Baba Yaga

A widower's daughter lives under the control of a stepmother who beats her and wishes her dead. When the father is away, the stepmother sends the girl to her own sister for a needle and thread, but that sister is Baba Yaga. The girl first visits her real aunt, who tells her how to pass the dangers at the hut: tie a ribbon round the birch tree, oil the doors, feed the dogs with rolls and give the cat bacon. At Baba Yaga's house the girl is told to weave. Outside, Baba Yaga orders her servant-maid to heat the bath and wash the child, saying that she intends to eat her.

The frightened girl gives the maid a handkerchief and asks her to damp the firewood and bring bathwater in a sieve, delaying the preparations. She then feeds the cat and asks how to escape. The cat gives her a towel and comb: thrown behind her, they will become a wide river and a dense forest. The girl slips past the dogs, doors and birch by using the gifts her aunt advised. The cat takes her place at the loom, but Baba Yaga soon discovers the deception. Her servants explain that the girl treated them better than their mistress ever had. Baba Yaga climbs into a mortar and pursues her, sweeping away the traces with a broom. The towel becomes a river; Baba Yaga fetches oxen to drink it dry and resumes the chase. The girl throws the comb, and a thick forest rises. Baba Yaga gnaws at it but cannot force a way through. By then the girl's father has returned. She tells him what happened, and he shoots his wife. Father and daughter live well thereafter.