Muma Pădurii - an Ugly and Mean Old Woman

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In Romanian old stories, Muma Pădurii is a monstrous and mean old woman living in the forest.

Muma Pădurii truly implies "the Mother of the Forest", however "mumă" is an ancient form of "mamă" (mother), which has a fable hint for the Romanian onlooker (to some degree simple to utilizing the age-old pronouns like "thou" and "thy" in English). Various such expressions, regularly heroes of people stories, have this effect.

Muma Pădurii is a spirit of the forest in a very ugly and old woman's body. Sometimes she has the ability to change her shape. She lives in a dark, dreadful, hidden little house. This (step-) mother of the forest kidnaps little children and enslaves them. In one of the popular stories, at some point, she tries to boil a little girl, alive, in a soup. However the little girl's brother outsmarts Muma Pădurii and pushes the woman-monster in the oven instead, similar to the story of Hansel and Gretel. The story ends on a happy note when all kids are free to go back to their parents. Instead of saying "she's ugly", Romanians sometimes say "she looks like muma pădurii".

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She is thought to attack children, and because of this, a large variety of spells (descântece in Romanian) are used against her.