Zhalmavyz

An evil seven-headed old woman from Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz folklore.

Some researchers (R.G.Akhmetyanov and others) lead the etymology of the word from the common Turkic yolma — җalma in the meaning of "lick, swallow greedily".

In Tatar and Bashkir folklore, this is an old woman who was possessed by an ubyr (an evil spirit that inhabits people and controls them).

Ubyrly karchyk is close to the image of Baba Yaga from Russian folklore.

It can turn into various objects (a barrel of tar, a fire wheel, etc.), into animals (a wolf, a cat, a mouse, etc.).

In the tales of ubyrly, karchyk is basically a negative character, a force hostile to man. Pretending to be an old woman, she enters into the confidence of the hero, sucks his blood, eats him, drowns him in water, turns him into stone.

Zhalmavyz has a monstrously long tongue ("it will lick off from seven versts"), she swallows her victims whole without chewing. Sometimes it resembles ubyrly karchyk (in the Tatar folk tale "Yahshylykka kira yavyzlyk" — "Evil for good" she drinks the blood of the daughter of the padishah). Lives in dense forests, caves, at the bottom of wells.

The modern image of Zhalmavyz has undergone significant transformations. Sometimes she is forced to help fairy-tale heroes: swallows sick, armless, legless and spits them out healthy. There is a parallel between the image of Zhalmavyz and the wooden idols used in other initiations: Zhalmavyz performed the functions of a totemic animal, a female ancestor.