I suppose Russian parents threaten bad children with Baba Yaga. Better or worse than terrifying little people with hell and the devil?
My favorite poet is Gerard Manley Hopkins, which might seem like an odd choice for an atheist like me, since he was a monk who wrote almost only about his skydaddy. But damn it, he was a genius and an unparalleled wordsmith. So I have a new series of box tops and bases based on Hopkins poems. Feast your eyes. And for your enjoyment, the particularly beautiful Hopkins poems they go with: Margaret, Bright wings, and send my roots rain. All of these are woodburned maple except the bird/phoenix, which is goldleafed walnut. And here is our latest story box: Baba Yaga is a Russian folktale figure- a really scary witch who steals children, flies around in a mortar (I guess steering with the pestle), and lives in a house on chicken legs in a forest surrounded by skulls on pikes. The maple top of this box shows a hut on chicken legs strolling through a moonlit forest. It's woodburned, painted, and has a goldleafed moon. The inside shows a silhouette of Baba Yaga flying in her mortar.
I suppose Russian parents threaten bad children with Baba Yaga. Better or worse than terrifying little people with hell and the devil?
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AuthorTom Beach and Amanda Walker Archives
September 2015
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