Baba Yaga's Book of Witchcraft: Slavic Magic from the Witch of the Woods

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I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers. In this part of the story, not unlike the witches’ story, it’s difficult to discern truth from lies, and to tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys.

Absolutely she is," says Yi Izzy Yu, one of the authors who has contributed a story to Into the Forest. I could not see him providing anything she wanted - but then following that line of reasoning - What did she want? Das ist ebenso fantastisch wie die Verwandlung eines Polizisten in einen Floh, andere Teile der Geschichte erinnern an eine Spionage-Parodie. The ensemble of characters come armed with varying weapons, indicative of the colourful archetypical characters readers can identify with that are deconstructed as the story flies apart at its seams. Add a few chance encounters, a chorus of some more angry witches, a strung-out jazzman or two, a weaponized LSD program, and a cache of rifles buried in the Bois de Bologne—and that’s a novel!A key figure from Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga certainly fulfils the requirements of the wicked witch – she lives in a house that walks through the forest on chicken legs, and sometimes flies around (close to ground level) in a giant mortar and pestle.

Das Buch ist für mich keine Enttäuschung, sondern eine leichte und unterhaltsame Lektüre gewesen, die jedoch besser hätte ausgeführt werden können. Coincidentally, we had a cold snap while I was reading this book and reading about the horrible winters in Russia was particularly effective sitting on my sofa with a throw over myself. The essence of Baba Yaga exists in many cultures and many stories, and symbolises the unpredictable and untameable nature of the female spirit, of Mother Earth, and the relationship of women to the wild," says Ryan. It’s filled with fox spirits, Tibetan Red-Hat black magic, and other flavours of shamanism, as well as stories of preternaturally intelligent or empowered animals and weird metamorphoses. In this way, Baba Yaga complicates the passive female nurturing role with a type of 'I'll do whatever the heck I want' outlaw power that you ordinarily only see associated with men.With the comic effect used so well by Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore, Barlow laces fantasy and mystery into an unpredictable, highly imaginative story that treats a chicken with the same serious attention as a dangerous crone. Author Madame Pamita completes each chapter by sharing how to put the elder-witch's wisdom into practice, with instructions for Ukrainian folk embroidery, weaving wreaths from herbs, using magical poppets, and working with the spirits of the forest, the hearth, and the sauna.

Smart, sophisticated teens who gobble up Joe Hill or Neil Gaiman novels will enjoy Toby Barlow’s writing just as much. The crocodile would in this case represent a monster who fights witches, and the print would be something of a "cultural mélange" that "demonstrate[s] an interest in shamanism at the time".Alternately, some scholars have interpreted these lubki motifs as reflecting a concept of Baba Yaga as a shaman. The Parisian policemen, CIA agents masquerading as advertising execs, Russian priest, and the witches themselves. Never put a book up for review that is a sample or in this case, one chapter that has nothing to do with the title than a bit of ideas from t Long before someone in the 20th century changed the name of the tale, Vasilisa the Beautiful was Vasilisa the Wise; the ending with the prince getting the girl is a tack-on bit of modern fairy-tale fluff. Here we have delights like a sly young witch impaling a buffonish paramours who has overstayed his sweaty welcome up on a high city gate, a dapper American ad exec in Paris being led around by a crafty French secret agent (maybe), an ancient malevolent witch in a dank basement lair chock-a-block with mouldering spell ingredients, both a police inspector and a sexual aggressor turned into very appropriate dirty animals, an internationally weaponized hallucinogenic drug trade, a hapless priest retired to a country barn which becomes the site of an extremely magickal showdown, a little girl and her fowl, a wily jazz trio, and on and on and on.