(To my knowledge she’s not mentioned at all by Rowling.)
I can never see references to her without amusement. Bear in mind that the “canonical” Baba Yaga of Russian folklore is a cantankerous old witch who hobbles around with one leg made of bone, lives in a hut on chicken legs, and uses a giant mortar and pestle as her transport of choice. Such a character would make the likes of Hagrid and Moody seem wholly pedestrian.
Eliezer’s re-imagining of her as a Dark Lady, meanwhile, just summons the most fantastic mental images.
Maybe the author has read some theory on Russian folclore. Курьи ножки might not be chicken’s legs; some scholars think курьи means ‘made from smoke’ and so BY’s hut is actually a portal between worlds (between the world of the living, where the hero comes from, and the world where Koschey the Immortal lives—Koschey, incidentally, has something of a Horcrux—a needle hidden very thoroughly, and if you break it, he dies.)
I can never see references to her without amusement. Bear in mind that the “canonical” Baba Yaga of Russian folklore is a cantankerous old witch who hobbles around with one leg made of bone, lives in a hut on chicken legs, and uses a giant mortar and pestle as her transport of choice. Such a character would make the likes of Hagrid and Moody seem wholly pedestrian.
Eliezer’s re-imagining of her as a Dark Lady, meanwhile, just summons the most fantastic mental images.
Maybe the author has read some theory on Russian folclore. Курьи ножки might not be chicken’s legs; some scholars think курьи means ‘made from smoke’ and so BY’s hut is actually a portal between worlds (between the world of the living, where the hero comes from, and the world where Koschey the Immortal lives—Koschey, incidentally, has something of a Horcrux—a needle hidden very thoroughly, and if you break it, he dies.)