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A review by imscrem
Baba Yaga's Book of Witchcraft: Slavic Magic from the Witch of the Woods by Madame Pamita
3.0
This was overall a pretty okay book. I was hoping that it would be more hands-on — the beginning instructions about how to make motanky and embroidery definitely set the bar a bit higher than the rest of the book delivered for me. I also found that a very large amount of the material mentioned seemed pretty inaccessible to me, since I live in a city and don’t have too much access to, say, dew.
I really enjoyed the central story about Baba Yaga, particularly since I recognized a lot of it from other Slavic stories I’ve read (eg the water of life & death, the pich). It was definitely a cute throwback to the sort of story I’d hear in my childhood! It threw me off a little bit to keep being interrupted by more drily delivered writing between story parts.
I found it nice that the book included sources, but the way that they were cited was a little bit odd to me. Some pages contained three or more references to outside sources, while some had absolutely none despite making confident assertions about what “used to be done.” This makes me unsure how reliable large chunks of this book actually are.
Overall, it was a kind of meh read, and by around the middle I was ready to finish. But I do believe I’ll go back through some sections of it, particularly the more hands-on crafting related ones.
I really enjoyed the central story about Baba Yaga, particularly since I recognized a lot of it from other Slavic stories I’ve read (eg the water of life & death, the pich). It was definitely a cute throwback to the sort of story I’d hear in my childhood! It threw me off a little bit to keep being interrupted by more drily delivered writing between story parts.
I found it nice that the book included sources, but the way that they were cited was a little bit odd to me. Some pages contained three or more references to outside sources, while some had absolutely none despite making confident assertions about what “used to be done.” This makes me unsure how reliable large chunks of this book actually are.
Overall, it was a kind of meh read, and by around the middle I was ready to finish. But I do believe I’ll go back through some sections of it, particularly the more hands-on crafting related ones.