Hi, thank you for coming tonight.
This is a story about Baba Yaga--
the fabulous Russian witch.
"Baba Yaga had a daughter, a pelican child.
This did not please her particularly.
The pelican child was stunningly strange and beautiful
as well as being very good, which
pleased Baba Yaga even less.
It was difficult to live as a pelican in the deep dark woods,
but the pelican child never seemed
to think she belonged to any place other
than here with her bony ill-tempered baba and the cat
and the dog.
They all lived in a little hut on chicken legs,
and they were not uncomfortable.
Baba Yaga did not care for visitors,
so when anyone approached, the chicken legs
would move in a circle, turning the house so that the visitor
could not find the door.
This too was acceptable to them all.
When Baba Yaga went away, which she did frequently
though she always, always returned,
she would warn the dog and cat and her beautiful pelican child
against allowing strangers into the house.
Even if they do not appear as strangers, don't let them in,
Baba Yaga said.
And she would go off on her strange errands in her iron
mortar, which she would row through the heavens
with a pestle.
Often, she would return with little fishes,
which the pelican and the cat relished and the dog did not.
The dog had his own cache of food,
which he consumed judiciously-- never too much and never
too fast.
Though he did not hoard it.
He was generous and noble to a fault,
really, though he was shabby and ferocious-looking.
One afternoon, when Baba Yaga was away,
a tall, somewhat formally-attired man
approached the house.
The chicken legs immediately went into rotation
so that the door could not be found.
Really, the legs looked as if they weren't even awake,
but, in fact, they never slept.
I have heard there is a beautiful bird here,
the man shouted out, and I would like to draw her.
He waved a sketchbook in the air.
I'll make her immortal, he called.
The Pelican child and the dog and the cat
remained sitting quietly in a circle on the floor
where they had been playing dominoes.
The man remained outside until darkness fell, occasionally
calling out to them that he was an artist and very highly
regarded.
Then he went away.
The cat turned on the lamp, and they waited for Baba Yaga
to return.
There were two lamps in the hut--
one that illuminated only what they knew already,
and another one which Baba Yaga kept
locked in a closet that illuminated
what they did not know.
Baba Yaga returned and said, I smell something outside.
It smells like cruel death.
Who has been here?
And they described the man and what he had said.
If he returns, under no circumstances let him in,
Baba Yaga said.
The next day, she went off once again in her mortar and pestle.
On foggy days, one could see the faintest trail of her passage
through the sky, so she brought her broom along to sweep away
any trace of herself.
Baba Yaga was usually very careful,
though sometimes she was not.
The Pelican child and the dog and the cat
sat in a circle on the floor with their coloring books.
The Pelican child's favorite color was blue,
the cat's black, and the dog pretty much preferred them
all he said.
They felt a little house moving, and their crayons
slid across the floor.
Once again, the man had appeared and the chicken legs
had prevented him from finding the door.
He shouted up to them as before, proclaiming his devotion
to the pelican child's strangeness and beauty
and promising to make her immortal.
My name is synonymous with beautiful birds
he said waving his portfolio at the windows.
What is synonymous, the dog whispered.
He had no idea what it meant, and he never would.
Just then, the entire forest commenced
to rattle for Baba Yaga had returned
and was rushing toward the distinguished gentleman
on her bony legs ready to thrash him with her pestle Wait, wait,
he cried.
I only want to create your daughter's portrait.
You cannot keep such a splendid creature locked up here.
As a mother, you should want her to be appreciated.
Others should be allowed to marvel at her.
Come, look at the drawings I have made of her avian brothers
and sisters.
And Baba Yaga, allowing curiosity
to get the better of her and also because she did
feel somewhat guilty raising her beautiful daughter
in the dark woods, agreed to look at the drawings.
They were beautiful.
Herons and ibis and egrets and roseate spoonbills and storks
feeding or flying or resting in their nests with their young
or gliding above water that sparkled.
So great was the gentleman's skill--
sunlight pouring through their perfect wings.
Let us return to your home and lay these pictures on the floor
inside so you can study them and they won't be blown apart
by the wind he said.
Indeed, a violent wind had come up as
though it were trying to tell Baba Yaga something,
but she ignored it.
So the chicken legs obediently swung
the hut around and Baba Yaga and the gentleman whose name
was John James Audubon enter.
Well, put out some tea and biscuits for our guests,
Baba Yaga snapped at the cat.
But the cat said we have no tea or biscuits.
The dog growled, but Baba Yaga said to Audubon, oh, pay
no attention to him.
This deeply hurt the dog's feelings.
It's quite dim in here, Audubon remarked.
Would you have another lamp so that we
can see the drawings better?
I so want you to approve of them so you will allow me to draw
your beautiful daughter.
I do have another lamp, Baba Yaga said gladly.
And please, grandmother, he said,
could you be so kind as to lock the dog and cat away?
The dog does frighten me a bit, and I'm allergic to cats.
Baba Yaga put the dog and the cat in the closet
and followed them in looking for the other lamp.
Oh, wouldn't you know, she muttered.
I put it on the highest most difficult to reach shelf.
Audubon slammed the door shut and bolted it.
Baba Yaga and the dog and the cat
were so stunned that, for a moment,
they were completely speechless.
Then they heard their beautiful pelican child say, oh, please,
sir, do not take me from this bright world, and then
a sharp crack as though from a pistol, then
terrible sounds of pain and surprise, and then nothing.
The dog began to howl and the cat to hiss.
Baba Yaga beat on the door with her bony hands and feet, which
were sharp as a horse's hooves, but the door
was old and strong, the wood practically petrified,
and they could not break through it.
But the dog flung himself against the door
again and again and worried a sliver
loose with his teeth and claws and then another sliver.
He did not know how long he tore at the door he
had no conception of time.
It seemed only yesterday he was a puppy hanging on
to Baba Yaga's sock as she limped across the room
or pouncing at moths or grinning with joy when he was allowed
before he got too big to accompany
Baba Yaga on her flights across the sky.
It seemed only yesterday that his fur was soft and black,
his paws so pink and tender, his teeth so white.
Or it seemed as though it could be tomorrow.
Finally, he had made a hole in the door
just large enough for him to crawl through.
What met his eyes was a scene so horrific
he could not understand it.
He began to tremble and howl the beautiful pelican
child was pierced through with cruel rods
and was arranged in a position of life,
her great wings extended, her elegant neck arched.
But her life had been taken away,
and her eyes were fathomless and dark.
A specimen, the cat screamed behind him.
He has made of our sister a specimen.
And then he felt the tears of Baba Yaga striking him
like hail.
He left.
Outside, he ran and ran through the forest.
He could see the man running to clutching his wretched papers
and pens.
Often, the dogs stumbled.
And twice he fell for his hips had been bad for some time.
And his poor old heart now pounded with sorrow.
At last, he gave up the pursuit, for the evil one
had far out distanced him.
After he rested and caught his breath,
he smelled the dreadful scent of cruel death.
Audubon's abandoned campsite was nearby,
and a fire of green branches still smoldered.
Many were the trees that had been cut down.
And on their stumps were colorful
woodland birds, thrushes and larks, and woodpeckers,
and tiny iridescent and colorfully patterned
ones whose names the dog did not know.
Long nails thrust through their small bodies kept them erect,
and thread and wire held their heads up and kept their wings
aloft.
Even more horrifying was the sight
of birds dismembered-- their pinions and claws severed
for study.
Whimpering, the dog fled.
And after he had gone a short distance or long distance,
after a long time or a short time, he came to the little hut
on chicken legs.
The legs were weeping.
And Baba Yaga and the cat were weeping.
Baba Yaga had folded her daughter in her arms,
and her tears felt without ceasing on the pelican child's
brown breast.
In the morning, the cat said, we must do something.
I will go out again and find him and tear him to pieces,
the dogs said wearily.
I don't give a rat's ass about Audubon, the cat said.
We must bring our beautiful pelican sister back.
Perhaps we should call for Prince Ivan, the dog suggested.
Useless, Baba Yaga said.
He has his princess in his castle.
He never calls.
He never writes.
He's of no use to us.
We will put the beautiful pelican child
in the oven the cat announced.
I couldn't bear to put my daughter
in the cold, cold oven, Baba Yaga said.
Who said anything about cold, the cat said.
We will preheat it to, oh, say, 250 degrees,
and we will put her in for only half an hour.
Half an hour, the dog said.
That stove hasn't been used in years, Baba Yaga said.
But they did what the cat suggested,
for what else could they do?
Carefully, they lay the Pelican child
in the oven, which was no longer cold, but not too warm either.
Oh, her beautiful face, Baba Yaga cried.
Her beautiful bill, take care with her bill.
Then they waited.
Has it been a half an hour yet, the dog asked.
Not yet, the cat said.
At last, the cat announced that it had been a half an hour.
And Baba Yaga opened the oven.
And the Pelican child, as beautiful as she had ever been,
tumbled out and tottered into their happy arms alive.
After this, Baba Yaga continued to fly
through the skies in her mortar, navigating with her pestle.
But instead of a broom, she carried
the lamp that illuminated the things people did not
know or were reluctant or refused to understand.
And she would lower the lamp over a person
and they would see how extraordinary were the birds
and beasts of the world and that they should
be valued for their bright and beautiful and mysterious selves
and not willfully harmed, for they were
more precious than castles or the golden rocks
dug out from the earth.
But she could reach only a few people each day with the land.
Once, seven experienced it's light.
But usually it was far less.
It would take thousands of years, tens of thousands
of years perhaps to reach all human beings with the light.
Baba Yaga came home one evening so tired,
and she gathered her little family around her-- the pelican
child and the dog and the cat-- and said, my dear ones,
I still have magic and power unrealised.
Do you wish to become human beings,
for some think you are under a hellish spell.
Do you want to become human?
The cat and the dog spoke.
The Pelican child had not spoken since the day of her return.
No, the dog and the cat said."
Thanks.