Romanian witches: Baba Dochia
Originally I wanted to only talk about one "Romanian hag" from the world of fairytales, but from this one entity I ended up talking about Muma Padurii and Baba Cloantza and many more... Because there is never just one "baba" or one "muma" in Romania. There is a whole series of malevolent hags and magical old women who all embody in one way or another the benevolent, malevolent, or neutral aspects of the archetypal Romanian witch.
I will mention that Wikipedia lists the Muma Padurii/Baba Cloantza in her wicked form as one of the three recurring villains in Romanian fairytales, alongside the "balaur" (the "dragon", a winged multi-headed evil snake that comes in three variations 1) air-dragon that causes/lives in storms 2) earth-dragon living in chasms and pits and associated with gems 3) water-dragon, usually killed by the saint - see the legend of saint Georges) and the "Zmeu" (Zmei in plural, the Romanian variation of the Slavic creature of the same name, usually a giant sorcerer but which sometimes appear as a dragon)
Now I finally reach the witch I originally wanted to talk about. Baba Dochia. I first learned about her when looking at an article which covered the Romanian translations of the brothers Grimm "Frau Holle", and this article evoked how in Romanian translations the legendary character of Frau Holle was often replaced by a Romanian folkloric being: Baba Dochia (which the article did compare to the Baba Cloantza as an aspect of the "fairytale wicked witch"). With the bonus that the Baba Dochia is closely linked to the weather and to seasonal changes, which explains why she can fit the role of Frau Holle.
Here is what the article had to say about the Baba Dochia.
She is one of the many supernatural "babas" of Romanian legends (remember, "baba" simply means "old woman", the same way the German "Frau" means "lady" or "miss"). Baba Dochia has, like Frau Holle, a weather role - Baba Dochia is a manifestation of the cold weather and the winter season. Or, to be more precise, Baba Dochia is only a manifestation of the end of winter. The whole thing of Baba Dochia is that her "weather role" takes places during the beginning of March, a set of nine days that are typically called the "babele" (plural of Baba). This era marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring - a shift of seasons usually symbolized as a fight between two entities. Baba Dochia is supposed to wear nine "cojoace" (coats made of sheep's skin), representing how cold the weather is. During these nine days, when the weather is violent, unpredictable and constantly-shifting, Baba Dochia will remove each of her coats, one per day - and the more coats the take off, the hotter the air becomes and the more snow melts. In fairytales, this "seasonal battle" usually has the spring season symbolized by the "prince Charming" figure.
This is the case of a specific Romanian fairytale that is an equivalent of the Grimm's "The three little men in the woods". In this fairytale the Baba Dochia is a wicked stepmother that sends her martyrized stepdaughter to a frozen stream, to wash black wool until it becomes white. The stepdaughter encounters a beautiful young man named Martisor (I am not adding the accents here because my keyboard is not equiped for it) who embodies spring: not only does he help the girl, he also gives her flowers (we are in winter). When the stepdaughter returns she manages to get her accused of cheating on her husband (because after all, you know, she accepted the flowers of a handsome stranger in the woods... It can look bad in an old countryside society) ; but these flowers will cause Dochia's downfall. She believes these flowers mean spring is here (when in fact it is still winter), as such she goes to the mountain with her sheeps as she does every spring... but she just ends up frozen to death there, and all her sheeps with her. This folktale is tied to the rocky landscape of several mountains - a type of mineral manifestation called "Babele" and which is supposed to be Baba Dochia and her sheeps, petrified into stone.
Baba Dochia also appeared in the works of Mihail Sadoveanu, but this author decided to reinvent the figure as a less wicked and more tragic character. In his own take on the story of Martisor, Dochia isn't the wickedness of a cruel season that needs to end ; but rather she suffers from the deep gap between the human world and the "otherworld". An Otherworld that Baba Dochia represents: she is a witch-like old woman with obscure powers and a shadowy domain, living all alone in a little cabin at the top of the mountain, isolated from all civilization. One day, she adopts a young orphan girl and she raises her with love - but away from all other human presence. The young girl, who is a plain human unlike the otherwordly Baba Dochia, cannot resist her roots and demands to be allowed to return into humans, in the light-filled world of the valley. Baba Dochia agrees to let her go there to see the humans - but in the valley, the girl falls in love with the titular Martisor and forgets to return to her adoptive mother. The old woman, alone and heartbroken, ends up freezing to death in the coldness of her little dark cabin.
This was all I could get from the article. To this I will add info from a little brief Internet research:
An alternate name of Baba Dochia in Bulgaria and Macedonia is Baba Marta, in reference to the spring celebrations of the first of March, Martenitsi, Bulgarian name of the Romanian Martisoare, from which the "prince" Martisor gets his name. Baba Dochia can also be found under this name in Moldavia. In English, a translation is "Old Dokia".
A variation of the "babele" name described above: the fifteen first days of March can be called the "zilele babei" (the days of the old woman) (babei/baba refering to the old woman, the herb-healer and the female witch)
There are actually many versions of the fairytale I described above:
First version: Baba Dochia had a son, Dragobete in Romanian, Dragomir in Bulgarian, who married a young girl against his mother's will. Dochia abuses her daughter-in-law and at the end of February sends her to fetch berries in the woods. She is helped by an old man, who is actually God in disguise and produces the berries by a miracle. When Baba Dochia/Marta sees the berries, she believes spring is here, puts on twelve sheep-skins as coats and goes to the mountain with her son and sheeps. But due to the rain her coats get soaked and heavy - so she removes them, but the frost suddenly arrives and freezes her to death, with her sheeps, and her son who was playing the flute.
Second variation: Pretty similar to the first, with a few details changed. There are only nine coats instead of twelve, and the Baba removes them due to the hot weather before the frost suddenly arrives. Her son doesn't go with her to the mountain. The girl isn't helped by God but by the Virgin Mary or a female saint. The girl is precisely asked to go fetch strawberries. And here the Baba and her sheeps don't just freeze to death, they are petrified into the "babele" stones found in the mountains.
Third version: The baba sends her daughter-in-law to the river in winter to clean a very dirty coat until it gets white and shining, but the girl fails to do so and cries. A mysterious man arrives and gives her a snowdrop flower which makes the coat white by magic. When the girl returns with the white coat and the flower in her hair, baba Dochia believes spring is here - and she ends up like in the previous tales, frozen/petrified on the mountain.
Fourth version: Again, Dragobete marries a woman against his mother's will, so the baba Dochia abuses her, and notably sends her wash black wool in a stream until it becomes white (an impossible task). The baba specifically forbids her from returning until the wool is white, and since the girl can only freeze her hands in the cold water she cries about losing her husband (that she loves very much). Jesus then appears and offers her a red flower which makes the wool white. When the girl returns Baba Dochia believes springtime came since a man could pick up a flower - and you know the rest, she goes to the mountain with her nine coats, due to the weather she drops them one by one, and when she gets rid of the last everything suddenly turns cold and she freezes to death. (There's a fifth version which is just this story but with twelve coats instead of nine)
Outside of pure fairytales, if we go more into the folklore and myths, scholars debate the possible origins of the Baba Dochia/Baba Marta. Some believe she might be a character born of the old name of Dacia (Dakia in Latin and medieval Greek, close to "Dochia/Dokia"). Others believe she might have evolved from a Byzantine celebration Eudoxia/Eudokia's martyr on the 1st of March. A third theory is that she is the leftover of an ancient Thracian goddess common to the Romanian and Bulgarian territories, a deity of agriculture, fertility, renewal... But all in all the Baba Dochia/Marta was seen as a weather spirit with a quickly-changing mind, an unstable temper, and as a result needed to be appeased with offerings. Only by these gifts will she make sure winter doesn't last too long and spring returns ( in fairytales it turned into the Dochia's death causing the triumph of spring). A folkloric ritual consists of leaving the offerings by fruit-trees or under rocks, and if they are left under rocks, people then look which kind of insect lives or takes refuge there. Depending on whether it is a millipede, a spider, a cockroach or any other thing, it will form an omen about how the year to come will unfold, turning the Dochia-offering into a divination ritual.
But as I said before, the baba Dochia was mostly seen as a negative entity - it was said she was a spirit of the bad weather who during the nine "babele" (the nine first days of March during which she removes her nine coats) brought snowstorms and cold winds. Another divination ritual had a woman choose randomly one of the nine babele-days: if the day turns out to be good weather, she is promised to stay fair and nice in her old days ; if the day has bad weather, it means she will age into a bitter hag. There's a lot of proverbs and sayings tied to the weather and Dochia - which makes her similar to the German Frau Holle. Of course when people say "Baba Dochia removes one of her coats", it means the weather is very warm ; but when it snows people also say "Baba Dochia is shaking her coat".
The Baba Dochia also appears in a little story that is told all the way across Europe (I know this because just a few days ago I read a variation of it among fairytales of Bretagne). The story always goes the same: there is an arrogant or wicked old woman/shepherdess who for a reason or another mocks or threatens the month of March (here a sentient entity) at the beginning of the year. March, in revenge steals some days from February so that he can come earlier to punish the old lady. In Romania, this old lady is Baba Dochia.
There is also a very WEIRD pseudo-historical legend which tries to explain Baba Dochia as having been a person from the Antique history of the land... According to this tale, Dochia was related to the last Dacian king, Decebalus (she was his sister for some, his daughter for others). When the Roman emperor Trajan conquered the Dacians, Dochia fled into the Carpathian mountains because Trajan wanted to marry her. She disguised herself as a shepherd, and all her servants and followers disguised themselves as sheep. But Trajan kept pursuing her and sending his forces after her, so in despair she prayed to the Dacian god Zalmoxis, who turned her and her fake-sheeps into the Babele stones we can still see today. Quite a strange story, heh?
There's also a Christianized, benevolent version of the Baba Dochia - because of course, Christianity is VERY strong in Romania and gets its hands onto every folkloric character it can (this is why in the Baba Dochia fairytales the Martisor-Prince Spring figure gets so often replaced by Jesus). In this sanitized, Christianized version, baba Dochia was a pious old woman whose prayers for winter to end brought spring... Quite a far move from the wicked stepmother.
As a last note: Baba Dochia's son, Dragobete, also plays a part in the "weather symbolism/calendar meaning" of the fairytale. Because while Martisor is the beginning of spring and Baba Dochia the end of winter, Dragobete is actually an old Romanian god of love (often called the Romanian Eros/Cupid) who is celebrated during the "Dragobetele" celebrations on the 14th of February... The Romanian Saint Valentine's day. Dragobete was called in old pagan traditions "he who bets on love" and "the godfather of animals", because he protected and blessed all couples upon his day - as such, you had a sort of human "Saint Valentine" celebration on his feast-day, but you also had an homage to what was believed to be the "engagement of birds". There's a whole set of traditions and legends surrounding this, which I will not expand upon here, but it makes sense that this spirit of the love-day of February is symbolized as the loving husband of the heroine and the son of the hag of the end of February...
