I am a devotee of sorts to Baba Yaga, as she sits deeply in my Romanian/Ukrainian ancestry and so when I finally decided to sit down and create a shawl and drum dedicated to her, it was a doozy!

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This set carries so much energy of Baba Yaga in both her fearsome aspect as well as her compassionate one as slavic witch, crone, elder and archetype of the wild feminine..

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Her motifs are usually Amanita Muscaria mushrooms, blood red Poppies, the forest and of course her hut with chicken legs and her fence of bones….

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With this in mind I wanted to create a piece that was practical, as Baba yaga is nothing if not practical, and a sturdy shawl would have been a must to carry her through the long winter nights…

This shawl has merino wool, and curly sheep locks that dangle at the shoulders, which to me feel like the wild hair of a forest witch!

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Baba Yaga is also a goddess of re-birth-thus her compassionate side as well as death, so the poppies both alive and in their dry form are represented on the Elk hide drum.

The back of the drum has a naturally shed deer antler handle and the mallet is made from a reindeer bone from Finland, with small snake vertebrae bones hanging from it to represent the cycles and sheddings that we all go through as we grow and change…

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 The sound of this drum is deep and resonant, and to be honest, if I did not already have so many drums I might just have kept it for myself!

These two go together as both practical pieces and pieces of art, and I can’t wait to see who the person it that will make their home theirs!