None of these narrations can truly grasp the whole picture of a woman that indisputably has become an established archetype of female sorcery.

Baba Cloanta’s origins are rooted deeply in Slavic folklore. As the Wallachian and Transylvanian pendant to Baba Yaga, she is thought of as an old crone, who lives deep in the woods, where she guards the gates to the realms of death. She is a warden of the veil and as such serves the eternal forest.

The raven witch herself, however, prefers to associate her work with that of a quest master. Heroes and brave people are put to the test during an encounter with Cloanta. She has shaped countless mortals into knights, priestesses, kings and queens and thus contributed greatly to numerous eras of glory for the kingdoms of mankind.

​Yet with her own lineage, she often struggles. Her offshoot repeatedly has proven itself inconsiderate in terms of weaving the web of fate. A duty for the House of the Raven. For death can only exist when there is life to end.

​Such clever animals, those ravens. They see, hear and know so much that many cultures deem them messengers of the otherside. Clearly beings of the veil—the Eastern Veil in Cloanta’s case. She is one of the last living creatures that still remembers how Transylvania got its name. The Forest Beyond it is called for a reason…

​

…to be continued.

“Time has a strange way of revealing the truth. If you follow it long enough, it will teach you every secret of existence.”