Baba Yaga

Ysabella, beware the Baba Yaga If you're caught out late at night then Ysabella, if you see the Baba Yaga Pestle and mortar in full flight then Ysabella, run from the Baba Yaga Run from the Baba Yaga Run girl, run girl, run If the Baba Yaga catches you you're done Ysabella grew up in a house down by the river with her wicked stepmother and her cruel stepsisters who would never lift a finger to get anything done leaving little Ysabella as the only one to venture out into the forest where the stories told of a mad, unholy being both capricious and bold and over overwhelming power, Baba Yaga, infamed for her appetite for children, Bella's father used to say. One evening Ysabella found, through no fault of her own That she was still out in the forest when she should have been at home And squinting in the darkness for a light to be her guide Saw the flicker of a lantern in the distance and decided To make her way towards the light, for little did she know Baba Yaga watched her as she went below And swooping down she caught the poor girl in a hempen sack And took her back to serve her at the chicken-leg shack. Each day she had to clean the house and yard And pick the black grains and the white peas from the never ending wheat. Cook supper from the mushrooms in the wood The way the Baba Yaga would and press the oil from poppy seeds. She worked her fingers to the bone And when she thought she was alone She knelt and clasped her hands to pray. No sooner had she started speaking Baba Yaga stood there, screeching Broken, crippled, howling out in pain. Ysabella took her chance and bolted for the door And, panicked, scrambled through the woods the way she had before Pursued by men on horseback in the dreadful witch's charge She lost her footing, fell and cracked her head on something hard And that was the last we saw of Ysabella.