The Many Legends of Baba Yaga

One of the pillars of fairy tales is their recurring themes and character archetypes. It’s even common to see names used over and over again (Jack, Hans, even Snow-White is used in several unrelated stories). But it’s rare to see the same character appear in multiple fairy and folk tales, like we see in the many appearances of the hag in the woods, Baba Yaga.

Baba Yaga is staple of Slavic lore. She can be found in stories across several countries as a specific character, not just an archetype. What I find most interesting about her is that she is portrayed, almost equally, as a villain and a benefactor.

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Faster Than Expected

(This was meant to be a video, uploaded earlier this week. However, I’ve been under the weather and lost my voice, so instead of putting it off any longer, I decided to post the script!)

Heya word nerds, Kate here! Boy, it’s been a crazy month. You may remember that earlier this year, I sent off my novel to a freelance editor. I sent it at the beginning of March, and she planned to send it back by the end of May. I thought it was perfect: I could take March and April to start outlining the next manuscript, as well as research agents, create a list of people I want to query, and start putting together my query material. Then I could spend June and maybe July making revisions, and be ready to start querying toward the end of the summer. 

That didn’t happen. 

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At First Sight?

Dear Fairy Godmother,

A good friend of mine seems to ‘fall in love’ every other week. She always insists that this time she’s found ‘the one.’ I want to be supportive, because I care about her so much, but I just don’t believe it’s ever true. I don’t how to express my concern without sounding like I’m judging her, but some of those past ‘loves’ have turned into pretty severe hurts, and I don’t want her to keep going through this cycle.

I’m just not the kind of person who believes in love at first sight. I’ve always been more of a ‘you-can’t-marry-a-man-you-just-met’ type than a ‘I’ve-found-the-one-wait-what’s-your-name-again?’ type. My friend calls me cynical when I try to rein in her more romantic expectations, but I just don’t believe that love is an immediate reaction.

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How to Write Your Unicorn

I’ll be honest, now that I’m trying to post here with some sort of regularity again, I sometimes have trouble figuring out what to write about. So occasionally I’ll look back through past posts for inspiration. Considering I’ve got about ten years of backlog (wait, what?!), there’s plenty to choose from. (Actually, the ten year anniversary of my first post here is tomorrow, which is CRAZY!)

In 2015, I wrote a pair of posts that I vaguely remember wanting to turn into a series. I couldn’t tell you why I never followed through on that, but here I am almost eight years later finally continuing on. The premise was taking a look at well-known magical and mythical creatures, exploring some of their history, and providing ideas for customizing the creatures for your own use in storytelling. So, welcome back to the How to Write Your . . . series! Today’s topic: unicorns.

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Fairy Tale Facts: East of the Sun and West of the Moon

I was shocked to realize that I haven’t yet covered this story in my Fairy Tale Facts series. After all, it’s one of my favorite stories and partly the inspiration for the novel I’m writing! So let’s get to it!

East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a Norwegian fairy tale, first collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe and later included in Andrew Lang’s 1890 The Blue Fairy Book. It has similar themes and plot points to Beauty and the Beast and the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash
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7 Favorite Fictional Weapons

As promised, I’m back with part two of my favorite fictional weapons! Before we jump in, let’s go over the rules.

To be considered for this list, the item in question must be a weapon. As I was looking at other lists of fictional weapons for inspiration, I was confused by some of them, because they chose to include things like the One Ring or the Deathly Hallows. Those aren’t weapons, those are just magic items. But if you’re interested in seeing a list along those lines from me, let me know! I’d be happy to make a part three.

In addition to being a weapon, I’m looking for an added effect of some sort (usually magical, sometimes symbolic) to set it apart from others like it.

Finally, I’m only choosing one weapon of each type. No swords on this list, either, as I covered them extensively in part one of this series.

This list, more than the first one I made, pulls more from mythology and legend than fiction, though I’ve tried to make it a more even spread. But I’ve found that most fantasy stories (which is both my primary genre of choice and also where we see a wider spread of weapons) favor swords, especially when it comes to weapon enchantments and enhancements. And, like the other list, these are in no particular order.

Photo by Jansen Yang on Unsplash
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