I dunno this doesn’t look like Kali to me. A reasonably accurate Baba Yaga can be found in the world of Hellboy. She also plays a significant role in both the vampire and werewolf endtimes in WhiteWolf’s original World Of Darkness. She also appears in at least Sierra’s Quest For Glory one and four.
Finally, and significantly, she lives down the street from me. Some neighbors claimed her hut violated local zoning ordinances. They were never seen again.
A portion of the original “Children’s and Household Tales” (Kinder- und Hausmärchen) really did consist of tales whose tellers intended them primarily for children, even in the first edition. But the Grimms meant to make the children’s tales available to scholars of popular antiquities, not ordinary folks looking for bedtime reading. The books weren’t children’s literature, though they contained examples of it. It was only in subsequent editions that (1) the entire collection came to be perceived as children’s literature, and (2) the book came to be marketed to children in addition to an academic audience. The process is amply chronicled; I’d recommend Maria Tatar’s The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales (1987) and James McGlathery’s The Brothers Grimm and Folktale (1988). I tried looking around for an equally authoritative online site, with no luck. Practically anything by Maria Tatar or Jack Zipes will be a step in right direction. In fact, Zipes probably covers this in the introduction to his translation. But it isn’t a matter of much controversy.
So far the only cite I can find is Professor Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories”, which accounts for my thinking that the move from a primarily adult audience to a primarily child audience was recent. Except I seem to have remembered incorrectly, since upon rereading it I think he’s saying that the move was from an audience of any age to a primarily child audience.
I’ll just slink off now. I oughtta know better than to post when I’m working with half-remembered things from several years back. :o
There seems to be two versions out there. One is fairly human- the witch/crone version. The other is much more ogreish, and is described as variously as having tusks, snakes for hair, green skin, etc.