and the one sitting on it holding a balance-scale in his hand. 6 And I heard something like a voice in the midst of the four living-creatures, saying “A quart[f] of wheat for a denarius[g], and three quarts of barley for a denarius. And do not harm the olive-oil and the wine”.

7 And when He opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living-creature saying, “Come”. 8 And I saw, and behold— there was a pale-green horse, and the one sitting on it. Death was the name for him. And Hades was following with him. And authority[h] was given to them over a fourth of the earth[i], to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild-beasts of the earth.


And, a highly entertaining overview of the rest of Revelations:

Survival Guide to the Apocalypse


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sheela Na Gig and the Power of the Vagina

 The Guardian published a piece on Sheela Na Gigs for International Women's Day on Monday.  Here's a link.   A few weeks ago, I painted two Sheelas. Found on churches throughout the British Isles and Europe, Sheela Na Gigs are "figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva."  There are over 100 documented examples just in Ireland.  The carvings may be remnants of a pre-Christian mother goddess.  They may also have been thought to ward off evil spirits.  They're often found over doors or windows, and they're generally smiling.   The two I have painted are from the Church of St. Mary and St. David at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England and the Parish Church of Oaksey, Wiltshire. While I was researching the Sheelas I came across other related stories of, as the Guardian so deftly put it, "big vagina energy".  The power of women (especially the nude form) to create life, protect it, or - conversely - take it away. My favorit...
3 comments
Read more

Asherah

 An inscription from Khirbet El-Qôm (near Jerusalem) dated to the 700s BCE and translated by archaeologist Judith Hadley reads, "Uriyahu the Rich wrote it. Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh for from his enemies by his Asherah he has saved him by Oniyahu by his Asherah and by his A[she]rah.” ( Source ) Asherah was the Great Goddess of the Ancient Near East.  From this inscription and other evidence, it is surmised that Yahweh, the God of the Jews, once had a wife - Asherah.  Asherah was also sometimes known as Astarte and was associated with lions and the planet Venus, like her relative, Ishtar/Inanna.  Asherah's symbol was the tree of life, and her worship involved sacred groves and asherah poles.   Asherah original painting available through  Saatchi Art .  Stickers, prints, and other merch available in shop or through  RedBubble  or  Fine Art America.   All of the Asherahs in my painting are based on figurines housed in the Isra...
1 comment
Read more

Athena

 I painted Athena in December 2020 as part of a Goddess painting challenge, at the very beginning of my deep-dive into Goddess traditions.  I painted her as a mean girl, inspired by Regina George.  I had never liked Athena, and the result was an unflattering portrait. Athena, the Mean Girl, original painting by Echoing Multiverse, December 2020 Inspiration:  The pop culture Mean Girl, Regina George My perception of Athena was based on the story of her punishment of Medusa.  I had recently seen a YouTube video from Medusa's perspective.  I wasn't yet aware of the complexity of Greek mythology, especially with respect to representations of the divine feminine.  Later I learned that this story of Medusa was written by Ovid, a Roman poet, around 8 AD, well after the classical period of Greek mythology. From Robert Graves, I read that Plato identified Athene with the Libyan Goddess Neith, "who belonged to an epoch when fatherhood was unrecognized...Virgin...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Known Artists were Women

 In 2013, Dean Snow of the University of Pennsylvania published research on sexual dimorphism of hand prints present in Upper Paleolithic cave art.  His analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of hand prints present in the European cave art analyzed belonged to women ( source ).  Marija Gimbutas and others write that in Old European religion caves represented the womb of the earth Goddess.  Women, in the womb of the Earth Mother, creating artwork at the dawn of time.  The Creator creating creators, matrilineally. The Creator original painting.   Blogger Art Chester writes, "There is also an indirect argument based upon observations of modern primates.  Blogger Greg Laden, who studied with Prof. Snow at Penn State, states that when you study chimpanzees, you find that the males are virtually technophobes: 'Virtually all chimp technology is used by females, invented by females, passed from female to female, and so on.  Males don’t seem ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nut

 Nut is one of the oldest goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, Mother of Isis, Osiris, Set, and Nephthys.  She swallows the Sun every evening and rebirths it every morning.  She is the Goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, mother of the gods, she who holds a thousand souls.  Her fingers and toes touch the four cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.  In her human depiction, she is represented by cat pose in yoga.   Nut original painting available through Saatchi Art .  Prints and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America . She is also sometimes represented as a cow, with her milk representing the heavenly river, the Milky Way.  Interesting, cat and cow poses alternate in yoga practice.  The first domestic cattle were bred from the wild aurochs. Both male and female aurochs had large horns.  Modern Texas longhorns are thought to be a relatively close relation to the aurochs.  I once slept ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tanit, Great Goddess of Carthage

 Tanit was the Great Goddess of Carthage.  She was the chief deity of the wealthy African port city, located on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Tunisia.  Tanit was a heavenly goddess of war, a "virginal" (unmarried) mother goddess and nurse, and, less specifically, a symbol of fertility.  She is considered to be an avatar of Astarte/Asherah/Ishtar/Inanna/Anat, and was adopted by the Romans as Juno Caelestis.  She may also be personified by legendary Etruscan queen Tanaquilo.  Additionally, like Astarte, Tanit is a Goddess of the sea and sailors. Tanit is sometimes portrayed with the head of a lion, wearing a garment made of feathers.  This fits with an identity related to the Great Mother Goddesses of the ancient Mediterranenan.  Astarte, Asherah , Ishtar, and Inanna are all associated with lion imagery.  The Burney Relief famously shows Ishtar or another Great Mother avatar with wings and feet reminiscent of a bird of prey.  Ana...
Post a Comment
Read more