The only known (or partially known) benevolent Witch in Ossyan and the Dal-Rhiatan Empire. She is also one of the oldest.
If permitted to remain in their place of Haunting, Ghosts evolve into Witches. Over the centuries, if left to exist, a Witch gradually develops a solid body almost exactly like that of a human. The problem is, almost all Witches are evil… except for Yagga, but she is ambivalent towards humans and keeps her own counsel.
We meet Yagga in the first book of the Nighthunter series, when her sprite-shack crashes into the hills, from its travels in space, landing close to Little Beddin in Ossyan. Both Logan Bartholom, (the Nighthunter) and Noran Cadwallader journey towards the shack’s light, and this is where they all meet each other for the first time. Yagga detects that something is tampering with Noran’s mind and casts a complicated spell to remove a piece of Logan’s amnesia from his head and place it inside Noran’s, thereby shielding him from most of the evil influence. However, the way she does this is unethical, giving the two men a special broth that dumps them out of their human bodies and into different animal bodies instead — Logan a wolf, Noran a fox — while she does her magic on their human minds. Whilst in their animal guises, Logan comes perilously close to killing Noran and eating him.
When asked what that was all about, Yagga maintains that the Worlds lie on top of each other as different “skins” and each being in the Worlds possesses a different body in each one of them. Then she tells them to just think of it as a nightmare… but which explanation is true?
The morning after, unhappy with the adulteration of his mind, Noran tries to kill her, but she is too powerful and runs rings around him.
Some interesting tidbits about Yagga:
1) Yes, she’s based on the old Russian mythological figure of Baba Yagga
2) When it isn’t flying like a comet, her sprite-shack lumbers along the ground on gigantic chicken legs
3) Once a year, she lands in the Hiraeth Mountains in the continent of Thosea to trade with the nomadic tribes of magi who live there (albeit at a respectful distance)
4) She is the second oldest Witch in existence, after the Lady of a Thousand Faces / The Witch of Mount Wanslo
5) She has a paleotys bird that sits on her hat and repeats everything she says, especially if it is a swearword or something embarrassing.
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