AMONG THE MOUJIKS. 119 



ing in fact a Slav dance, which gives it a broader geo- 

 graphical and ethnographical meaning. The writer 

 has seen more of it, indeed, in the villages of Crotia 

 and Slavonia, Austria-Hungary, than in Russia. The 

 ride through Russia was made during hay-time and 

 harvest, the busy season, when the young peasants 

 have little time for khorovods on a grand scale. But 

 the children are given to dancing khorovods of an 

 evening, and the writer also saw one danced by a 

 troupe of Little Russians in one of the summer gardens 

 of St. Petersburg. 



Near every village is an open spot, where on holidays 

 the young people, arrayed in their brightest costumes, 

 assemble to perform khorovod dances. They form 

 themselves in a circle, as in the old-fashioned game of 

 kiss-in-the-ring, and commence moving round and 

 round, this way and that, singing songs appropriate to 

 the season and the occasion. There are spring khor- 

 ovods, performed at Easter and Whitsuntide ; summer 

 khorovods for midsummer, and autumn khorovods 

 after harvest. Sometimes, in a large village, two khor- 

 ovods are formed, one at each end of the broad, long 

 street, of which there is only one in a Russian village, 

 as has been observed. At a signal, the two khorovods, 

 which may be a verst apart, begin moving toward each 

 other, preserving the circular formation in the broad 

 road, singing and circling, until they come together in 

 the middle of the village. 



The songs are legion, and on every phase of Russian 

 rural life : love, marriage, death, harvest, mother-in-law, 

 and what not. There is the " Millet-sowing khorovod," 

 the " Beer-brewing khorovod," and one called the 



