Into The Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga edited by Lindy Ryan
I would like to thank Black Spot Books and Stephen from BlackCrowPR for an advance copy of this anthology in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Black Spot Books
Published - Out Now
Price - £3.32 Kindle EBook £14.99 paperback
A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by the Baba Yaga. Featuring Gwendolyn Kiste, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Mercedes M. Yardley, Monique Snyman, Donna Lynch, Lisa Quigley, and R. J. Joseph, with an introduction by Christina Henry.
Deep in the dark forest, in a cottage that spins on birds' legs behind a fence topped with human skulls, lives the Baba Yaga. A guardian of the water of life, she lives with her sisters and takes to the skies in a giant mortar and pestle, creating tempests as she goes. Those who come across the Baba Yaga may find help, or hindrance, or horror. She is wild, she is woman, she is witch— and these are her tales.
Edited by Lindy Ryan, this collection brings together some of today' s leading voices of women-in-horror as they pay tribute to the Baba Yaga, and go Into the Forest.
The character of Baba Yaga is an interesting representation of the witch. We don’t seem to have a British equialent - for us the witches stay anonymous but they share many characteristics. Typically an old wise woman who lives alone from the community; has familiars and a lair and stories can have her as hero or villain. A reminder magic is capricious but also perhaps a commentary on how society (and by this of course we mean the men in power) felt a woman with her own property, wisdom and power could be a threat. Baba Yaga has traveled with migration around the world and this image of a witch with a house of chicken legs has still pulled readers into knowing who she is and what she represents. In Lyndy Ryan’s highly enjoyable anthology Into The Forest a host of authors have given their versions of this witch and although no longer Halloween with these tricks and treats it is still the Season of the Witch
Among the many stories I enjoyed in this collection
Last Tour Into The Hungering Moonlight by Gwendolyn Kiste - a tour guide introduces a new family into a town. But Kiste makes the narration get subtly spooky as we realise all these occupants know about a witch on a path you don’t usually explore. Kiste though uses the story to explore the traditonal role of women the traps they wre put in and here Baba Yaga offers rebellion and freedom. Really goregously written and sets our main charcetr up as a symbol of wild freedom plus commentary on issues still around today.
The Story of a House by Yi Izzy Yu - yes we finally get to hear why Baba Yaga has a house with chicken legs. Its funny, creepy, gruesom and never boring and even has an ending for Baba Yaga! A lot of fun and quite unexpected too!
Wormwood by Lindz McLeod - This poetical and eerie tale has Baba Yaga as an unpredictable symbol of justice who can see eveyrthing in relfections. Her justice carries a price. Its a deliciously dark fable and Bab Yaga while here is good her revenge can be quite devastating for those ont he wrong side. I loved the way McLeod plays with reflections which here are Baba Yaga’s endless tools.
Mama Yaga by Christina Sng - here Baba Yaga is not on the side of the angels and its about her fabled love of children’s flesh. Sng weaves together a different fairy tale and gives us a less than happy but fascinatingly gruesome ending for some but I love the idea of what Baba Yaga did next too!
Flood Zone by Donna Lynch - here Baba Yaga moves to the modern world and finds greed and corrpution aids her love of children’s flesh. Narratded by Baba Yaga’s not quite a daughter its a really unsuual and well told set of scenes about who our narrator ios; how she felt about the complex charcetr of Baba Yaga and what finally happened next. Highly inventive and one of my favourites in the collection
The Peddler’s Promise by Catherine McCarthy - A remarkably dark horror tale with Bab Yaga in disguise handing out toys but this is is not for Christmas. I love the sense of a tiny village realising a malevolent presence is playing with them and their children and the final image is quite disturbing.
Water Like Broken Glass by Carina Bisset - this tale stretches the format but really fits the tone of the collection. Set in WW2 it tells the tale of a watermeid - the ghost of a girl cruelly drowned in the river. She works with and falls in love with a young woman who is a resistance fighter but a desire for revenge can be deadly. It carries the ambiguity of our witches as to are they doing good or evil and the relationships that change between the characters really pulls you into the story.
Baba Yaga Learns to Shave, Gets Her Period, Then Grows Into her Own by Jess Hagemann - I really liked this almost cautionary tale for parents who want to control their daughter from an early age into what they think a woman can be may end up creating a more powerful and rebellious woman they cannot control.
Fair Trade by Jacqueline West - Another of my faourites; some teenage girls play a game that suggests one of them will soon die. She decides to seek a local witch’s aid but the price may be too high. Its a really good original horror tale using our desire to be someone else to end up being our undoing. Very impressive.
Maw Maw Yaga and The Hunter by Alexandrea Weis - this moves Baba Yaga to the cajun swamps of the US and a young hunter seeks shelter for herself andher boat in the storm. This is a relly good slice of horror where Baba Yaga sides with nature. The ending is powerful and very nightmarish.
This is a really good varied anthology and just like Baba Yaga you never know where each story will take you. A huge range of new authors for me to keep a future eye out for and I loved how the authors played with what Baba Yaga says to us now rather than just simple folk tale retellings. Well worth a look!
