SCENES ON THE ROAD. 131 



the peasants are extremely reluctant to sit down on the 

 threshold of a house. In some places, if a child is still- 

 born in the house it is the custom to bury it under the 

 threshold ; and when a child has been baptized, it is 

 held over the threshold for a minute or two on the way 

 home from the church. To wash a sick child over the 

 threshold is also believed to be almost as efficacious a 

 remedy as sprinkling it with holy water. 



When a family are moving out of an old house into 

 a new one, everything portable is removed from the 

 former residence, and a fire is kindled in the stove by 

 the oldest female member of the family. At midday, 

 the embers of this farewell fire are put in a jar and 

 carefully carried to the new domicile and placed in the 

 new stove. The jar is smashed and the fragments care- 

 fully collected and buried in the same corner that has 

 been honored with the head of the sacrificial cock or 

 lamb at the laying of the foundations. 



When peasants migrate long distances, and the jar 

 of embers cannot possibly be managed, they are care- 

 ful to take with them a relic of some kind from the old 

 stove, to be incorporated with the one they expect to 

 build in their new home. In connection with the 

 house-changing ceremonies, moreover, great impor- 

 tance is attached to certain formulas addressed to the 

 domovoi, or house spirit, who is cordially invited to 

 accompany the family to their new home, and is wel- 

 comed at the threshold of the new house by the heads 

 of the family with bread and salt. 



The removal of the domestic ikons is a matter of 

 considerable ceremony in many places, where the 

 moujiks seem to have gone little further in their con- 



