Baba Yaga - Smokey Bastard

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.