Chicken legs?
Okay, I was just wondering about this yesterday, so I thought I'd share.
Question: Why in the world does Baba Yaga live in a hut that stands on giant chicken legs?
[seriously - that's a bizarre image, even for fairy tales.]
Answer:
A "cabin on chicken legs with no windows and no doors" in which Baba Yaga dwells sounds like pure fantasy. In fact, this is an interpretation of an ordinary construction popular among hunter-nomadic peoples of Siberia of Uralic (Finno-Ugric) and Tungusic families, invented to preserve supplies against animals during long periods of absence. A doorless and windowless log cabin is built upon supports made from the stumps of two or three closely grown trees cut at the height of eight to ten feet. The stumps, with their spreading roots, give a good impression of "chicken legs." The only access into the cabin is via a trapdoor in the middle of the floor.
A similar but smaller construction was used by Siberian pagans to hold figurines of their gods. Recalling the late matriarchy among Siberian peoples, a common picture of a bone-carved doll in rags in a small cabin on top of a tree stump fits a common description of Baba Yaga, who barely fits in her cabin, with legs in one corner, head in another one, her nose grown into the ceiling. There are indications that ancient Slavs had a funeral tradition of cremation in huts of this type. In 1948, Russian archaeologists Yefimenko and Tretyakov discovered small huts of the described type with traces of corpse cremation and circular fences around them.
~from the Baba Yaga entry in the New World Encyclopedia
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There's a great woodcut that accompanies that section of the entry too.
Now that image makes ALL SORTS of sense! Nifty!
*fist pumps*
*goes back to work*