ns
aloft, cut the cord and let him fall back into the abyss. But he
escapes, and eventually "he slays all the three heroes, and flings
their bodies on the plain for wild beasts to devour." This Skazka is
one of the many versions of a widespread tale, which tells how the
youngest of a party, usually consisting of three persons, overcomes
some supernatural foe, generally a dwarf, who had been more than a
match for his companions. The most important of these versions is the
Lithuanian story of the carpenter who overcomes a Laume--a being in
many respects akin to the Baba Yaga--who has proved too strong for his
comrades, Perkun and the Devil.[174]

The practice of cutting strips from an enemy's back is frequently
referred to in the Skazkas--much more frequently than in the German
and Norse stories. It is not often that such strips are turned to good
account, but in the Skazka with which we have just been dealing, Ivan
finding the rope by which he is being lowered into the abyss too
short, ties to the end of it the three strips he has cut from the Baba
Yaga's back, and so makes it sufficiently long. They are often exacted
as the penalty of losing a wager, as well in the Skazkas as
elsewhere.[175] In a West-Slavonian story about a wager of this kind,
the winner cuts off the loser's nose.[176] In the Gaelic stories it is
not an uncommon incident for a man to have "a strip of skin cut off
him from his crown to his sole."[177]

The Baba Yaga generally kills people in order to eat them. Her house
is fenced about with the bones of the men whose flesh she has
devoured; in one story she offers a human arm, by way of a meal, to a
girl who visits her. But she is also represented in one of the
stories[178] as petrifying her victims. This trait connects her with
Medusa, and the three sister Baba Yagas with the three Gorgones. The
Russian Gorgo's method of petrifaction is singular. In the story
referred to, Ivan Devich (Ivan the servant-maid's son) meets a Baba
Yaga, who plucks one of her hairs, gives it to him, and says, "Tie
three knots and then blow." He does so, and both he and his horse turn
into stone. The Baba Yaga places them in her mortar, pounds them to
bits, and buries their remains under a stone. A little later comes
Ivan Devich's comrade, Prince Ivan. Him also the Yaga attempts to
destroy, but he feigns ignorance, and persuades her to show him how to
tie knots and to blow. The result is that she becomes petrified
herself.